Stupid guests tricks

Guest: How many sliders in the trio?

Me: Erm...

Guest: I'll take the burger but I don't want any of that Angus stuff.

Me: (I did not ask her if she only wanted the bun.)

Just Make Yourselves At Home

Sure, come in, kick off your shoes and put your feet up on the chair. We love that. Especially since others really want to sit where your dirty, stinking feet have been. And also, it's a health violation, but hey! Who are we to judge? So go ahead, do it and then act all pissy when we tell you you have to put your feet down and put your shoes back on. Act like we've asked you to take off your clothes in public, be perfectly outraged and disgusted and make some remark about it as you leave.

Yeah, we love that.

Apropo of nothing...

this has nothing to do with the restaurant industry except that it happened while I was working in a nightclub in Lackawanna, NY.

My first car was a Plymouth Champ which was smaller than a Dodge Dart but served me well and rarely got stuck in the Western NY winters that are so world-wide famous. It had front wheel drive and when it did get stuck it didn't take much to yank it out. But it was an admittedly tiny car. Anyway, I always parked my car in back of the club, so one night when I was reeling drunk out of work at 5 am I couldn't find my car. I complained to the other people I worked with and they pointed out that my car sat on the far side of the parking lot. Of course I knew I didn't park it there, but I thought someone had taken my keys from my purse and moved the car while I worked.

It happened again a couple nights later and it was when I saw the bouncers falling all over themselves with laughter that I found the culprits. But they weren't stealing my keys. They were physically picking the car up and moving it across the lot. I knew my car was small but well, thank god I'm not a guy I guess or I'd have size issues.

Ugly American

I hate foreigners. All servers/bartenders do. They don't fucking tip as a rule or they do but in a way that's so insultingly low that you wish they hadn't bothered at all.

Last night, case in point: $2 on a $69 bill. And I'll bet they thought they were doing me a favor. You know, it's just them pretending that they are foreign and don't know how to do it, because they can ride the subway downtown to ground zero and, more importantly, Century 21 without much problem, so they can certainly read the NY tourist brochures that tell them to tip 15% to %20. I'll take %15, hell, I'll take %10. But the next person who leaves a couple bucks on a significant check gets an earful. I don't care if they don't understand English.

deadbeats and psychos: You know, the normal customers

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In the service industry, when someone doesn't tip or tips so low as to insult you, they are called deadbeats. Well, I had forgot about a different type of deadbeat until my co-worker reminded me last night. I was working at the one hotel and still working a couple days at the another hotel as a bartender. I was working a lunch shift at the second hotel when an elderly woman came in and sat in a nice table by the window. Well it seemed she had fallen asleep when the waiter brought her food, so he interrupted her to tell her her lunch was ready and prodded her shortly thereafter only to find out she died while waiting for her food. (No, she didn't wait *that* long.) Of course all the wait staff goes crazy and security is called and they rope off the section with stanchons and 911 is called and they arrive and there's all this chaos because this woman has died and wouldn't you know it? Other patrons were becoming upset that their lunches were taking too long.

I was reminded of this because I was repeating a story I heard from some airline stewards the other night. One was on a flight back from London and a man went crazy and starts yelling and hitting the ceiling which brought down the airmasks and inflated a lifevest and otherwise was causing chaos in coach. The attendant tried to calm him down and crazy says: I don't need anything from you, you faggy spic. To which the attendant replied: Good thing I'm a faggy dego.

Then crazy turns to the other attendant on the other side of the beverage cart and says: And I don't need anything from you either, you black bitch! That flight attendant went Southern Baptist and starts handing off her earrings to a guest and says: Hold my pearls! He don't know who he's dealing with! and starts to climb over the beverage cart. Finally, the air marshal gets a hold of him and cuffs him and sits him down. Crazy starts to cry because he is told he just earned an automatic 15 years in a federal prison for fucking with airline equiptment and personnel.

Now the first thing that happened while crazy went ballistic was the flight attendants from first class had to drop everything and protect the cockpit which is now standard protocol in case the distraction was intentional and terrorists were planning to charge and take over the plane. So now for the rest of the flight, no one in first class gets any service at all. And these people paid 3-4 thousand dollars on their tix.

So the flight attendant who is relating this story to me has barely caught his breath and hasn't had the moment to wipe his forehead when a woman reaches over, touches his arm and says: Sir, I didn't get my vegetarian meal.

10, 9, 8...Y2K

from Don, NYC.

I worked in a hotel that overlooked Times Square for New Year's Eve that year. The restaurant had huge windows that gave a spectacular view of the festivities. Well, you know, Y2K was predicted to be an utter computer disaster with terrorist aspects (though this was pre-9/11). It made a lot of people very nervous, including me. I hated to be near the windows which I was certain would blow out as soon as the ball came down. So as fast as I could, I refilled glasses of champagne and backed away slowly from the windows. 10, (step), 9, (step), 8, (step)...until I was completely in the kitchen. From there, I weakly yelled "Happy New Year!" and cowered by the servers' stand. It seems silly now, but the threat was considered very real at the time.

Thankfully, it didn't happen, though NYC was to experience a level of terrorism that exceeded any we feared a year later.

You may not get what you pay for

Recently, two friends of mine consulted me on bar etiquette. They found fruitflys in their bourbons and were surprised that the bartender did nothing but shrug it off, rather than apologize, remake the drink and buy it for them. What can I say? Some bartenders are idiots.

But it reminded me of a certain practice that is apparently rampant in many bars in New York: refilling the bottles. It only happened to me at one bar I worked at, but a new bartender we had that we tried to protect from our disingenous business shrugged it off and said he'd seen it a couple times before. Now the State Liquor Authority forbids such practice and they do come in if they suspect something and test the liquor to make certain the bar isn't breaking the law, but they only thing they can really test is the alcohol level of the bottle. So there is no way to tell if the bottle is true Absolut or just plain (cheaper) Smirnoff. As long as the bar pays attention to the proof of the liquor, they will never be caught as long as employees keep their mouths shut. And even then, it's tough to prove.

One night, a guest complained that he was not getting true Cuervo Gold. He wasn't. The color was especially off. But to calm the guest, I brought the bottle over and poured the shots right at the table. That satisfied him.

You should be aware that this would possibly be the case in smaller bars or bars where the owner is cheap or just plain greedy, two instances that would be impossible to know. My owner was just plain greedy. He was also the same guy of the sexist, racist persuasion that I mentioned in an earlier post. When you are in a bar, pay attention to the bottles on the back wall. If they all have pourers in them, rather than closed and sealed, it is possible they refill the bottles. This is not always the case as bartenders might prepare for a busy night by setting up some bottles as ready to pour. But it's something to look for anyway.