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.