It is sort of crazy how the week progresses, from Tuesday to Saturday, in a gradual climb toward super-busyness. To try to put it in perspective, look at the staffing of the dining room for a typical week. Tuesday night - no bartender on duty (actually, that would be me), two servers and a bus person. Wednesday - the same, plus a bartender and another server. Thursday - the same as Wednesday. Then comes Friday and Saturday - a bartender, four servers, a bus person, tray runner, bread-boy, host...if I am lucky. And we need every single one of them. Sometimes we have a "floater" instead of a tray runner - and we all like Cheryl best for this job - who basically does anything that anyone needs. She can take an order, serve drinks, carry out food, clear a table, bring coffee, whatever needs to be done. I love having a floater to fill in all the gaps.
Last night - Friday - was a fairly typical weekend night, although there were some unusual twists. First of all, we had a ten from Great Oak Manor coming in at 6:30. Secondly, I was short a server - and when we have the dining room divided into three stations, as opposed to the preferred four, everyone is overloaded. Also, I had a new server training with Janet - poor Brittany, we can only hope she comes back today! And then, of course, the dishwasher was called away just after 6 o'clock for a "family emergency". Oh boy, welcome to Brooks Tavern. I wish I could broadcast a tape of how a night like this goes. I am constantly, constantly giving direction. Valerie is steady busy on the bar, making drinks for the floor and for her own customers on the bar, although last night she had no bar-diners, which is unusual in itself. The three servers are non-stop going from table to table, taking orders, spieling specials, serving drinks, clearing dishes, explaining menus. The busperson is trying desparately to keep up with all the clearing and resetting that is his/her duty - last night it was Lindsey's job. Meanwhile, the tray runner - Emily - brings all of the food out of the kitchen, table by table, and serves about 75% of it as well. Emily is a little bundle of energy and strives to keep up the pace. Last night she grabbed a blue cheese salad, went racing toward to the DR without a ticket (which would tell her where the salad was to go) and Kevin stopped her, saying "Where are you going with that?" She replies "To the dining room". Kevin says "What table?" and Emily goes "I don't know!". She was just going to get it somewhere, that was all that seemed to matter at the time.
The kitchen was also understaffed: first of all due to the lost dishwasher (and we volunteer Matt, our bread-boy, to help run racks through, which of course puts an additional strain on the rest of the crew), but also we have no one on the salad station, since LaVonte left last week. Walter is doing that job until we hire a new person, which means his usual place on the line is filled by...Holly and Kevin. Holly doesn't have a whole lot of fun on nights like this, when the tickets just keep coming and the onslaught seems endless and she has to do two people's job. She and Kevin communicate somehow, to get the food out in a timely fashion, and they do it beautifully. All night long there is shouting and swearing and the ten-top is really loud and silverware is polished and orders given and corrections made and have I mentioned that the ten is really, really loud? and glasses put away and things sent back and counters wiped off and 97 customers served. A lot of non-stop non-stop. Finally, things slow down, we all are able to take a deep breath and go, hey, we had a busy night!, we made it and it went great and we did a great job together.
Let's do it all again tonight!
Last night - Friday - was a fairly typical weekend night, although there were some unusual twists. First of all, we had a ten from Great Oak Manor coming in at 6:30. Secondly, I was short a server - and when we have the dining room divided into three stations, as opposed to the preferred four, everyone is overloaded. Also, I had a new server training with Janet - poor Brittany, we can only hope she comes back today! And then, of course, the dishwasher was called away just after 6 o'clock for a "family emergency". Oh boy, welcome to Brooks Tavern. I wish I could broadcast a tape of how a night like this goes. I am constantly, constantly giving direction. Valerie is steady busy on the bar, making drinks for the floor and for her own customers on the bar, although last night she had no bar-diners, which is unusual in itself. The three servers are non-stop going from table to table, taking orders, spieling specials, serving drinks, clearing dishes, explaining menus. The busperson is trying desparately to keep up with all the clearing and resetting that is his/her duty - last night it was Lindsey's job. Meanwhile, the tray runner - Emily - brings all of the food out of the kitchen, table by table, and serves about 75% of it as well. Emily is a little bundle of energy and strives to keep up the pace. Last night she grabbed a blue cheese salad, went racing toward to the DR without a ticket (which would tell her where the salad was to go) and Kevin stopped her, saying "Where are you going with that?" She replies "To the dining room". Kevin says "What table?" and Emily goes "I don't know!". She was just going to get it somewhere, that was all that seemed to matter at the time.
The kitchen was also understaffed: first of all due to the lost dishwasher (and we volunteer Matt, our bread-boy, to help run racks through, which of course puts an additional strain on the rest of the crew), but also we have no one on the salad station, since LaVonte left last week. Walter is doing that job until we hire a new person, which means his usual place on the line is filled by...Holly and Kevin. Holly doesn't have a whole lot of fun on nights like this, when the tickets just keep coming and the onslaught seems endless and she has to do two people's job. She and Kevin communicate somehow, to get the food out in a timely fashion, and they do it beautifully. All night long there is shouting and swearing and the ten-top is really loud and silverware is polished and orders given and corrections made and have I mentioned that the ten is really, really loud? and glasses put away and things sent back and counters wiped off and 97 customers served. A lot of non-stop non-stop. Finally, things slow down, we all are able to take a deep breath and go, hey, we had a busy night!, we made it and it went great and we did a great job together.
Let's do it all again tonight!
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