10. "I am allergic to gluten, what do you have that is gluten free?"
9. "Its my birthday today."
8. "Do I have enough money on my gift card?" (That usually means no tip)
7. "Are there refills on the mojitos?"
6. "Can I speak to the manager please."
5. "My child is allergic to gluten."
4. "What is your favorite thing on the menu?"
3. "Can I substitute sour cream for chicken?"
2. "Hola"
1. "Why is our food taking so long?"
Please try to avoid these utterly annoying statements when eating out.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Tip: Name Tags Should Be Eliminated
At the restaurant all staff members front of the house and back of the house whether they liked it or not had to wear name tags. Under you name was your home town. You see corporate believed that the brilliant idea behind the name tag was it would serve as a "conversation starter" with you and morons that you waited on. Just to make things more friendly (Like I have time to shoot the shit with the average Joe about my life story). The home town portion of the name tag presented numerous problems and extreme annoyance for my fellow servers and I. Here they are in the order of annoyance for me:
3. The home town part was tricky for some idiot customers as they thought it was your last name the majority of the time. My name tag read Rachel and underneath it said Denver. Sometimes I would get a rise out of my dumb people by telling them that I was related to the late John Denver. (I was actually born in Cleveland but who wants to represent that God awful town on their already embarrasing uniform). The last name issue was really funny with some of my co-workers. Tracy was from Buffalo NY. That poor girl was asked if she was part American Indian all the time.
2. The second most annoying part about displaying the hometown was the people who tried to make conversation about the city. The small talk was always awkward and weird and the conversation never went anywhere. I really don't give a rat's ass that your old aunt Milly lives in Colorado Springs and makes her own jam, or you attempted to ski once in Vale, and no I am not a Broncos fan. Let's get one thing clear, we are not life buddies because we share the commonality of both being in the state of Colorado at one point in our lives.
3. The number one problem that would test my patience was the age old question, "Denver huh, so you must be an actress right (chuckle)? How long have you been in LA now" This stereotypical question was usually asked by arrogant old white men that apparently think that every blond waitress from out of state must be a struggling actress trying to make it in Hollywood. Go F*** yourself you old farts. Granted there are a lot of servers that are aspiring actors and musicians but there are also students putting themselves through school (ME), people who need extra cash and some who decided to make serving their career. Serving is honest hard work and and I really don't care for balding old men that are in drastic need of teeth whitening and a stronger deodorant to insult me, my co-workers and any other server out there. These people usually got their ice-tea stirred with my finger in the side station.
3. The home town part was tricky for some idiot customers as they thought it was your last name the majority of the time. My name tag read Rachel and underneath it said Denver. Sometimes I would get a rise out of my dumb people by telling them that I was related to the late John Denver. (I was actually born in Cleveland but who wants to represent that God awful town on their already embarrasing uniform). The last name issue was really funny with some of my co-workers. Tracy was from Buffalo NY. That poor girl was asked if she was part American Indian all the time.
2. The second most annoying part about displaying the hometown was the people who tried to make conversation about the city. The small talk was always awkward and weird and the conversation never went anywhere. I really don't give a rat's ass that your old aunt Milly lives in Colorado Springs and makes her own jam, or you attempted to ski once in Vale, and no I am not a Broncos fan. Let's get one thing clear, we are not life buddies because we share the commonality of both being in the state of Colorado at one point in our lives.
3. The number one problem that would test my patience was the age old question, "Denver huh, so you must be an actress right (chuckle)? How long have you been in LA now" This stereotypical question was usually asked by arrogant old white men that apparently think that every blond waitress from out of state must be a struggling actress trying to make it in Hollywood. Go F*** yourself you old farts. Granted there are a lot of servers that are aspiring actors and musicians but there are also students putting themselves through school (ME), people who need extra cash and some who decided to make serving their career. Serving is honest hard work and and I really don't care for balding old men that are in drastic need of teeth whitening and a stronger deodorant to insult me, my co-workers and any other server out there. These people usually got their ice-tea stirred with my finger in the side station.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Leakage
A few months a ago heavy rains hit So Cal pretty hard. This hit my restaurant harder.
It was a busy Friday night, I was running around as usually until one of my tables asked me for Cholula. I went to grab a bottle from the side station and of course we were out. I rushed into the dry storage pantry to grab a few extra bottles when I felt a splatter across my forehead. I looked up ad saw a small crack in the ceiling. The roof was leaking pretty bad. The manager met me in the back and said it was fine and we removed the cracked ceiling tile and placed a bucket under the water leak. I thought to myself, "At least it was in the back right? Only the staff would have to deal with it." Our restaurant is pretty old and we didn't think much of it.
A few minutes later a second leak was reported in the men's restroom. I thought, "Alright bathroom ceiling leak, not too bad, at least it was in the men's room and not the ladies, men usually don't go into histarics over something like that and they don't use the restroom that much either."
Then it happened one of the greatest nights in my serving career, absolute chaos. Two woman sitting in my friends station came up to me an asked if they could move to another table, reason...........they felt a drip on their heads. I said sure no problem and escorted them to one of my empty tables. 30 seconds after they moved I looked up at the table they were sitting at and saw a massive wet mess yellow and brown in color and everywhere. My implusive thought was some spolied brat child had thrown up their overcooked chicken nuggets all over the booth because they wanted pizza instead. This was the usual occurrence but no, even better the entire roof above table 29 had caved it!! Water was pouring in, insulation was splattered in all directions and the greedy looks of those knowing this was the perfect opportuntiy for free food started popping up everywhere. After what felt like an hour of shock and frozen brain function I snapped back to reality and saw our manager rushing to the area of chaos to try and calm everyone down. Luckily no one was sitting at table 29. THANK GOD!! What restaurant can bounce back after their roof falls on top of someone? That would have been a law suit up the ass.
We did not close the restaurant after that. We kept working and occasionally changed a full bucket of water at table 29. We did however comp over $300 in food that night and paid for nearly $10,000 worth of roof repair the following week.
Restaurant life goes on.
It was a busy Friday night, I was running around as usually until one of my tables asked me for Cholula. I went to grab a bottle from the side station and of course we were out. I rushed into the dry storage pantry to grab a few extra bottles when I felt a splatter across my forehead. I looked up ad saw a small crack in the ceiling. The roof was leaking pretty bad. The manager met me in the back and said it was fine and we removed the cracked ceiling tile and placed a bucket under the water leak. I thought to myself, "At least it was in the back right? Only the staff would have to deal with it." Our restaurant is pretty old and we didn't think much of it.
A few minutes later a second leak was reported in the men's restroom. I thought, "Alright bathroom ceiling leak, not too bad, at least it was in the men's room and not the ladies, men usually don't go into histarics over something like that and they don't use the restroom that much either."
We did not close the restaurant after that. We kept working and occasionally changed a full bucket of water at table 29. We did however comp over $300 in food that night and paid for nearly $10,000 worth of roof repair the following week.
Restaurant life goes on.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
"Bug Night"
The other night a woman found a bug in her pasta. It was clearly a cockroach but the manager lied and said it was a cricket. To save our company from a law suit. Can I just make it clear that if anyone out there thinks that restaurants are bug and cockroch free you are mistaken my dear people. Restaurants have bug issues. It is impossible for them not to have them. At my particular restuarant we have "Bug Night" where a bug man comes and sprays the entire restaurant. This happens every first Monday of the month to keep the bug population to a minimum.
Anyways back to the cricket, sorry I mean roach. I watched as the horrified woman shoved the plate in my manager's face. She was yelling at the top of her lungs and turning to all the tables in her area telling them what happened. She looked up at the manager and said, "Please check and make sure the entire bug body is still in the pasta? I only saw the head I just don't want to think that I could have eaten a bug!!!" Our manager smiled and said yes I see the other half of the body, don't worry." The manager walked in the back and with the most terrified look on her face said to me, "Rachel the other half of the body is missing!" All I could think was, "wow what a great night." What is even better our manager took care of the whole bill and gave them free meal cards for their next visit. LOL I looked at my manager and said, I don't think these ones will be returning anytime soon." She smiled and said its the least I could do, she ate a cockroach."
"Bug Night" came twice this month :)
Anyways back to the cricket, sorry I mean roach. I watched as the horrified woman shoved the plate in my manager's face. She was yelling at the top of her lungs and turning to all the tables in her area telling them what happened. She looked up at the manager and said, "Please check and make sure the entire bug body is still in the pasta? I only saw the head I just don't want to think that I could have eaten a bug!!!" Our manager smiled and said yes I see the other half of the body, don't worry." The manager walked in the back and with the most terrified look on her face said to me, "Rachel the other half of the body is missing!" All I could think was, "wow what a great night." What is even better our manager took care of the whole bill and gave them free meal cards for their next visit. LOL I looked at my manager and said, I don't think these ones will be returning anytime soon." She smiled and said its the least I could do, she ate a cockroach."
"Bug Night" came twice this month :)
Monday, March 28, 2011
Chickens
Similar to the post before, (Ska-rimps) "Chickens" is now the new word of the of the day.
Customer: "Can I add chickens to my salad?"
See posting of "Ska-rimps" grammar rule below to understand why "chickens" is incorrect.Me: "Sure how many?"
Friday, March 25, 2011
Ska-rimps
We always offer upgrades to any pasta or salad on the menu at my restaurant. Its usually salmon, chicken, or shrimp. One time a person at a table said this to me, "I want ska-rimps on mines." I responded with, "I'm sorry what did you say?" "Ska-rimps, I want ska-rimps on mines!" It took me a second to realize that this individual wanted Shrimp added to their pasta. First of all I completely understand ESL (English as a Second Language) I grew up in Southern California but this individual clearly was Americanized, had an iphone and was getting annoyed at me because I couldn't understand them. The word is SHRIMP people no need to pluralize it, it already is plural and singular simultaneously, cool right? Same goes for the word "Mine." No need to put an "S" on the end of that one either. "Mines" is the equivlant of nails on a chalkboard to me unless you are referring to the hundreds of coal mines in Appalachian Mountains or the mines in war. And please no need to get annoyed at me because you got an "F" in grammar. Next time try and use the word please in your sentence as well, it might get you farther in life and mask some of your ignorance. If that's too hard I think it's "por favor" in your language.
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