Weird Restaurant Stories 11/13

As I perused this week’s restaurant stories, one thing became very clear.  It was an incredibly bad week for restaurant managers.  Several of this week’s stories contain the “manager’s behaving badly” meme.  There are also some great follow up stories that will sound familiar to long time readers of this column.  All of which have been painstakingly compiled for your weekend reading enjoyment.

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

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Awkward Moments

Hi, may I take your order?

Over the last 15 years I have spent in the service industry, I have had to change my approach.  15 years ago, I was a gangly 6-foot tall 125-pound server with a voice somewhere in the Justin Bieber range.  I looked only slightly older than him.  A head of grey hair has made me change my demeanor a bit.  Nowadays I can pull off the professional waiter role as well as most anyone.  The only thing I haven’t learned to control is the shade of red I turn when blushing at awkward situations.

In the past I have written about moments I have made awkward.  There are still the “foot in mouth” moments that cause me to be extremely embarrassed.  I have not learned to control the physiological response of turning red enough that if I was a lobster, someone would pull me out of the pot.  The thing that was left out of the previous post was the fact that I do not cause most of these situations.  While I do create awkward situations from time to time, most of the time the blame falls firmly on the guests.

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

Why Not To Date Co-Workers

On the downside, you work a double with them tomorrow

It is that time of year.  Love or at least heavy lust is in the air.   That means just one thing in the restaurant business.  It is too hot to sit on the patio.  Well that and co-workers are starting the annual mating ritual.  At the most recent count, there are six confirmed couples at my restaurant.  I was discussing this with some co-workers when someone said, “hey, you should write a blog about that.”  I had pondered it before, but never thought there was much to cover.  My opinion is simple and based on a great deal of experience.  Dating co-workers is a horrible idea.  My friend disagreed and offered to write the counter-point.  So today we kick off a two part series on dating co-workers.

I am a child of the 80s and was raised on John Hughes movies.  The hopeless romantic streak runs strong in me.  I have been in this business for 15 years and of course I have dated co-workers.  I have seen 15 years worth of work couples and even been in a few of their weddings.  I have seen co-workers have babies.  I have seen co-workers divorce. My opinion is still clear though, don’t date your co-workers.

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

The Card

Generally I try to focus on tips on how to be a better server, a better manager, or just my random musings on the industry when I sit down to write for this blog.  I made it a point when I started this blog to never become another server writing about how annoying his guests were.  I have always avoided it. This one is too good though.

When in the course of human event it becomes necessary for one blogger to dissolve the ethical bands which has connected him to his guests and to assume among the powers of the blogosphere, that separate and equal station to which the laws of serving and the server’s god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of all servers requires that they should declare the guests which impel them to the separation.

I do not paraphrase Thomas Jefferson lightly.  Last night something so incredibly mind blowing was handed to me that I feel I would be doing a disservice by not sharing it.  With that in mind, I bring you the story of “the card.”

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs