I spent the time from 7:30 to around 11:00 tonight trying to find a topic for tonight’s post.

It was a quiet night. A mundane night. Nothing out of the ordinary. No one upset. Only one recook right at the end of the night. We cook steaks there’s always one or two a night.

I carry a piece of paper around with me. I take notes on things I see that need to be addressed with the staff. Stack your dishes neatly in the dish area. Use a tray for drinks. Remember to let the host know when your tables are reset. Don’t pull the candles off the table until everyone is gone.

I also take notes on the crazy things our guests do. If I don’t, I never remember to write about them.

I have a folder with these papers in them. Probably 60+ pages. With organized notes. With scribbles.

Some don’t even make sense anymore.

Tonight’s paper had three notes on it. All about servers. Nothing about guests.

And I was contemplating this, when a server walks up to give me his check out. This server, we’ll call him Bob, because that’s his name, was the last to leave. His 6 top had the full experience. Apps, entrees, drinks, wine, and the subject of my post tonight: after dinner coffee and tea.

Specifically tea.

In the history of restaurants, both past and present, no one, and I mean no one has invented a way to execute hot tea in a streamlined, easy manner.

And I do mean no one!

Tonight’s 6 top ordered 3 hot teas.

One hot tea takes forever. 3 is an eternity.

So here is what happens when you say you want a hot tea.

First you have to get them to select a flavor, which often means bringing over the tea box.

And in the history of the world the restaurant never has the flavor they want.

Then the server has to find a tea pot.

No restaurant in the history of restaurants has enough. There is always a struggle to find them.

If you find a tea pot, you can’t find a lid, you can’t find a creamer, there aren’t lemons cut, there are no spoons.

Next they’ll only drink the tea if you have Splenda but all you have is sweet n low and equal.

Before you protest, that this is a supply issue, I promise it’s not. I could bring in 12 cases of tea pots tomorrow and when table 36 orders tea tomorrow there will be 2 pots, no lids, only earl grey, not 1 spoon, and no trays to be found anywhere.

At my last restaurant we used loose leaf tea. But the tape always came off the container so no one ever knew what flavor was what.

Two restaurants ago we used fancy China tea pots, but the heat from the dishwasher would crack them.

Another restaurant had a million pots but absolutely no lids.

Even when I did corporate restaurants with super casual service there were never any of the silver hot water pots.

If you ask a server what the worst thing someone can order is they are going to say hot tea.

Seriously folks ask your server friends.

My server friends on here please confirm what I’m saying.

HOT TEA IS THE FUCKING WORST.

That is all.

PS. I’m thankful for mundane days, but I know that if they were all mundane you wouldn’t be reading this.

Some days are a three post day.

Today we received the following comment:

This was the second time I’ve been to your restaurant and I really am impressed with the entire experience. That said my daughter ordered the Salmon and I have to say it was a disappointment. I had the Shrimp which was fantastic and my husband ordered the Swordfish which he said was delicious. The Salmon was very boring, I’m surprised it passed the taste test to be placed on the menu, it just was NOT up to the standards of the other dishes we enjoyed. May I suggest a Cedar Plank Salmon?? We have Cedar plank salmon at least three times a month and I can tell you everyone we serve it to says it’s the best Salmon they have ever eaten. The marinade is: 1/3 cup oil, 1/3 soy sauce, 1Tb Ginger minced, 1 garlic clove minced and two scallions chopped. Soak the board for an hour before placing on grill. Once the board cracks which takes 20 mins or so put the fish on and cook. Takes about 25/30 min. Do yourself a favor and try this recipe. I guarantee the chef will love it! If nothing else then whoever is reading this will now have the worlds best Salmon Recipe! If I were the owner of Lost Fire I would take the current Salmon recipe OFF the menu, it doesn’t Doesn’t deserve be there. If I have anything else negative to say it would be about the deserts. I had the Bread pudding and previously had the Tre Leches cake, while both were good, neither made me want to order them again. A restaurant of this quality with prices this high should “wow” with every dish. Now, would I recommend your restaurant?? Absolutely! But with the disclaimer that the dishes were quite inconsistent.

WOW.

So let’s start with the salmon.

Our salmon is fucking delicious.

But.

Even if it weren’t, it’s very presumptuous to offer your own recipe.

Did you create this recipe? Or are we stealing it from Cooks Illustrated? Actually I googled it and yes it’s from a famous magazine.

Do we put an asterisk on the menu to say your salmon takes more than 30 minutes to prepare?

Do you get a cut of our salmon sales?

Will you pay more when we add a single serve wood plank to the price of the salmon?

Isn’t over kill to cook the salmon on a wood grill with a wood plank?

Is this cedar plank salmon an Argentinian dish? Or is it common to North Carolina where your area code suggests you are from?

As a chef friend likes to say, it sounds like you want to open your own restaurant. It’s not for the light of heart.

As for the desserts.

Both the bread pudding and tres leches are chef’s grandmother’s recipe. Together we’ve sold about 5,000 of them.

No one.

No one.

No one complains about them.

They are fucking delicious.

We also have an amazing pastry chef who is from where? You guessed it Buenos Aires. She’s amazing.

I might point out that you chose a restaurant that specializes in grilled beef and then ordered seafood.

All of you.

We do seafood excellently but we do grilled beef better.

You did this in a town where every other restaurant serves nothing but seafood. Nothing. But. Seafood.

So perhaps you might check out one of those restaurants. Or. Order a 2” cowboy cut ribeye and dive into what we do best

Some days are a two post day!

We are an Argentinian steakhouse.

The menu is divided into sections.

One of the sections is street food.

These are items you’d buy from a street vendor in Buenos Aires.

They include a burger. Corn. Empanadas.

Today we got a review that said:

Ordering a $21 TLF Burger off ,” The Street Menu” was insulting to be referenced to as if we came from “the street” or can only afford “Street food” Why such a demeaning and degrading reference.

WTF?

We’ve sold almost 2,500 burgers this year and not one other person has complained that we have shamed them for ordering a less expensive item.

I don’t even know to respond to the comment.

Perhaps we should call the category unnecessarily expensive and charge $46 for the burger? Would that make you feel more worthy?

Sometimes you can’t make this shit up.

Tonight was a normal night. Quiet compared to the last few weeks. We get the first turn seated.

Night is progressing nicely.

A turn for you non restaurant folks is a seating of a table. Restaurants can turn their tables two, three, four times a night depending on how fast the guest eats and how long the restaurant stays open. We can usually get two turns between 5 and 8:30.

The first turn for us is between 5 and 5:45. The second turn starts at 7:00.

We are are at the end of the first turn.

It’s about 6:45 and we start our second push at 7:00.

I usually try to make it the restroom just before the push starts.

I go in.

I pee, wash my hands and open the door.

And standing right in front of me is Mr Jones.

Literally, his face is six inches from my face.

He says, “excuse me can I talk to you a minute?”

Seriously.

He was waiting for me to come out of the restroom to make a complaint.

Does it even matter what the complaint was?

Actually he was mad because his appetizers arrived before they had finished their drinks.

I should probably mention that I’m still standing in the doorway of the restroom which has opened and someone is trying to get past me while he is still talking.

I didn’t even know what to say.

Rarely am I speechless, but I’m in the door to the bathroom while a man complains that his food came before he finished his drinks.

Someone approaches. I step aside, apologize and slip away.

Can someone tell me why he couldn’t wait for me at the host stand?

When I do arrive back at the front door there were now two parties waiting to be seated.

Can I get an open menu count?

In most full service restaurants, especially upscale restaurants, it’s not unusual for the kitchen to ask for an open menu count.

Especially at the end of the night.

What they are asking for is how many people are currently sitting in the restaurant with an open menu in front of them, who have not ordered.

This lets the kitchen know what the next ten to thirty minutes is going to look like. Every open menu potentially means an appetizer and entree order coming in to the kitchen.

This is particularly important at the end of the evening as the kitchen starts to run out of product and mise en place. (Mise en place translates to every thing in its place. This is the product they need to execute the menu).

As this runs out, at the end of the night it’s often not replaced meaning some items might not be available, or will be modified. Or it means someone is going to have to step off line to prep more product.

The open menu count, at the end of the night, also lets the kitchen know if they can start shutting down, start cleaning.

When I started my current job at the end of the night, I’d walk thru the dining room, bar, and patio and ask the servers if they had any open menus. I soon discovered that the servers were frustrated with me because they thought that the kitchen and by default, me, were rushing them to get orders into the kitchen at the end of the night.

Although no one is going to argue that of course the kitchen wants the last orders, the real reason was the fire.

Everything in our restaurant, except for salads and fried food, is cooked on a wood fired open flame. This fire is not supplemented by gas or electric. It is wood and wood charcoal only.

So as the night starts to wind down, the chefs need to know how much fire they’re going to need. The fire also has to be maintained at a certain temperature as well. So, they have to know whether to keep the fire going or let it start to die.

It’s also expensive to keep the fire going when it’s not needed. This is why sometimes at the end of the night, we’ll force a table to order.

As I mentioned in my last post, sometimes the guests like to linger and take their time, but this can’t happen without keeping the fire hot.

This also means that we sometimes turn people away before actual closing time. If the last guests’ food hit the table at 7:50 and there are no new tables in the restaurant we aren’t going to keep putting wood on the fire to keep the restaurant open till 8:30. Especially now that we’ve moved into the off season. And unlike a regular restaurant it’s not like we can just turn a knob and have heat, it’s a process. For example to be ready to cook at 5:00 the fire is started around 4:00 so that everything is up to temperature by the time the first guests ordered.

So I wasn’t actually rushing the servers. The chefs just wanted to know whether they needed to add wood. Or could the heat they have get us through the night.

PS. The fire in the grills are not extinguished until the last orders have hit the table and enough time has passed to know that no one will need to have a steak cooked more or recooked altogether.

Once the fire is out.

It’s out.

It’s 43 here tonight. It was equally cold last night.

We had the usual complaints about the patio last night.

At 5:15 a man comes in for his 5:30 reservation. He is told that it’s outside, which he proceeds to protest, saying all the things everyone says. He didn’t know. He doesn’t want that. Etc.

I explain that he booked outside and I will have no tables until 7:45. He books the reservation.

Then tells me he’s going to wait for the table. For 2.5 hours.

So he sits down on the sofa and waits. And waits. And waits. And waits.

His friend arrived around 5:45. She joined him on the soda.

And the waiting continues.

Until 7:30 when they are seated.

Around 8:00 I go in to count open menus and the server informs me that the same people don’t want to order yet. They’ve been seated for 30 minutes.

The weirdness never ceases to amaze me.

I’m annoyed just thinking about the people I’m about to write about.

First.

We are still busy. Not August busy but way busier than post IPD business. We did 70 more people tonight than we did a year ago today. I was turning people away at the door tonight.

As you’ve heard before we take reservations at the bar. So when a gentleman walked in tonight at 5:00 without a reservation it took a minute but there was a single stool at seat 11 I could give him.

About six minutes later, two women walked in. I told them I could seat them, but I’d need their stools back at 7:00. An hour, fourty-five to have drinks and dinner. More than enough time.

I seat them at stools 13/14. Tell the bartender that their clock is ticking so he can keep things moving. Go back to the desk.

About an hour later the man comes up to ask when he needs to be up. I explain that his chair is the only one without a reservation at all tonight. He wants to know about seat 12. Next to the woman. I explain yes it has to be open at 7:00 for a three top. He sits back down.

The evening continues.

7:00 is approaching and I don’t usually get involved. The guests were told when they were seated. The bartender was told when they were seated.

I’ve already moved the reservation that’s where the two women are, replacing it with a 7:15 reservation.

At 7:00 I’m walking back to the host stand, when the women stop me to ask if they really have to leave. I tell them I’ve done what I can but yes.

They get whiney. Like five year old who wants more Halloween candy whiney.

I explain the situation and go back to the desk.

About 45 seconds the short one is in front of me.

She says, when did you start taking reservations. The last time my husband and I were here we just walked in.

I say over a year and half ago and I assure you that in the last four months your husband and you did not just walk in.

She walks back her statement.

The conversation continues.

She’s basically saying it’s unfair they have to leave.

It’s been 2:20 since they arrived at this point.

Then she proceeds to say that she’s just upset about how I told her they had to leave when I sat them.

Oh.

Now it’s my fault that your married friend is flirting with the not very attractive man at the bar and you both want to stay.

I say the following statement ten times a night.

Yes, I can get you seated but I need your table/stools back by7:00.

Ten times a night. It’s not rude. It’s not inappropriate. It me accommodating your failure to make a reservation in advance.

Also.

If you’d made the reservation online the app says to restrict your visit to two hours to allow us to welcome more guests.

No, I’m not rude.

I’ve moved more things around.

They have a 7:45 reservation on the stools now. And the people have arrived and are waiting to be seated.

The only reason I didn’t have a real situation was that a couple over heard the conversations and offered to leave.

The women ended up leaving at 9:45. With the man, who’d been feeling up the married friend for the last 90 minutes.

I might say that the reason I called him unattractive had nothing to do with physical attributes.

He was my age. With a baseball hat on backwards. Shirt unbuttoned a little to much. He was loud. He used the f bomb a lot. And was kind of creepy.

They stayed for 4.5 hours when they promised 1.45 was enough.

Which makes me think to myself, next time I will think twice before offering bar patrons a chance to eat when I need their stools back by 7:00.

The phone continues to be a source of amusement. I say amusement because annoyance is soooo negative.

I pick up the phone today.

A woman on the other end says, I’d like to make a reservation.

What day I ask.

Sunday she says.

What time I continue.

She says, some time around DINNER TIME.

I put the phone down. Took a breath.

And said. Can you be more specific?

What the fuck time is dinner time. If it’s Adam and I you won’t eat till 10:30. If its the folks at the retirement home you’ll eat at 4:30. We aren’t open at either of those time.

I don’t remember where we ended up.

I made the reservation, thanked her and told her I’d see her tomorrow.

Around dinner time

I live 45 minutes from work.

In the morning, excuse me, afternoon, when I drive to work I listen to the radio. Coast 93.1. Current pop music. Gay funny morning host. When I leave for work, the 90’s at noon segment is playing. PS. Adele’s new song is pretty awesome.

On my drive home at night I like to talk to my friends who stay up late or live on the west coast. It’s a chance to catch up, share our lives etc.

Tonight I called my friend Donna, because I wanted to hear about her recent trip to Paris. I love Paris and wanted to share stories.

However, Donna was more interested in my new job and my Facebook posts. As we chatted I was trying to explain why I started writing.

This was the conclusion I came to.

The first few were to share the ridiculousness of crazy people. But it’s evolved into so much more. (I just typed involved into). It’s late. I’m tired.

It’s evolved into so much more.

I love my job.

But it’s very different than my other management jobs. We aren’t open for lunch so I don’t go in early. It also means that I work all the night shifts. I was used to my schedule being spread between lunches and dinners. Now my schedule is essentially 1:30 to 10:00 or 12:00 depending on the night.

This isn’t bad. I am a night person by nature. I’ve always stayed up late. I hate mornings. My alarm goes off at 11:30 these days.

The one thing that is not fun is that Adam and I don’t see each other a lot. I’m off Mondays and Tuesdays. He’s off Tuesdays and Wednesdays. When I leave for work on Wednesday I really won’t see him again until Monday night. He’s gone when I get up. He’s in bed when I get home. We’ve always had different schedules but it’s really different now.

Adam and I also have the same jobs. We are each other’s advocate. We are each other’s champion. When he comes home after a difficult service I get it. When I come home with a situation with an employee he gets it. He coaches me on being more gentle. I helped coach him through his first firing.

Point is, we need each other to do our jobs. To celebrate the good. To get through the bad.

But I don’t have that now. We talk for about 30 seconds each day. When we can. But that’s how he knows that I need him to pick up the prescription for the cat and he reminds me to leave a check on the door for oil delivery. We only get to talk work for about six minutes all week.

This has been a long way of saying that you’ve all become my Adam. The person I can vent to. Can you really believe he wanted me to comp his steak after eating it all? Can you believe the audacity of the woman who yelled because she reserved a table outside?

I also celebrate my wins with you. Record nights. Grateful guests. Wonderful employees.

So by default you’ve become my mid week boyfriend. And I appreciate all of you. You remind me to be kind to myself. To take deep breaths. To do the right thing. You remind me to own my mistakes. To be proud of my restaurant. To be the best manager I can be.

So thank you for your support.

Encouragement.

Kindness.

Love.

Sometimes I pick up my phone to write and think, what the fuck do I have to say tonight?

Yes I type these on my phone. So please take that into consideration when judging my grammar, punctuation, etc.

Sometimes I say to myself, is it better to write a less stellar post or to skip a post for the evening altogether?

I don’t know the answer.

As for tonight, I was going to write about the regular , whose mother came in at 2 minutes before closing asking if they could sit. I said yes, then we find out that he was on a conference call and didn’t come in to sit down for 15 minutes. They then were still sitting at the bar at 10:45. They’d been the only people in the building for 90 minutes.

Yes. I was going to give my opinion of this but instead I’m going to write about my favorite guests tonight.

First was a good friend of mine who has helped me greatly in my new job who came in to celebrate the new job she’d just accepted.

There was hot dad, as my female staff likes to call him, who was overly gracious that we saved his reservation when traffic in Boston caused him to be more than an hour late for his reservation. He really is attractive.

There was another table of friends, who were regulars from David’s that came in to visit. It was amazing to see them for the first time at my new job.

There was the couple celebrating their 30th anniversary who were debating about whether to sit at the table they reserved or the bar. I convinced them the table was the way to go and they loved it.

There was the server who used to work with me at David’s who came in with her family. She shared photos of kittens we should adopt and who wouldn’t love that.

There was the man who was here for a couple of days who I shared stories of the kismet of having the right job choose you that changes the trajectory of your life.

There was the couple from Oklahoma City who I discussed tornadoes with since the weather has been horrible there lately. The man knew cows and beef and could not stop telling me what a genius our chef is!!!

There were friends of the chef who came in, who’ve become friends of mine. We shared stories of travel, drinking, and working too much.

Another friend from David’s who comes in weekly that loves to share how much she likes my work posts.

There were the two women who came in who were both a little large and discreetly shared that they didn’t want a booth. I know the feeling. I moved things around and gave them one of the best tables in the restaurant.

There was the couple from Houston who were celebrating his taking his medical boards. He explained that he doesn’t test well and renewing his boards has caused months of anxiety. He took the test and immediately left to celebrate with no idea if he passed or not. They were so lovely.

This is what my everyday life is like. Every night I hear stories. I probably talk too much but I love the stories. I love to hear how much people love the restaurant, our little town, our little state. I’ve made so many new friends. I’ve also staved off bad situations by engaging our guests as the enter and leave.

So never think my job isn’t rewarding. Never think I don’t like what I do. It’s so amazing to go to work and help people enjoy their their vacations.

Life really is good.