Black Saturday

Valentine's Day this year fell not only on a Saturday but also on a holiday weekend, so we were good and braced for a long, busy day.

Sarah and Neki raised spirits with Winnie-the-Pooh and Strawberry Shortcake Valentine cards. And Johnny Cannoli (sort of his real name) set the mood for the day by showing his love through what he does best: cooking. Before the restaurant got too busy, out from the wood-burning oven came a heart-shaped pizza.



What about that pie doesn't scream love?

So this holiday is known as Black Saturday because, theoretically, it's one of those busy nights that will help put a restaurant "in the black." Restaurants are infamous for jacking up prices and offering expensive set menus and overbooking their tables to help achieve this financial goal.

I will hasten to point out that this is not the case where I work.

In the industry, Valentine's day is also one of those events known affectionately as "amateur night," a night when non-restaurant-going folks feel obligated to go out to dinner. It's up there with Mother's Day and New Year's Eve, when restaurants are crammed with dazed and overwhelmed diners who might or might not actually want to be there. They are notorious for ordering cheaply, socializing poorly with the servers, and leaving tips not commensurate with service.

But we try to look forward to these nights anyway. Like any other night, we remind ourselves. Only busier. More challenging. We'll sleep really well after.

I only worked lunch so was spared the mania of the dinner shift, which, from all reports, was one of the busier nights we've had of late. It was a night of controlled craziness, with the kitchen pumping out food at a furious pace and the floor staff scrambling in the most pleasant way possible, trying to appease a crowd of people who were competing for seats, food, and attention.

Me, I was home tucked into my recliner under a blanket with a big book and a big mug of tea while visions of festive pizza danced in my head.

All thanks to Jonathan for getting us off to a deliciously Valentiney start!

What We Like To Tell Ourselves

In my barista days, I made plenty of nonfat mochas with extra whipped cream. As a server, I've put in orders for pizza with extra cheese and bacon with a hot fudge sundae for dessert and a diet Coke to wash it down. I've heard men order fondue and steak in the same meal and say, Thank god I take Lipitor!

And now, as a bartender, I can say I did something that really, I never could have seen coming.

Saturday night was possibly the busiest night I've ever worked at the bar. From beginning to end, for at least six and a half hours straight, I was bounced from one end of the bar to the other, mixing drinks and taking orders and trying to keep clear in my mind the eighteen things I needed to be doing at every second. It was so intense that I swear the pressure I was under was making my hands shake as I poured drinks, my blood sugar plummeting and my adrenaline levels soaring.

It was way-super-crazy busy.

Anyhow, in the thick of the busyness, a woman waiting with her friends for a table watched me as as I built and shook a cocktail made from vodka, meyer lemon juice, and simple syrup.

That looks delicious! she gushed. Is it just vodka and juice? she asked.

There's also sugar in it, I said as amiably as I could while my mind frantically tried to figure out my next several moves.

Can you make one with Sweet 'n Low? she asked.

This question was enough to get me to stop everything I was doing.

Um, well, I don't know if that would work so well, I said, feeling protective of the cocktail recipe.

Oh, I make drinks all the time with it at home, she said confidently.

Well, I said. I only have Equal.

That should have gotten me off the hook. But the woman fumbled through her purse and fished out a tiny pink packet.

Oh look! she exclaimed triumphantly. I've got some Sweet 'n Low with me!

She carried it with her? Couldn't I be tested on some night when I didn't have seven cocktails that needed to be made right at that moment, not to mention the plates that needed to be cleared, the cash that needed to be rung in to the register, the orders that needed to be put in the computer?

I was going to have to throw the game, lose the battle.

For the sake of keeping the flow of the bar going, I took the path of least resistance. It would have taken far too much effort and time for me to explain the importance of maintaining the integrity of the drink.

And at the end of the day, it was clear this woman was going to love the drink made her way; it was what she really, really wanted, and it was obvious that I was physically capable of making it for her.

I took the pink packet and, cringing on the inside, made her that cocktail.

She sipped. She swooned. She expressed pleasure and gratitude. I had made her night.

She liked it so much, in fact, that over the course of her dinner she ordered two more sugar-free concoctions, employing the servers as baffled couriers shuttling the packets of saccharin from her table to the bar.

And what did she eat for dinner? Not one but two bowls of one of the heartiest dishes on the menu: pasta with pork sausage ragù topped with a rich dollop of whipped ricotta cheese.

If she ingested less than an entire day's calories in just her main courses alone, I would be surprised. I guess that forty calories of sugar in those cocktails would have just put her over her edge.

They almost put me over mine.

An, Um, Intimate Dinner

The three women at table 15 started off a little bit, well, challenging.

Hello, I greet them. May I bring you...

Do you have a bar here? a voice cuts in. Is there liquor here?

Yes, I answer. You have the drink menu right there in your hands. I'll give you a moment to look that over while I get you water.

I return to the table with the water, ready to take a drink order.

We know what we want to eat! seat 2 pipes up, to my surprise. I was sure the drink order would come first.

I jot down the order on my notepad.

I'll bring the octopus and the dandelion salad to start, and then I'll bring the soup as a second course with the pastas, I confirm.

But you'll bring the appetizers first, right? the woman in seat 1 asks.

Yes, I affirm, poker-faced. I will bring your appetizers first.

And now we need drinks! enthuses the woman in seat 2.

Seat 3 clutches the drink menu. Do the house cocktails have alcohol in them? she asks, looking intently at the selection of cocktails, which list their alcohol-based ingredients.

Yes, they do, I say.

I want something with a real kick to it! she says animatedly, making a fist and poking it through the air as she says "kick."

I consider what this statement could mean. Does she want something that was very high in alcohol, or is she looking for something flavorful? I can ask her, but I go with my hunch: that she's looking for the buzz.

What kind of cocktails do you like to order? I ask, trying to assess what she might enjoy.

She turns her head to look at me blankly then goes back to the menu. In the mean time, the other women at the table, trying to be helpful (I suppose), read off the names of the cocktails.

I go for another question. Is there a particular liquor you prefer?

There is absolutely no response. Suddenly, seat 2 gets very excited. Beet martini! Get a beet martini!

Okay, says seat 4, with a pronounced lack of enthusiasm.

So you like gin, I affirm, knowing that drink will be an automatic turn-off to anyone who doesn't.

As there is still no response, I mentally shrug, writing down the order as seat 2 looks at the menu. She is audibly mumbling, Hmmm... What do I want, what do I want? as she leafs through the menu. She stops at the beer page. She stops at the wine page. She stops at the non-alcoholic drinks page. She finally lands on the cocktail and aperitif page (which, ironically, is actually the first page of the menu).

The restaurant is rather quiet at the moment, but this does not mean that there aren't other things that I could be doing. Like not having to watch her read every word of the drink menu and think out loud.

Good thing you aren't busy! she observes.

Is it better or worse that she is conscious of her behavior? I don't know. But I stand there, a patient, captive audience, giving no hint that even though I am not busy, her behavior is no less annoying.

She finally settles on an aperitif, and I go to send the orders through the computer. It's late afternoon when the shifts change over, so I sit down to eat family meal while the other servers take over the tables.

When I'm done eating, I stop at table 15 who is now at the end of the meal. Seat 3 now has now turned so she's leaning her back against the wall and has both legs draped over the chair next to her, feet sticking out into the aisle.

I am so drunk! she barks good-naturedly at me as I begin to stack empty plates on my arm.

I smile a small smile of acknowledgment. Clearly in my absence, someone had had another martini.

But approval of their dining experience was not just shared with me.

We want to kiss the chef and owner on both cheeks! they gush to my co-worker Sarah.

That was amaaazing! they howl, slapping their on the table for emphasis.

Eating here is like getting fucked! they whoop at my other co-worker Morgan, who conveys this story with the assurance that this is, in fact, praise-- and with a look on her face like she's not sure she's working in a restaurant anymore.

Not to toot our own horn, but we are used to hearing the generously positive comments that comes from our diners who make happy faces and tummy-rubbing gestures to express their content.

But really? Like getting fucked? I can't quite imagine expressing my contentment in this way to anyone, really, but especially not to my server, but then again, I can't imagine a more entertaining start to a Saturday night of waiting tables.

Judgment Day

I was three seconds into arriving at the restaurant for the dinner shift when I saw Sarah, who'd been working lunch that afternoon. Before she could even say hello, the first words out of her mouth were Oh boy do I have a blog entry for you!

Knowing how easygoing Sarah is, I thought This is going to be a doozy.

Turns out that aside from a generally hectic service that included parties of people that were really too big for the restaurant all coming at the same time, one party asked for Diet Coke to be put in their children's sippy cups-- you know, those little plastic cups with lids for kids who are too uncoordinated to manage a regular glass.

And if they're too young to manage a glass you might think that they're too young to be drinking diet soda. But apparently not.

The reaction to this request by the staff was one of visceral disgust. One of us was inspired to run to the office to use google.com to research why it's so awful to feed diet soda-- or any soda, actually-- to a small child. (If you think about it, really there is no human being in the whole world who should drink Diet Coke.) Mostly it seemed the staff was aghast at the message that giving a toddler a diet drink gives, and that made us simultaneously angry and sad.

We often (invisibly) raise our eyebrows at odd requests. Ice for a glass of wine, a non-fat (Be sure it's non-fat!) mocha with extra whipped cream. But more than one co-worker called that family's behavior child abuse. And I can only agree to some extent, only if you're sure to include feeding kids McDonald's ever and exposing them to the reactionary, sexist programming that is the Disney Channel, which is to say that there are plenty of questionable moves that could stand some scrutiny. Amongst our food-conscious, source-conscious, and (mostly) health-conscious staff, this Diet Coke incident just really hit a nerve.

Abuse? Eh, probably not. Mind-numbing ignorance? Oh, you betcha.

So what do we servers do when confronted with a request such as this one? We do our jobs: we smile extra big to cover up the horror on our faces that would come bursting through if we didn't, and we follow through, pouring little cups of Diet Coke for children too small to know their taste buds are being ruled by completely artificial flavors that don't even sort-of exist in nature.

And then we lay the story our co-workers as soon as we get a chance.

A Conversation

Nice Customer at Table 1: Are two desserts enough for four people?

Me: Not in my family.

A Conversation

Bar Customer: I bet you're voting for McCain.

Me: That's the meanest thing anyone has ever said to me.

Lessons in Science

I've never taken a physics class. That's because I could never get beyond Algebra 2 (as it was called some twenty-odd years ago). And chemistry? A disaster. It's the only class I ever got a D in when I was in high school. I was so inept that I couldn't even manage to get an F so that I could at least try to take the class over for a better grade.

So science: not my strong suit. Most of what I've learned about physics is stuff I just sort of experience, like gravity, say. And waiting tables, oddly enough. One of the unexpected perks of my job is having some basic principles of science come to light. For instance:

Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
This means that when I'm trying to set down a plate of food in front of you, I won't be able to if there is something already sitting in front of you, which includes, but is not limited to, the following (all of which I have seen set on a restaurant table at some point):

hands
elbows
forearms
heads
feet
rear ends
your water/wine/beverage glass
someone else's water/wine/beverage glass
napkins
utensils
cell phones
iPhones
Blackberrys
Trios
laptops
cameras
Bluetooth devices
keys
sunglasses
dentures (ew ick)
books
newspapers
magazines
notebooks
crossword puzzles
Sudoku puzzles
find-a-word puzzles
jigsaw puzzles
knitting projects
pens
iPods
mp3 players
radios
portable CD players
cosmetics
rings
earrings
necklaces
bracelets
baby bottles
pacifiers
soiled diapers
chubby board books
stuffed animals dolls
toy cars
crayons
coloring books
Legos
baby blankets
birthday gifts
anniversary gifts
graduation gifts
hypodermic needles
prescription drugs
non-prescription drugs
food brought from home
food brought from another restaurant
headgear
retainers
flowers
guns (yup)
brochures
Playbills
maps
hats
sweaters
shoes
umbrellas
sports equipment
wallets
purses
children


So while I'm standing there with a plate in my hand, the pads of my fingers being branded by the searing hot underside, and you're reaching across the table to hold the hand of someone you love so that your arms are outstretched right where the plate should go, and you're staring at me, waiting for me to set the plate down, but I'm trying to give you a momentary benefit of the doubt and hope you'll move, but then I have to say something truly inane and obvious, like Excuse me, please. May I set down this plate? and you say Yes, but you don't move, then I have to say, I'm sorry, but may I trouble you to move your arms?, it would all go a lot more quickly if we just all kept in mind that two objects cannot occupy the same space simultaneously.


It's harder to hit a moving target.
It happens with great frequency that as I am trying to pour someone a glass of wine or refill water or steaming hot coffee that that person will move the glass or cup around on the table. Usually the person is trying to "help" by pushing the glass toward me, but this is not, in fact, helpful when the person continues to move the glass or unless the glass is completely out of reach, in which case I would ask for access to the glass in the first place.

Sometimes people will sort of swirl the wine glass as I pour or sort of absently tilt the water glass back and forth, which is also counterproductive. Sometimes people try to take the glass away while I'm still pouring, which I imagine is just some random act of over-eagerness. And what usually results is my spilling liquid on the table, or worse yet, on one of those items listed above.

An object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by another force.
I'm as guilty as the next guy of flailing my arms about while talking; in particular I tend to make big, outward circles with my arms, as if I were trying to animate the idea of something being as big as the world. But when I'm in a restaurant, I try especially hard to check myself. And here's why:

Many years ago, I was carrying a particularly large armload of dishes I had just bussed from a table, both my hands full. On the top of the stack, there was a precariously balanced portion of lasagna that was to be packed to go. On my way from the table back to the service station, I walked past a table right at the moment when a woman on the aisle was taking off her pull-over sweater. With one large sweep of her arms, she knocked directly into that carefully stacked pile of dishes on my left arm.

The force was great enough that it sent me stepping backward and swaying back and forth to keep those plates on my arm. I don't remember how I managed it, but I know that I ended up in a sort of semi-squat, one knee almost touching the floor, the stack of plates leaning back against my chest and shoulder, the other arm hugging the tower to me. The restaurant fell silent as I struggled to keep the pile aloft for a couple of seconds that seemed like minutes, waiting for the the dramatic crash that never came because somehow the bussing gods were with me, and I managed to save that piece of lasagna.

Okay, so the lasagna wasn't exactly at rest, but you get the idea. The same principle of arm waving goes for wild gesticulation resulting in the upturning and breakage of glasses of wine and water. And I can't count how many times I've been elbowed in the gut or backhanded in the face by someone who was so into the conversation that my presence went completely undetected. So the lesson: keep your hands close in. I have to remind myself of this one often.

Balance is golden.
Please don't pull drinks off the tray when I'm trying to serve them to you. Please. They're balanced on there carefully, and I'm adjusting my hand underneath that tray to compensate for weight changes. I've set the heaviest objects in the middle of the tray, directly over my hand to maximize support and to get the best balance. Sometimes, though, heavy things have to go on the perimeter, so when that heavy thing is lifted off, the tray works like a see-saw, and if I'm not careful to counterbalance, the drinks on the other side of the tray will go flying, or more likely, crashing to the floor.

I don't expect you to be touching my tray, so when you do, I'm generally not ready for it to happen, and I can't anticipate the weight change, and if there's a drink I'm trying to serve with my other hand, I can't use that hand to help catch the tray. I suppose once in a while I might be working a cocktail party where it is expected that you should take your own glass off the tray, but in that instance the drink will be proffered, but it will be clear that you've got the go-ahead.

But otherwise, please don't touch my tray!

Balance is golden, the corollary.
There is a science and a strategy to clearing tables of empty (or not so empty) plates. Big ones need to go on the bottom, utensils need to be consolidated in one place (generally on the big plate on the bottom), there must be allowances for food left on plates (especially food that is to be wrapped to take home), a balance must be found so that plates do not fall over (see lasagna story above). Before and as we are clearing tables, we are calculating how we are going to approach the next thing we are going to pick up-- what's furthest out of reach, what one dish will compromise the stack because it's shaped differently, how we're going to reach over to grab a dish without dropping the dishes we are already holding or without elbowing a customer in the eye.

So when I'm clearing plates and you've waving one under my nose, shoving it toward me repeatedly, trying to get me to take it from you, there's a good reason I don't: because I can't right then. Sometimes a customer's desire to be "helpful" is so persistent that I have to take the plate and set it back down on the table until I can get to it. It makes me feel mildly like a jerk, but I always smile and say thank you when I do it.

Oh, and stacking plates doesn't help. Resist the urge to do it.

Well, that's all the science I've got in me today. Next stop: organic chemistry.

Just kiddin'.

Class dismissed!