Whew!

First.

I’m fucking tired. I’m at 42.5 hours in four days. I have two more to go. I’ll be at 65 hours by the end of the week.

But.

No pity. I signed up for this. I knew this going into the summer.

And the funny thing is, that I’m having so much fun. Every day my staff impresses me. I have the strongest team, I’ve ever had.

Tonight, a fellow restaurant manager, from in town was in sitting at the bar. We were commiserating. She said that all of her inexperienced babies (her word) made up for their lack of polish by desire to do a good job and to aspire to be the best that they can be.

The same is true for me right now. Not all of my team has the finesse I’d like, but their guests love them because they are so lovely. Kind. Friendly. Sweet. And engaging.

As for me, the restaurant continues to kill it. Our busiest night last year was on August 14th. We tied that number tonight. We’ve only been 10 or so behind it, every day this week. Tonight’s revenue broke last year’s record by several thousand dollars. It’s fun to continue to break records, while my staff stands around saying, uh…when is the push going to come.

Meanwhile, not one person has shown up with a party of 12 after having made three 4-top reservations. I changed the wording on the reservation site and said that we would NOT seat you together if you showed up with a party of 6 or more having made smaller reservations. I was also made to feel better when I chatted with a fellow manager so shared that she had gone to our reservation site to see if our system was ambiguous. She assured me the site was very clear on how to make a larger reservation.

Speaking of larger reservations.

For parties of 10 or more we require them to use our family style menu.

Does everyone know what family style means???

For those confused like Mary was, it means we are going to send out platters of food that you and your friends will share.

Mary, had a hard time understanding that.

First she sent me back her adjustments to the menu, requesting things we don’t even offer.

Then she shared that she was trying to save us the embarrassment of having people order things off the regular menu.

Then she decided they would all just order from the regular menu.

Then she decided they’d come when the party was smaller.

Seriously. She was saving us embarrassment of having people order off the regular menu.

Meanwhile, tonight we had a party of 10 in at 8:00 using the family style menu.

At 8:00 on 1 person had arrived. At 8:30 only 3 people had arrived. Finally around 8:45 five people were at the table. By this time, Chef was insisting we start the process. At 8:50 apps for 10 were served to the table.

At 9:00 the server comes and lets me know it’s only going to be 5 people, wanting to know what to do.

I explain it to him.

Then I go the table.

I apologize for intruding, but let them know that when the reservation was booked they were sent a contract. And the contract was for 10 people. I continued by saying we’d be sending out food for 10 people. They were welcome to take leftovers but that we’d started cooking their food as soon as the fist person sat so that they wouldn’t wait a long time between courses. It was truly too late to change the food content.

This meant that they paid a certain, not inexpensive dollar amount for 10 people instead of 5 people.

Luckily, they did not put up a stink and never said a word.

I actually felt bad because it was one of their birthdays and their friends didn’t show. Seriously. Rude.

Meanwhile, at the same time. Table 11 was sending back one of their 2” cowboy cut ribeye steaks because it was too rare. I was standing at the wait station 5 feet away when it happened.

The server explained what was happening as he walked to the kitchen.

What seemed like five minutes later I was speaking with one of the Chef’s table who was praising everyone. Their server. The Chef. Explaining that we were so much better than the steak houses in California where they live.

In the midst of this, their server walks up and pulls me aside. Table 11 has flagged her down wanting to know where their steak is.

So I excuse myself, and check in with the kitchen.

It’s a 2” steak. It’s going to take a moment. But Chef ultimately, pulls it off the grill and puts it on a plate and gives it to me.

I take it to the table.

I set it down and the woman is clearly annoyed.

I say, I hear you were asking about your steak. Here it is.

She immediately launches in to why it took so long.

I explain that it’s a large format steak and it takes 10 to 15 minutes to bring it up another temp?

She says, well it’s clearly been longer than 10 minutes.

And I say, well actually it hasn’t been, I was standing there when the server took it from you it’s been 6 or 7 minutes at most. And as I said it takes 10 to 15 to bring it up to temp.

She then says, well perhaps if it wasn’t served raw this wouldn’t have happened.

I explain that it was NOT raw. It might have been on the rare side, but there was a nice sear on the steak and that chef never minded cooking steaks up a little more.

She is mad at me at this point.

She then wants to know why it wasn’t cooked to the specific temperature to begin with.

Ugh.

Seriously.

I say, Chef does his best and sometimes things get sent out a little early.

I don’t apologize but I walk away.

She is clearly annoyed with me. Two minutes later the server says, that she told him she would deal with this on her way out.

Oh. Yes. I bet you would.

20 minutes later I’m chatting with a guest when I see the woman from table 11 head to the host stand.

I get there just as she enters the restroom but she’s asked to speak with me.

I wait.

She comes out and launches into her complaint.

Hi. I’m from New York, but we have a summer home in Biddeford Pool. We eat at all the best restaurants in New York City and we’d never have been corrected if we’d had to send back a steak in New York.

I explain that I didn’t correct her. I just explained that you can’t bring a 2”steak up a temp in 5 minutes.

Then she says, well perhaps if it had been served correctly in the first place. If the chef is going to own a steak house he might want to learn how to cook a steak.

Oh. No. You. Dihn’t.

Seriously. The man cooked over 200 steaks tonight. He knows how to cook a steak.

She continues explaining that the steak was cooked raw. I correct her and say, no it was rare. NOT raw.

She then says it was inedible and impossible to cut.

I follow up by saying we’d have been happy to cook the steak more. It would have been easy to put more fire on it and bring it up even more.

She once again says it should have been cooked correctly in the first place.

I say, that I’m sorry you were unhappy with your steak but we’d have been glad to cook it more.

She continues to talk at me. NOT loud. But clearly annoyed at me. Continuing to tell me about ALL the restaurants in NYC they eat at that are perfect. Etc.

I just stand and look at her, consciously not engaging.

Finally, she realizes she is not going to get a fight and walks away.

I fully expected the server to ask for the steaks to be taken off the bill.

Instead, they were wrapped up and taken home with them. Would anyone take an inedible piece of food home with them.

They did tip their server well.

But it did put an element of not nice in the end of the evening.

But it was the first time all week. So we can live with it.

It’s late. I have not edited, not proofed any part of this post.

Please be forgiving.