I may or may not have mentioned this before, but I am a server at a popular restaurant. It's the kind of restaurant people go to for special occasions, or to impress a client. We have our regulars, but the price is a little bit prohibitive to make it a regular watering hole. This last Valentine's Day was really nice. As is usually the case on major holidays, we were running a 30-40 minute wait. Valentine's day may not seem like a major holiday, but for restaurants, it most definitely is. I was lucky enough to be downstairs in our banquet rooms where there are 25 extra tables for 2 set up. It's quieter and much more pleasant there. Upstairs, they remove around 25 tables for 4 people or more and replace those 25 tables with 51 small, shot-glass sized, round tables for two. They also turn all but 6 tables, in our 36 table lounge area, into dining room tables by simply throwing tablecloths over them and setting them with silverware. We served 1000 meals that night. All things considered, everything went very smoothly. I had lovely guests who really enjoyed themselves.
You may be wondering why I shared all this with you. Well, that's because I am now going to write about my experience working Valentine's Day 2012. That day is the first time I really understood what a well-oiled machine we are and how good we have it on major holidays.
On February 14th, 2012 I was busy packing. I didn't care I'd have to work hard and very late at the restaurant, because I was going to Puerto Vallarta! I had a flight at 6:30AM the next morning and I would join my parents who were already there. Valentine's Day is crazy busy, so I didn't even try to get my shift covered, or request it off. By the time I got to work at 4:30, I had stopped by the store and picked up a couple of bags of Dove chocolates for the folks who sat in my section. It's something I like to do every year for Valentine's day. When I walked in, I saw we had a few people who checked in early and were enjoying drinks at the bar. I found my section, made sure it was ready, read the Chef's specials, and reviewed the pre fixe 1 night only menu.
I'm ready.
It's 5PM, we're open.
My first two tables are sat and everything starts off very smoothly. Drinks come right out and since they are some of the first few reservations in, their experience is smooth and enjoyable for me and them.
5:30PM. As we later find out, someone has plugged two point of sale systems into one box with two Ethernet connections. Apparently, that is bad.
5:31PM. The first server to notice that all the POS systems are down is looking for a manager.
5:32PM. The current GM starts looking for the problem. He is married to the person who knows the most about the system, so she comes in and helps.
5:45PM. We now know, as servers and kitchen staff, that we are on our own. Frightening. Let me lay out for you how our night is now going to go.
Two tables are sat in my section. I bring water, chat them up, tell them the specials, both drink and food, and try to get a drink and appetizer order. My third table gave me a drink order and they are hungry, so they went ahead and ordered the caviar appetizer. I walk away, and grab two blank carbon copy tickets. Remember, we can't just ring them in anymore and it's been a generation or more since we've had to write up a ticket, so none of us has ever had to do so. To make matters worse, like most restaurants, we don't always have prices listed on our drinks. Especially well drinks. They are all in the POS (point of sale/piece of sh!t) system. I write my name at the top and the table number it's going to. Most of the table numbers are new, because if you remember, we have something like 65 extra tables with numbers we don't normally use. We have floor maps, maps that show us the location of tables throughout the restaurant, but the maps don't always show the actual placement of the tables. As a result, servers are hesitant to help run drinks and food. I write the drink order down and give it to the bartender, on a separate ticket I write down my name and table number and the appetizer and give it to the cold side expediter. Cold side is where salads, wood oven and fried foods come from. Hot side are mostly entrees. Expediters stand on the restaurant side of the kitchen and organize tickets, place food on trays making sure everything listed on the ticket is on the tray, and make sure it gets out in a timely fashion. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, everyone has so-so handwriting to start with and there are upwards of 30 servers all doing the same thing. Once we have the drinks it's back to the table to try and get a dinner order. They order and we write up another ticket and give it to the Hot side expediter. Now, normally, the kitchen is getting copies of all the orders from the POS in the correct locations. Grill, saute, wood, pantry, etc. But now, there is one copy for the expo and one copy for the entire kitchen. See, you may have ordered a steak, but say you want fries instead of the potatoes on the plate. That's two different stations, so now the chef is having to expo on the kitchen side of things. He has to call out for the fries, and the pantry, instead of knowing he needs it and having it ready, has to stop whatever they are doing and make fries. All of this starts to add up immediately. Ticket times for apps are 40-ish minutes and entrees are running almost an hour. Everything takes longer and that means the guests stay longer. That means the host stand gets backed up by, like, 1.5 to 2 hours. The hosts send the guests into the bar for a drink, but there is only the bar rail and 6 tables that make up the bar. That's about 28 seats. Normally, when a guest moves to their table from the bar, there is a transfer. Not that night. I'd guess that maybe 50-60% (I think that's low) of the transfers never made it to the correct server. When the guest is done with their dinners we offer dessert and coffee. Believe me when I say that we are hoping against hope they say no. So now, while running around trying to help out and do everything else, we have to write up one last ticket with everything they ordered and prices. Happily, managers were on hand to help with the finalizing of the bill. They add on the tax and run the 'cachunk-cachunk' machine. That's the noise those old manual credit card imprinters make.
I started early with every one of my tables, explaining to them what was happening. People are funny. Most folks want to be in the know. I was kneeling conspiratorially at one of my tables and they were both leaning in to the point of claustrophobia so as to not miss a word of what I was saying. The woman clucked her commiseration, and smiled saying they were in absolutely no hurry, take my time. Another table, sat a couple of hours later, were a little less understanding. They were frustrated by the wait, and hungry. I brought their drinks out and took their order. Another table was seated next to them and they were ready to order everything immediately. Throughout the evening, we had some trouble bringing out the correct food to the correct tables. My table that was sat second got their food first. Well, technically it wasn't their food, but it was close enough that they took advantage of the fact that there were crab legs and steak sitting in front of them only 15 minutes after they ordered it. By the time I knew there was a problem, the first couple were already talking to a manager with coats in hand. We bought their drinks and they left. I don't believe they were very upset, but they saw the writing on the wall and decided to go someplace less busy. Like home.
Our last seating was supposed to be at 10PM. We sat until midnight. We sat until everyone who wanted to stay was fed.
Like everything in life, that too, passed. At 2AM the last of our guests straggled out the door. We all breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone did their side work, their napkin folds and cleaned their section. Now came the paperwork. When things are normal, I have a system that works well for me. It minimizes my end of night paperwork. Not tonight. For the first time in probably 10 years, I have an apron pocket full of cash, credit card slips, and partially written tickets. At around 2:30AM one of the managers got one POS working. Those of us still there (some folks are just fast with their side work) were asked to put in all their orders and pay with the credit card numbers on those manual slips. Lots of things went wrong with addition and prices, etc. but on the whole that part went smoothly. There were just a lot of servers waiting to do their books. The whole system kicks everyone off at 3:30 in the morning and resets for the next working day. I was the last server to do her books using the POS. Many other servers were coming back the next day to do their books then, but I was leaving early in the morning for Puerto Vallarta, so they asked me to do mine right away. I staggered home at 3:45AM. I got about a half hour of sleep, then I was up and off to Puerto Vallarta. That's a really nice reward for such a lousy Valentine's Day.
We were relatively unscathed considering how bad it could have been. We have an amazing crew both in the back of house and the front. Most guests were very understanding. A few will never come back. That's unfortunate. I feel like the restaurant I work at tries very hard to give a superior experience to our guests. Judging us on major holidays is not okay. I recommend coming in the week before, or the week after to celebrate.
