Don’t Be “That Guy” (Part One)

Nobody wants to work with "that guy."

We were all rookies at one time.  We walked in confident the first day at a new restaurant only to end up with a deer-in-the-headlights look by the first rush.  I’ve worked at plenty of restaurants over the years and know the feeling all to well.  I have most certainly been “that guy” as well.  There is something unnerving about being a rookie at a new restaurant.

I have also been the veteran at several restaurants.  I have been around long enough to see countless rookies come through my restaurant and make the same mistakes.  Most of them are incredibly well meaning.  I try to be patient with all of them.  Sometimes I even bother to learn their names after a couple of months.

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

Weird Restaurant Stories 9/11

Welcome to a very special episode of Weird Restaurant Stories.  This does not mean that Arthur Carlson will try to take naked pictures of Gary Coleman while the girl from Striptease pops caffeine pills and Tom Hanks gets hammered on vanilla extract in Michael J Fox’s kitchen.  Nope, this one is even more special.  Today’s weird restaurant stories come with a theme.  Even though the economy is rough, restaurants open everyday.  Today I want to share my insight with restaurant owners on how to open a successful restaurant.

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

Story Time: Injuries

Black silhouette guy was driving the workman's comp premiums through the roof

From the statistics I get through WordPress, I can tell that about half my traffic comes from search engines.  Which is cool and I enjoy seeing what people search for to end up at my blog.  The other half is people who came here via a link someone posted or have the page bookmarked.  For the second group, I have been trying to think of some way to make this blog more interactive.  I try to ask at the end of most posts for feedback and don’t get many takers.  The thing is that I know many of you have far more interesting takes on any number of the topics discussed in this blog.  So today I am going to try a new feature called “Story Time.”

The idea of Story Time is that everyone has a story to tell about certain topics.  They are the stories that get pulled out after work at the bar or in side stations while waiting for a table.  I have a favorite story for most of these topics.  I am sure you do too.  So just pretend that you are sitting around a high top sipping a cool beverage and tell your tale in the comments section.

Today’s topic is workplace injuries.  A coworker who hurt himself inspired it.  He looked over at me while doing his checkout and said, “You know what you oughta write about on your blog thing is getting hurt at work.”  I wasn’t sure what angle to take on that issue.  For the record I am opposed to getting hurt at work.  Please don’t do it.  If you do get hurt though could you possibly do it in a really funny way?

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

Top Five Posts You Probably Missed

R. Charles Pennington IV is best known for his role as the Zoloft rock, but also was the lesser known character Ronnie the Roll

Being less than a week away from my 100^th post has left me some time to think about how I want to recognize that milestone.  I thought about a grand countdown.  I thought  about an retrospective on all of the changes I have seen in the restaurant business in my years.  I had an idea sent to me for a very controversial point/counterpoint.  I even considered just waxing poetic on the business as a whole in a pretentious and self absorbed way.  I decided to skip that last one so as not to steal a certain someone’s shtick.

Instead I decided it was okay for me to phone a couple of these in.  100 posts in under 5 months is a pretty feverish pace for a blogger considering the size of most of my posts.  Posts that require research have hours poured into them to try and produce something worth reading.  Occasionally, I get really excited about the result.  In my opinion yesterday’s post about ranch dressing might be my favorite.  However after I finish this one, it may take that title.  My favorite generally is the one I just wrote.

Read the full story at Restaurant Laughs

Weird Restaurant Stories 8/21

For a while now I have tried to come up with a weekend concept for this blog.  Traffic is down on the weekends and I wanted to come up with something lighthearted for everyone to enjoy.  Last week’s point/counterpoint on why it is a good or bad idea to date coworkers didn’t work out that way.  Turns out several of my dating coworkers did not see the humor in the post.  So much for the point/counterpoint idea.

Instead today I am going to try something a little different.  We all know truly strange things happen in restaurants all the time.  Sometimes they are even newsworthy.  So this Saturday in an effort to make everyone’s restaurant seem just a bit more normal I dug up some of these stories from around the world.  All of these were reported in just the last week.

Read the rest of the post at Restaurant Laughs