Service?
I went to this really cool restaurant yesterday with my best pal. It's a momish place that is all warm and cozy and serves homemade-tasting meals that you don't have to home make. At an average plate price of around $11, it's a pretty swank place.
So I walk in the door and get greeted by a teenage hostess and a pimple-faced freak who apparently was also employed by the establishment. I couldn't really be sure because he was doing anything but working (mostly was hanging all over the underaged blond "hostess"). The blonde flashed me a winsome, fake smile and asked, "Is a table okay or would you like to sit in a booth?"
Grateful for the choice, I said, "A booth, please."
She then proceeded to tell me she had no booths available except maybe one in the bar or one that was half-booth, half-table. The only problem with this is that I could clearly see an empty booth not ten feet away.
This gets me really fired up. Ninety percent of people who walk into a restaurant don't give a crap about where they sit and are happy to be herded to the spot most convenient for the servers. That's just fine, but the ten percent of us who do give a crap should be accomodated, don't you think? After all, we are paying for this experience. What gives with servers that they can't walk an extra five feet to wait on someone not crammed into a small place like smelly, dead fish?
Here's a few tips for the "service" industry:
1. You have no idea why a person wants to sit in a specific place. It might be good memories, a good view, or a healing injury that is bothered by hard chairs. The reason doesn't matter, give the person who is enabling your continued employment the chair they want.
2. Save yourself a bunch of dollars...fire the damn hostess and let people pick their own seat. Then bust your ass to wait on them no matter where in the restaurant they are.
3. Full drink glass = decent tip. Cash can only float to the top of the wallet when people are well-hydrated.
4. Clean up dirty dishes but make sure the customer is through with them. Making your customers fight you for their food is demeaning to both of you.
5. Always offer dessert, no matter how fat you think your customer is. Fat people buy more desserts than skinny people.
6. Always offer a to-go box. At the prices you charge, we have to get two meals out of our dinner to make coming here worth it.
7. Never, ever, ever sit your butt down at my table. I don't care how cute you think you are, how tired your feet are, or how cute you think I am. I'm renting this space and I don't want any boarders.
8. You're not that cute. And I didn't come here for a date, I came for dinner. Provide me some damn service and quit flirting.
I feel so much better now.
So I walk in the door and get greeted by a teenage hostess and a pimple-faced freak who apparently was also employed by the establishment. I couldn't really be sure because he was doing anything but working (mostly was hanging all over the underaged blond "hostess"). The blonde flashed me a winsome, fake smile and asked, "Is a table okay or would you like to sit in a booth?"
Grateful for the choice, I said, "A booth, please."
She then proceeded to tell me she had no booths available except maybe one in the bar or one that was half-booth, half-table. The only problem with this is that I could clearly see an empty booth not ten feet away.
This gets me really fired up. Ninety percent of people who walk into a restaurant don't give a crap about where they sit and are happy to be herded to the spot most convenient for the servers. That's just fine, but the ten percent of us who do give a crap should be accomodated, don't you think? After all, we are paying for this experience. What gives with servers that they can't walk an extra five feet to wait on someone not crammed into a small place like smelly, dead fish?
Here's a few tips for the "service" industry:
1. You have no idea why a person wants to sit in a specific place. It might be good memories, a good view, or a healing injury that is bothered by hard chairs. The reason doesn't matter, give the person who is enabling your continued employment the chair they want.
2. Save yourself a bunch of dollars...fire the damn hostess and let people pick their own seat. Then bust your ass to wait on them no matter where in the restaurant they are.
3. Full drink glass = decent tip. Cash can only float to the top of the wallet when people are well-hydrated.
4. Clean up dirty dishes but make sure the customer is through with them. Making your customers fight you for their food is demeaning to both of you.
5. Always offer dessert, no matter how fat you think your customer is. Fat people buy more desserts than skinny people.
6. Always offer a to-go box. At the prices you charge, we have to get two meals out of our dinner to make coming here worth it.
7. Never, ever, ever sit your butt down at my table. I don't care how cute you think you are, how tired your feet are, or how cute you think I am. I'm renting this space and I don't want any boarders.
8. You're not that cute. And I didn't come here for a date, I came for dinner. Provide me some damn service and quit flirting.
I feel so much better now.
Labels: Tiamat
posted by Tiamat at 2:19 PM
5 Comments:
Heh, heh, hehe. I like the rules. Especially #6.
I will however give some waitstaff the benifit of the doubt, just because I've been friends with a few and am amazed at some of the jerks they have to deal with in a day. When you've waded through a day full of morons it's hard to still be chipper when you get to one thats not.
But why the hell offer a choice if there isn't one? See that's what worries me. The dumb people outnumber us by a lot, and they're growing fast. Just think, some of these people are in charge of really big bombs. Scary eh?
Even more scary...these are the people who will be running things when we're old.
You took my comment!
Yes, the worst part is imagining that when Im old and decrepit, Ill have to rely on these same people to take care of me in some nursing home somewhere.
As far as being outnumbered by the dumb, Im just hoping that if we come down to a civil war between the dumb and the sensible, that the sensible arent too busy blogging to help out :p
Well, said Joy. :)
"Cash can only float to the top of the wallet when people are well-hydrated."
Rules for the ages, there... :)
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