Hi Blogapoozaers, and reader's of Waiter's Today. My name is Frank G. I write a blog in Las Vegas called BluntDinerz. This is my fourth post in the contest. Good luck to everyone who has entered.
For this post, I want readers, especially other servers, to imagine themselves as the waiter in the next story. I want to know what you would have done. This really happened to another server one night, and it put her in a spot. Tell me what you would have done.
You're a Captain at a steakhouse in Las Vegas during convention season and you have a party of 21. They're the entire staff of a concrete company, they're hungry as lumberjacks, and the check is already ridiculously high before a speck of food was ordered.
You're a good Captain, too. The house in which you work doesn't have a strict policy about letting Front Waiters help take orders on large parties to cut time in half, you could have told him to get on order pad and help you bang it out, but you don't do that, as a matter of personal style and decorum. Your choice, and you know you have a tight crew to keep the other guests in your section happy as clams.
The steakhouse has a lot of off-menu items and there are a few things about the menu choices that need to be made clear to the guest, so they are aware of every option available and have the best time, and spend the most money, possible. One of the peculiar things about your menu is that every steak gets a choice of a homemade sauce such as Bearnaise, or Au Poivre., a rub, like Cajun, or, BBQ, or a crust, like a bleu cheese crust or foie gras crust. Each category has many choices.
Now, here's what sucks about it. (Why do restaurants do this?)
The guest gets to choose two sauces OR one rub and a sauce, OR one crust, but if they choose one particular sauce, ( I forgot which sauce it was, but it was the chef's special ego sauce.) they can only have that one, and have to pay $3 more if they want a second sauce, or a rub. Also, and I know this makes sense to most people, but try explaining it to someone who doesn't know too much about cooking- a guest can't choose a rub AND a crust. To top it all off, the foie gras crust wasn't exactly a choice that was included, it was $3 just to add, but among the list of other crusts to choose from. This being because the chef decided he couldn't part with his goose liver for nothing, and made the change afterthe menus were printed.
You're a kick-ass captain, you know how to make sure the message gets across clearly and your spiel is tight as could be. You're bright, too. You do a spiel for each side of the table. This way everyone is sure to hear it. You're also bright enough to know who the host is, and be sure to make sure he wants for nothing. Which was a good move, because he was tipsy before the shellfish course, and showing off some. A little oblivious, too.
A seamless dinner goes by. You go to the podium to print the check, you see the check's total, and to yourself, exclaim, "Bada Boom! Bada Bing! What a wonderful thing!" "Let me just add the mandatory 20% auto-grat for parties of six or more." Your overall sales are much higher than average, and your front waiter and back waiter rocked the house for you and supported you to the T. You drop the check presenter and in a few minutes the host has his credit card sticking out of it. When you return to take his card for processing, he says, "You didn't tell me about the sauces and rubs, I'm not paying a 20% tip."
What do you do?
