I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Tonight, a food runner come to check in with me to say goodbye.

I require everyone and I do mean everyone to check in with me before they leave.  NOT just when they give me their cashout.  When they are done with side work, have said their goodbyes and are exiting the building, come say good night.

This started when I was working at my first GM job.  I’d gone upstairs to my office, which was in a hotel, secluded from the dining room and kitchen.  We’d been open about 3 weeks and I was in the weeds.  I was up there for about 3 hours trying to catch up, thinking I was in the building alone.  In fact, when I went upstairs, I thought everyone was gone.  

I finish up, turn off the lights and head down stairs and I have the shit scared out of me, because there are two servers sitting in the lobby of the hotel just shooting the shit.  I didn’t care that they were there, I just thought everyone was gone.

From that moment, you must, must, must say goodby when you leave.  

Back to the food runner.

It was his last shift until after our 23 day break.  

I offer him my hand to shake, and he shakes it.  

It was a less than stellar handshake.  

And I gave him my speech.  He is small of stature, but I explained that doesn’t matter.  Shake the hand like you are an A type Alpha dog.  People judge you on your hand shake.  Look the person in the eye, grab the hand firmly and shake.  

I told him that I’d given this speech a 100 times and told him to remember it for the rest of his life.  Then I had him shake Chef’s hand, who explained that when shaking someone’s hand on a deal to remember it’s your word and your honor and to own that shit.

I shook his hand one more time and this time it was perfect, wished him a Merry Christmas and New Year’s and sent him on his way. 

I hope he remembers the lesson.  

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

About a month ago, a charity that Adam and I worked with that helps find homes for cats, posted that they were looking for donations for an auction event, to help fund their work. 

Of course, we helped and we both provided gift cards to our restaurants for them to auction.  

Fast forward to Thursday night.  

A guest comes up to ask if I’m Jeff and she introduces herself as one of the people in charge of the auction and lets me know that she bid on and won the gift card to my restaurant.  

We chatted for about 15 minutes, about their work, the restaurant, how happy we are with our cats, and how much we were glad we could help, how much they are enjoying their meals and how happy they will be to bring friends back.  

She goes back to finish dinner.  

About an hour later, she and her daughter leave, once again, raving about the meal, the service etc. 

The next day we get a survey from them.  They gave us an 80%. 

They knocked points off for the quality of the food and the atmosphere.  

I of course, respect their opinion.  We are not for everyone.  

However, in this instance, it might have been wise to keep it to yourself, because I gave that meal away for free.  A simple, we loved it would have sufficed.  

It really makes me re-think whether I’d donate a gift card to an organization that thinks that we are just average.  

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Server Edition!!!

It’s cold here.

I didn’t know it was going to be cold.

When I left for work it was not cold.

I went to work wearing a light jacket.

I didn’t think I was going to make it home tonight as I walked from the subway. It’s fucking cold.

Tomorrow I will watch NY 1 before I leave the house.

Thank god, we were finally busy tonight. And thank god, people were finally tipping. I walked with 15% of my sales tonight and considering I tipped out 5% of my sales, that means at the end of the night I had made 20%. Which is impressive because I know that I was stiffed on a 150 dollar check and a 125 dollar check. That means I was over tipped enough to make up for the 60 dollar tip I didn’t get.

Something happened tonight that happens a lot at work.
I dropped off the check for a foreign couple. I picked up their credit card a few minutes later, ran it and returned it to them. When I returned to the table, they were gone but they’d left cash with their credit card slip. And they had tipped 15 dollars, but they also put 15 dollars on the tip part of the credit card receipt. For the life of me I can’t figure out why they do this. They have to know they’ll be charged the total that’s written in the total line of the card. In fact, I have to close it out to the total. I do have to admit that most of us don’t mind when this happens because you get double tipped, but as I said I can’t for the life of me figure out why they do this.

On the same note:

When you go out to eat, don’t mistakenly take the credit card receipt with you. If you leave with the signed copy, the waiter gets nothing. Also check your math. If you add your tip to the total and miss carrying the one the waiter might end up being shorted on their tip. Of course, don’t be upset if you carry the one too many times and you double tip the waiter. We are required to close the check out to the total on the slip.

Oh.

And I had another walk out tonight. I went to get their check to transfer it to the bar and when I returned, they were gone. Luckily management doesn’t seem to get upset when it happens in cocktails. I think it’s because we deal with so many customers. I’m starting to think that I should ask for a credit card to run a tab on people at my counters. The weird thing about this is that I’ve waited tables in a million places for a million years and I never had a walkout till I started this job.