Another Peeves Post

A few ‘irritating guest’ notes (hey, this is Waiternotes, after all) that have been laying around on my desk for a couple of weeks:

Heated Finger Towels. We use heated finger towels at Carney’s for items that might be eaten with the fingers: broiled shrimp appetizer, lamb chops, crab legs. We’re supposed to bring these towels when serving the dish or shortly thereafter. Actually, before I get to my peeve, I’ll say I’m also irritated that we offer these towels for the shrimp and lamb chops. It’s over-refinement. There are six shrimp on the appetizer, and it’s usually shared. It’s not as if these shrimp are soaked in butter or Cajun seasoning or anything. People just pinch the tails between their index finger and thumb, and two bites later, the shrimp is gone. Trust me, their fingers and hands are not soiled so much that a regular napkin can’t clean things up. Likewise for the lamb chops. By the time the chops are done broiling, the little bone-handles are dry as a cinder – and they’re also not charred, as we cover them in foil during the cooking process.

Anyway, my peeve is the jackass who picks up the towel as soon as I deliver it and wipes his hands (and sometimes his face) – before he’s finished, or perhaps even started, eating the dish. Look, dude, this is Carney’s Corner Restaurant, not Carney’s Corner Salon and Spa.

Guests’ Pre-Tip Anger. We’ve all seen it. A perfectly executed dining experience; delicious food with no complaints; warm and comfortable rapport with the waiter through the meal; a good time was had by all.

And then at the end the mood suddenly changes. The guest won’t look you in the eye. He/she starts talking sotto voce to his partner. He might even say something brusque like, ‘Just bring us the check.’

As a waiter I always start to review at this point what could be the problem. Did I miss that this was a birthday/anniversary table and not bring the free dessert? Did I say something? Are they arguing? Most of the time I come up dry looking for a reason for the change in demeanor. Then when they pay and leave (again, no eye contact with me, and little or no acknowledgement of my final thank you and well wishes as they walk out), I collect the check from the table.

Yep. Ten percent. This a-hole knew it had finally come time to pay the piper (poorly), and his mood soured. Equally likely, he manufactured this mood to internally justify what he was about to do to me.

I can live with old people tipping 10%, as well as foreigners doing the same, and even just plain cheap people. It’s a voluntary gratuity, after all, and I really do honor a person’s true convictions. But people, if you can’t psychologically handle tipping poorly and you demonstrate it in this way, that should be a clue to you that you’re wrong.

Either eat cheaper and tip 15-20% or eat great take-out or shop at Bristol Farms and eat at home. Same monetary outlay, and you’re also behaving well-within the approved social norms.

‘Oh! There you are!’
This is so common in food serving, waiters automatically translate this as, ‘Where have you been? We were ready a long time ago.’

Ah, yes. When you first start waiting tables, understanding restaurant time seems impossible. This is because A) you are doing so much while the guest is doing so little; B) you’re in over your head and can’t ever seem to catch up; C) time stretches and contracts depending on the situation. Re: C: If you take a drink order and don’t return for ten minutes with the cocktails, the guest will send a search party after you – while one remains at the table composing a complaint email on his Blackberry. On the other hand, if, after checking back on the main courses, you don’t show your face for 20 minutes, that might be perfectly acceptable.

Once you’ve been a waiter for a couple of years the perception of time is no longer a mystery. You know what’s been a long time, and what hasn’t. That’s why it’s so galling to hear, ‘Oh, there you are!’

‘Yes, here I am. And I was also here at regular five minute intervals during the last half hour while you talked and refused to look at your menus. But you didn’t notice.’

Okay. So I’ve never said it quite this coarsely.

I have said, passive aggressively, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were in a hurry. When I came by a couple minutes ago you were busy talking so I let you alone.’

I have said, ‘Oh, you were looking for me? I’ve been in and out of this area every couple minutes for the last half hour. This is where I’m working.’

I have said, ‘I tried to break in on your conversation a couple of times but you were just so focused . . .’

Maybe someday I’ll say, ‘Yeah. And there you are, like before. Only now you’re not too self-absorbed to notice that I’ve been here waiting to serve you for the last half hour.’

Weekends Going Strong

There’s been some concern about me in cyberspace after my blowout in the luxury box at the Lakers/Clippers game. In fact, I’m fine. I’ve merely had a relatively busy three days, and was also spending time working on my screenplay again after abandoning it through the holidays.

The game was essentially a Lakers laugher. Personally, I ate enough free food to cause bloat pain. Drank four beers, too. The box was pretty cool. Previously, my only luxury box experience was at New Comiskey for a White Sox game. The Staples Center has done a better job with their boxes. The baseball game was a fun experience. It was a lot like watching a game from a great distance in someone’s really cool living room. The orientation of the box actually served to divert your attention from the field (unless you were watching on one of the numerous TVs). For this basketball game, you still have that effect in the ‘living room’ portion of the box: carpet; granite counters laden with all kinds of prepared food; two refrigerators stocked with beer, water, and soft drinks; a freezer full of ice; a sofa and comfortable chairs; flat panel TV and several regular tube-type models; art on the walls. The difference (and it’s a big difference) is that to the front of the box there are 20 stadium seats on three stepped rows. These rows extend into the arena, with open air above and below you, so you feel again part of the live event experience. A+ for Staples Center.

Buddy poured Merus Reserve at his condo while we watched Keith Olbermann act smug and act funny on MSNBC. The drive to downtown L.A. was extremely smooth: 40 minutes door to parking lot. Home was even better: 25 minutes. We all had a nice time. It turned out the banker feteing Buddy was actually his ex-banker. He had switched banks and was trying to steal Buddy back.

Since Wednesday, I’ve had some very good days on the job. Lunch Thursday was $109. Dinner at Carney’s Thur-Sat: $165, $220, $275. I continue to marvel at the resiliency of the local economy – at least my section of it.

We lost a busboy last night. He had put in his notice. We’re not sad to see him go. Peoro is Primo’s (our main busser) brother. He came from a neighboring restaurant where he had been promoted to waiter, then got ‘laid off.’ He was very frustrating to us servers. My take is that he never got it out of his head that he was no longer a waiter. Among his many irritating habits:

1. Watching us count our money at the end of the shift.
2. Taking orders from tables instead of sending the waiter to do it.
3. Obliviousness to table maintenance. Getting him to fill waters was literally a matter of pointing to an empty glass and asking him to please fill it.
4. Shyness about asking guests if they were done so he could clear their plates. This was surprising in view of his eagerness to approach diners to take drink, food, and dessert orders.
5. Walking around to appear busy while never actually picking anything up.
6. Refusal/inability to learn position numbers for running entrees (he was with us the better part of a year).
7. Asking ‘Decaf?’ when we ask him to bring coffees. No. I want two coffees. If I wanted Decaf I would have said ‘Two Decafs.’ If I wanted one Decaf, one Regular I would have said, ‘One Coffee, one Decaf.’
8. And my all-time busser pet peeve: Showing up to take dirty plates out of my hands after I’ve just cleared the whole table. Where were you 60 seconds ago? I’ve already done all the work. Don’t act like you’re doing your job showing up now.

He’s going to become a waiter again at a new Lebanese restaurant in a poor section of town.

Fair Approximation Of Peoro’s Table Maintenance

Last night I had another Elbow Man. He didn’t go to the Nth degree with it, but he trapped that damned thing for a good fifteen minutes after a 3 hour meal. And it was indeed the scenario where he was lording over the moment so his guests could fully appreciate his generosity. And it was indeed him who held forth that entire fifteen minutes. And it was him who made a joke about the tip just before he filled in and totaled his charge voucher. (Every waiter knows that any mention of the tip in any context means you’re getting a bad tip. A joke of ‘We’ll take that off your tip. Ha-ha!’ The boast, ‘Don’t worry, I’m gonna take good care of you.’ The question, ‘Is the tip included?’ All these comments and more are sure death.)

I’ve had a history with this guy. The first time he came in, he brought his own wine and we charged $25 each corkage. It turned out that one of the wines he brought was the label of someone I knew personally – a friend of a friend. It was a boutique-type wine very few know about. It also turned out he knew the vintner as well. So we traded stories and such. This diner is the kind who likes to talk wine. (Last night he chastised me for pouring too much of his precious Behrens & Hitchcock in everyone’s glasses: ‘Less is more.’ Incidentally, the level I poured was less than half a normal glass of wine as poured at Carney’s.) Anyway, that first occasion he complained bitterly about the corkage price. I gave him my usual (and quite valid) spiel that Carney prices her wines at less than double markup from wholesale, which is very inexpensive for a nice restaurant. She wants to encourage guests to take advantage of her award winning wine list. I also pointed out that while $25 might be a little higher than average for fine dining, I had seen many restaurants with $30, $40, even $50 corkage fees.

‘Well it’s ridiculous. With this corkage, I might as well have bought something off the list . . .’

Right. Now you’re getting the idea, dude.

Back to last night, he received the charge voucher (total before tip: $293), poised his pen over the tip line, and said, ‘Okay. So this means you get $29. Ha-ha!’

I just walked away. The tip was $45.

Patience and Big Hitters

As a waiter, a large percentage of survival – both fiscal and psychological – can be attributed to patience. Grinding it out. On a small scale, there are a lot of menial, detail-type tasks to be accomplished during the shift: filling waters, crumbing tables, replacing silverware, refolding napkins, poring over your checks making sure you’ve not forgotten anything. These all add up to excellent service, though each in itself wouldn’t seem to add much to the experience if it were neglected.

Larger scale, you have to resist the urge to rush your guests even though there is an invisible (to them) time schedule bearing down on you. You have to work slow nights to get to the busy ones. You have to try to keep busy in the early hours of the shift, before things finally get moving. And likewise, you have to thoroughly complete your closing sidework at the end, even though you want to meet your friends for a drink somewhere.

Financially, this is where the Big Hitters come into play. If, at the end a typical month, your nightly average is $150 per shift, it can be flat-out frustrating to work four nights in a row and average just a little over $100.

Until, like last night for me, you get a couple of Big Hitters. I was in the midst of just such a slump when two late, unexpected tables came in. One was Jerry and Georgina, some of our favorite people. They always order good wine, and tip 30% or more. Georgina used to be a restaurant manager. The other couple just showed up and ordered an upgraded version of the Big Surf ‘n Turf for Two. Six guests, $120, and another middling $110 night was turned into an excellent $170 night. Now fold that into the take from the previous days this week, and I’m back at my average.

Jerry and Georgina hardly chatted with me at all, which is unusual. Quite often, I and the other waiters hang out with them so much, it’s almost like we are guests with them, rather than serving them. But last night they were with another couple and they had their own fully-engrossing conversation topics.

As a professional, it’s essential that you quickly see where you stand with people and adjust your manner accordingly. Usually it’s people you’ve never met before, and it’s called ‘reading your table.’ But, as in this case, you also have to read regular customers. I’ve been a diner more than most people. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more annoying than a waiter who won’t let you alone, always joining in on your conversation, interjecting his thoughts and experiences when you were talking about your own. Frankly, it’s in the top of my pet peeves. Can’t these people see we’re (us two diners) here to have a night out together, and not to visit with and learn about the waiter’s life?

This is why I feel no disrespect at all when diners pretty much ignore me. They’re here for their own reasons. Sure, sometimes they want to be friends. Sometimes they have nothing to say to each other. Sometimes they’re having a tiff. Under those circumstances, it actually improves the dining experience for them to be chatty – it glosses over the uncomfortable silence scarring the table.

There is, however, a distinction to be made about ignoring the waiter as a personality and just ignoring him period. That’s another of my pet peeves. It’s pretty disrespectful when you are ignored in the process of doing your job, of trying to help them have a good dining experience. Specifically, when you are trying to tell them the specials and when you are taking orders. These are moments that demand the attention of the diner; without that attention, things will almost always go wrong. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been completely ignored on multiple visits when hoping to take the order, only later to have a guest complain how long it has taken to get their dinners. Well if you’d given me three minutes of your time at any of several earlier instances, you would have had your dinners promptly. Don’t you know you can’t cook a 16 oz. baseball cut filet mignon to medium well in less than 25 minutes? (All grills are different. At Carney’s it takes even longer. At Michael’s they can do it in about 20 minutes.)

Lunch today was another Banquet Backbreaker. Made $92 and was lucky for it. That put my average for the week, for lunches, at $84 a shift.

It’s between shifts right now, so nothing to report about Carney’s.