I spent a lot of time in the restaurant biz. A lot of time! And I wore many different hats in all that experience. I was a bartender for most of the time, but I also was a server and a cook. At my last gig, I was the bartender, bar manager and the beverage director. I was not only in charge of the bar, I was also responsible for the wine program, the cocktail program, and the beer program. I even went to the Culinary Institute of America up in Hyde Park, NY. And in all that time, I learned a ton of things about the restaurant business itself. I'm going to share some of those lessons and observations with you. Disclaimer: these are in no particular order. I'm shooting from the hip.
Let's talk about the kitchen first. It is the heart of the restaurant. It is the busiest place in the restaurant. The hottest place. The most intense place. It is not for the timid or weak. And the poor souls who work in that space are the toughest sons of bitches you'll ever meet. They deal with a clock that never stops, with heat that is unrelenting, sharp knives, bitchy servers, idiot guests, and everything else that might come up during a shift.
So how do they do it? For starters, they come in early and work all day before service starts. They're setting up their station, their mis en place. They're working on base parts of the dishes, such as stocks, or protein preparation and cooking, sauces, etc. They're busting their ass to get everything ready for the onslaught that is ever-impending. And they never have enough time. They rush. They grind. They push themselves, only to do it all over again during service.
Once service begins the tickets start coming in. We call the printer 'the wheel' and that sucker never stops. We call the area where the food is placed to be taken to the guests 'the line.' At the top of the line on either side (server side and cook side) there is a place to slide the tickets so that they hang there in the clear site of both servers/managers/food runners, and the cooks. With all these tickets in site, the cooks then formulate their plan of attack. On the cook side, there are different stations. The grill, the apps, the friar, etc. Depending on the size of the restaurant and the size of the kitchen, there could be multiple cooks on a station. Or, sadly, sometimes those poor saps have to man more than one station. And they have to do this complicated dance with limited counter space and without knocking into each other.
So let's think about their plan of attack. Obviously, the tickets are staggered because of the nature of the dining and the orders taken. But the cooks will get their overall plan of attack and alter and amend it as new things pop up. On any given table people are ordering different items. And then combine this with all the other tables and you have a lot of food to cook. And this food takes different amounts of time to prepare. And this food is coming from different stations. And this food is expected to be placed on the line at the same time so everyone at a table gets there food together. This is an incredibly complex task that takes precision and skill.
There are some major things that throw wrenches in the process and make the cooks lives miserable. One of the biggest is making modifications to your order. JUST DON'T DO THIS! If you don't like what comes on the dish, then order something else. Obviously, leaving something off is not a problem. But changing and adding to a dish is JUST WRONG. And why is this? I thought the customer was always right? For starters, the dish was thought out and composed by the chef for a reason. Altering it changes the dish in ways the chef doesn't want. It's not his/her dish. It's not his/her food. It's some crap the guest thought up, and the guest is always wrong! But beyond this, you've now screwed up the entire game plan the cooks have for getting all the food out. The ingredient you want might be coming from another station. The ingredient might not be prepped (because it wasn't supposed to be in the dish and wasn't included on the station). The ingredient will definitely have a different cook time, so now the cook has to alter the timing of the dish, which might throw off the timing of everything else he/she has going. And one change on one dish can completely screw up an entire pickup, meaning everyone's dish at the table, and possibly other tables, will suffer because you wanted to create your own dish.
There are a gazillion other things to say about the kitchen, but we're going to move on to the dining room. Let's talk about the servers. Poor saps. The servers have to ask for everything in the restaurant. They need food from the kitchen. They need drinks from the bar. Coffee, tea, sodas. That's about the only thing a server can get without asking. Poor saps!
The process of serving a table is pretty much the same wherever you dine. Obviously fine dining has much more polished steps of service, but the gist is pretty much the same across the board. Most of the time servers have sections. Other times its done on rotation. The sections a server has can be huge if it's a turn and burn place, or quite small, if it's a more polished, attention-requiring kind of restaurant. And sometimes the section can be simply impossible, such as when a server calls out and lives the team short staffed.
The server has their section and the tables are 'sat' as they are ready. If the hostess is new or simply bad at her/his job, a server can be 'double sat' or 'triple sat' or worse. These are the situations that put the servers 'in the weeds.' Imagine how difficult it is to take drink orders on two, three, four tables that sat at the same time. It's never as easy as just asking a question and getting a quick, easy answer. There is always some jackass that wants to ask questions, that needs more time, that needs explanations, etc. I mean, people, it's the same routine every where you go. Do you not know what you want to drink? Are you a child? Have you been in public before? Just tell the poor server what you're drinking and then shut your mouth. The time for you to be obnoxious is coming. But not at the drink order.
So that's the first big push for the server. Getting those damn drinks to the table. That buys them time to catch up with their other tables. Once you put a drink in someone's hands, they shut up for a minute and stop looking for you. But the server's next big push is right around the table. They've got to give the table the specials, and then take the order. And then they have to correctly ring in the order. Often times there will be course breaks that must be accounted for. Some restaurants, actually most I'd say, like for the entire meal to be rung in from the beginning, with course breaks between the courses. This way the kitchen knows what's coming and can prepare a game plan for the entire meal, and all the other entire meals in the dining room. And it's usually up to the server to 'fire' the next course for the table, meaning the server will tell the kitchen to 'fire 2nd course table 45' and the cooks will then preparing that course.
All of this is happening at staggered times for a servers section. They are expected to be engaged with all their tables for the entirety of the meal. Therein lies the trick. The dance. The server has to be in a lot of places at the same time. They have to do a lot of things at the same time. All the while keeping clam and composed and professional. They cover a lot of ground. Bartenders get to stay behind their bar. They don't have to walk distances. Neither do the cooks. But those poor servers have to hoof it all over the restaurant.
You, as guests, can make the whole process much easier. You can make your dining experience better, as well as the experience of everyone else at the restaurant, if you'd simply open your eyes, open your ears, and use your brain. It's not hard. You're sitting. People are bringing you food and drinks. You literally don't have to do a damn thing. So how hard is it to use your brain? In 25 years in the business, I know from experience that it rarely happens. But what do I mean by this. For starters, when you sit, glance around the room. Is it busy? Slow? How full is your server's section? And how can you tell? Well, they put sections together so the server doesn't have to move as far and so they server can see all their tables at once. So take a look at the section. This will tell you how crazy busy the server is. If there in the weeds, cut them a break and make your order short and sweet. You can ask them questions and tell them anecdotes when they've caught up. Just use your brain people! And be kind. It's hard to serve tables. Most of you couldn't do it. So cut them some slack. It costs you absolutely nothing to be kind and patient. And guess what? The servers know when a table is cool and when a table is full of self-righteous assholes. And they remember which tables are which. And I promise, you're treated much better if you're a cool table. Whether they admit it or not, the server is much nicer, much more accommodating, and much happier when the table is cool and nice. People are only going to go so far when dealing with assholes. Bare minimum stuff. And those people always wonder out loud why they never get good service. It's easy. You suck. People don't like you. And you should stop going out.
There's much more to talk about. I haven't covered my favorite place in the restaurant: the bar. I'll get to all of that soon. More to come...