The ‘No’ Lady

Because it was sort of an uneventful day at Michael’s, I’m going to inaugurate a new feature in Waiternotes: Today’s Featured Customer Type.

The list is long, and filled mostly with irritating people. I suppose the reason I (we) have such a list is that the morons stand out, stick in your memory. While the cool people blend in, simply because they’re the vast majority. You’d typically have one or two of these a night, while the other twenty customers were perfectly normal.

As we go on, see if you recognize these people. If you’re a waiter, you’ll remember. If you’re not a waiter, maybe this type is you, or your father-in-law. And let me know if I’ve missed a particularly offensive characteristic of this character type.

The ‘No’ Lady

From the moment she walks through the door, she seems to be girding for the battle to prevent you (the restaurant) from getting any of her money beyond the absolute minimum.

The hostess might first encounter the ‘No’ Lady when asking if her party would like to have a drink in the bar before being seated.

‘No’, she responds curtly. <Crisp shake of the head.>

When you meet her at the table, the perfunctory solicitation of a cocktail order gets the same response: ‘No.’ Like a murderer hooked up to a polygraph. 

‘Iced Tea, then? Soda?’

‘No.’ She’s shaking her head before you finish asking.

Never mind up-selling, you’re not selling anything here.

Get ready to cringe when you launch into the specials. She’s shaking her head so soon, so fast, you wonder if she has a nerve disorder. She breaks you off in mid-sentence describing the Veal Scall –

‘No!’

Too bad the other guests were listening intently. She actually interrupted you.

Maybe I’m old, cynical, or just plain mean, but nowadays when this happens to me, I do one of two things:

1. I stop in my tracks conspicuously – mid-sentence, mind you – and say, ‘Okay. I’ll give you some time with the menus.’ And I walk away.
2. I smile at the ‘No’ Lady and say, ‘Okay, then you won’t be ordering the Veal, but maybe these other folks here are interested in hearing about it.’

Ditto for all possible add-ons during the meal. Appetizer? Salad? Dessert? After dinner drink? NoNoNoNo. Her ass is clenched so tight, I’m surprised she doesn’t blow out a lower disc.

Of course, the ‘No’ Lady isn’t totally the ‘No’ Lady. She’ll gladly say ‘Yes’ to more free water, more free bread, more lemons for her fish, every extra sauce you can possibly bring for free, and extra candies that come with the bill.

Speaking of the bill, there’s a high likelihood she’ll either be pulling out a calculator or a pocket tip chart. Equal odds that her contribution to the bill will involve single dollar bills, even coins. Notice that there is no chance in this scenario that she’s not going dutch.

Fortunately, you, the waiter, had the chance to ‘No’ her back:

‘And we’d like to have separate checks,’ she says.

‘No.’

* * * * *

There’s no such thing as a completely uneventful day at a restaurant, of course. Today at lunch I had but three tables. A single, $5. A nice six-top, $60 on a $330 check. And a couple enjoying a birthday to whom I really gave great service. That was $53 on a $147 check. Walked with $100.

Don’t ever get in a bad enough mood to give any less than the best you can do. I wasn’t in a bad mood at all today. However, that table could have been as nondescript as two cocktails, two salads, two entrees, and ‘Thanks for coming.’ Instead, I did every possible thing in my power to make it an enjoyable meal.

They were an attractive couple in their late-twenties. They had not alerted anyone it was her birthday. My first approach, I noticed her give him a kiss, then put something back in a box. I got no other clues through the meal about a birthday.

In fact, it didn’t matter to me anyway. I could tell they were having a special day, enjoying each other and the meal immensely. Michael’s is not cheap, so it seemed obvious they were treating themselves.

I decided such an occasion deserved a free dessert. Michael’s will give a dessert to anyone for anything – B-day, Anniversary, Graduation, for any problem that’s occurred during the visit, or just because the server or manager thinks they’re ‘cool people.’ At an expensive restaurant, it’s our way of just saying thanks for coming here.

I decided, with the B-day hunch, that they would warrant a dessert. I ‘fired’ a Baked Chocolate Pudding – an advance-order dessert like a souffle.

So it came that they asked for the check when I cleared their table. My timing on the baking time was perfect, and I returned with the check and a birthday dessert as a complete surprise to them.

Further, when it happened that I was right – it was her birthday – I got the digital camera, took their picture, and printed up a Michael’s souvenir photo.

Amazingly, the picture thing didn’t seal the deal. They’d given me the check at that point and said I could keep the change. I didn’t look inside until I finished with the photo printing.

Then, of course, I made a point of visiting them again and thanking them for the generous tip.

You have to understand how people feel. Waiters often forget that their customers have the same feelings they do. If I gave someone a 33% tip on an expensive check, I wouldn’t expect to be acknowledged beyond the ‘Final Thank You.’ But if that extra acknowledgment did happen, it would make me feel good.

Tip Pooling and a Couple of Jackasses

Worked the Saturday night shift at Carney’s Corner (not the real name) in Beach City.

It was a pretty good night. Carney’s is a small steakhouse – just twenty tables, and half of those are in the bar and patio. As such, the waiters pool their tips, meaning we all work our stations, collect our tips, and at the end of the night pool the money and divide it evenly. The benefits of this system (my guess is less than 10% of restaurants pool tips) are:

1. It levels out the highs and lows of income. Take a $100 a night average job. Without tip pooling, a waiter will frequently swing between $20 and $200 nights, trust me. It sucks if by chance you string together a few $20-30 shfits in a row. Likewise, it can go to your head if your really kill it for a week straight. You might go out and blow a lot of money you don’t really have.
2. It benefits teamwork greatly. When you’re all pulling for each other, moneywise, there are no stops on helping out your fellow server.
3. It creates a strong camaraderie with your fellow servers.
4. It eliminates ‘Table Hogging’ and ‘Guest Sniping.’ I coined the last term. It’s where a server by force or cunning ’steals’ the best tipping customers for his section. A Sniper could be cajoling a hostess into giving him the high rollers, or sneaking peeks at the reservation book and slyly engineering to have an open table when a roller comes in, or even just bum-rushing the poor guy when he walks in the door and escorting him right to that server’s section.

There are downsides to pooling. The biggest is when you have some dead wood on your staff who is either incompetent or simply unwilling to do the work. These people contribute little money and/or effort to the pool yet walk with the same as the hard and competent workers. People get bitter. However, the peer pressure usually works quite well in whipping people into shape or else figuring a way to ship them out.

So anyway, it was good at Carney’s last night. We made $260. My best table was Mr. Zoloff and his wife who I’d servered several times. He actually knows me from my lunch serving job. He’s a big wine guy. He orders $100+ bottles. Last night he brought two of his own ($25 corkage fee), and they were both $100+ retail. Restaurant prices would be around double that.

An interesting thing happened on a previous visit. Carney’s was running a Special that was a 26 oz. lobster tail with a 16 oz. rib eye, with vegetable and starch, as a dinner for two. The price is $140 total. (Side note: In fine dining, ‘Specials’ are not specially-priced. They are special items that are not on the menu. Some diners used to low-scale restaurants – Blue Plate Specials – expect price breaks.)

The Zoloffs ordered the special. They had an expensive wine. We had marvelous conversation. They enjoyed themselves, left in a good mood, and tipped me more than 20%.

The next day, however, Mrs. Zoloff called Carney, the owner, and complained about the price of the Big Lobster special. She was irked that I hadn’t told her the cost before they ordered it.

(Side note: I do not mention the prices of specials unless asked or unless I deem the guests clearly would have an issue with the high price. I opt to very graphically describe the dish, so it should be quite obvious that this special is not just a regular old entree. Incidentally, on a pure ounce-for-ounce basis, the specials at Carney’s actually do offer a price break. However, the portions are much larger, so the final cost will be more than average.)

Well, Carney adequately defended my actions and the pricing of the meal and more or less defused the situation without capitulating with an offer of a free dinner or something else.

So interestingly, last night, the Zoloff’s ordered the damn Big Lobster special! A little strange that she would call to complain about the price, and then the next time, knowing the price would order it anyway. People can be strange.

Last night was a really fine night for me. I personally brought in $340 to the tip pool; my guests were really great and fun; and I got to leave early.

Another server, Dory, had a jackass though. Part of a 4-top with his wife and her parents (aged somewhere in their 70s), the folks were buying dinner. Jackass wanted to act the big shot by buying the wine. So he caught Dory in the hallway, ordered a $45 bottle of wine and gave her his credit card. He drew a line through the tip field and totalled out $45.

Enough already to make him a jackass. But then he came back to the table and started crowing about what a great bottle of wine he bought them, and how it was the least he could do. Well he was right on that count.

Finally, it turns out it’s Jackass’s birthday. Dory brings out free cake with a candle in it. And Jackass demands that she sing to him.

Dory just looked at him, smiled,  said, ‘Happy Birthday,’ and walked away.

We also had a little fun with Frank, the bartender. Mojitos are a great drink, but they’re pretty labor-intensive. You have to muddle sugar cubes, mint and limes, then shake it all up with the rum, top with soda and garnish with mint. Sounds fast there, but it’s not like pouring a gin and tonic.

Frank hates making these kinds of drinks, so sometimes we try to sell a lot of them to our tables, just to torture him. Last night was a great one for mojitos. I sold one, another table saw it and ordered one. Then the first table had another. Then someone else at that table switched to a mojito too. I came back five separate times with mojito orders.

“The funny thing is, I’m not even selling ‘em,” I said to Frank. “I overheard one table saying she read about how great the mojitos were here in a review in the paper. She said it was true, she’s telling all her friends about it, too.”

I laid it on as thick as I could. I got Kim, the other server, to sell one and parrot the same story. We started laughing about adding it to the sign out front: “Carney’s Corner – Steaks, Seafood, Mojitos.”

Frank is pretty much a jerk. He loves to belittle people but he just cannot take a joke on himself. He was seething – so much so that he wouldn’t even complain like usual. Instead he maintained that he didn’t care at all. But I noticed that instead of his usual prompt service, after the fourth mojito, he really took his time making it.

But us three waiters were loving the hell out of it.

These are some of the ways we amuse ourselves.