Saturday night - Labor Day Weekend Saturday night, mind you - we experienced (suffered?) a first time event in our career of owning and operating full service restaurants. In 23 years of serving the people of Kent County this was the first time we have opened up for dinner service with no dishwashers on site. 6PM - no one here to man the dish area.
Unbelievable as that may sound to you, it was true. We already were a little sketchily staffed anyway, with the new hire not available and her sub a temporary fix from the previous Saturday night, never a good situation. The regular 4:00 person, Debbie, called out during the early afternoon with an injury she had incurred the day before. When we called the sub, to see if he could come earlier than the scheduled 6PM, we were informed that he was not coming in at all. When we called the new hire, coming in at 5:30 to train, he did not answer his phone. Things were not looking good. We began calling all the other dish washers, none of whom were answering their phones at 5PM on Saturday of Labor Day weekend, especially when they saw the Brooks Tavern number in their caller ID. Can you blame them??? Next we solicited every other staff member to call everyone they knew - friends, brothers, parents, grandparents. No luck...it was getting to be a pretty scarey night ahead for us. The two junior cooks, John and Todd, picked up the slack immediately and took care of the pot station before service began, but no way could they cover it when they were busy at their posts on the line. We had one choice and I made it at a little after six - James, our saviour once before, would have to rescue us again. I sent him home to change out of his bus uniform into dish washer appropriate gear and put him back on his post in the back of the house. He was a trooper - again - and spent the rest of the night keeping up on both the pots and the dishes during what became one of our busiest nights of the year. When it was pretty much all over - and the onslaught of pots began pouring from the line to the pot sink - I headed back to the dish station to put in my time. Kevin helped close it out, as did Todd and John once more, and we finally got finished.
Probably as close to being a night from hell as we've ever had - new waiter/busser on the trays, down one busser, since James had been pulled off the floor to do the dish thing, leaving a relatively new fellow holding down the fort on his own - and Andrew did a spectacular job, keeping up with both the bread service and much of the major bussing the entire night - with the reservation book containing 3 sixes and a party of nine. We made it by the skin of our teeth, probably not with the best service we've ever been able to offer, but we made it and that was all I wanted to do at that time - get through it.
So if you were here on Saturday night and wondering why we were all looking so serious (and perhaps grim, on my part) the behind the scenes action was a ruling factor. I apologize for any and all service glitches and I sure hope this situation never, ever happens again. But chances are it could...and we better be ready!
Unbelievable as that may sound to you, it was true. We already were a little sketchily staffed anyway, with the new hire not available and her sub a temporary fix from the previous Saturday night, never a good situation. The regular 4:00 person, Debbie, called out during the early afternoon with an injury she had incurred the day before. When we called the sub, to see if he could come earlier than the scheduled 6PM, we were informed that he was not coming in at all. When we called the new hire, coming in at 5:30 to train, he did not answer his phone. Things were not looking good. We began calling all the other dish washers, none of whom were answering their phones at 5PM on Saturday of Labor Day weekend, especially when they saw the Brooks Tavern number in their caller ID. Can you blame them??? Next we solicited every other staff member to call everyone they knew - friends, brothers, parents, grandparents. No luck...it was getting to be a pretty scarey night ahead for us. The two junior cooks, John and Todd, picked up the slack immediately and took care of the pot station before service began, but no way could they cover it when they were busy at their posts on the line. We had one choice and I made it at a little after six - James, our saviour once before, would have to rescue us again. I sent him home to change out of his bus uniform into dish washer appropriate gear and put him back on his post in the back of the house. He was a trooper - again - and spent the rest of the night keeping up on both the pots and the dishes during what became one of our busiest nights of the year. When it was pretty much all over - and the onslaught of pots began pouring from the line to the pot sink - I headed back to the dish station to put in my time. Kevin helped close it out, as did Todd and John once more, and we finally got finished.
Probably as close to being a night from hell as we've ever had - new waiter/busser on the trays, down one busser, since James had been pulled off the floor to do the dish thing, leaving a relatively new fellow holding down the fort on his own - and Andrew did a spectacular job, keeping up with both the bread service and much of the major bussing the entire night - with the reservation book containing 3 sixes and a party of nine. We made it by the skin of our teeth, probably not with the best service we've ever been able to offer, but we made it and that was all I wanted to do at that time - get through it.
So if you were here on Saturday night and wondering why we were all looking so serious (and perhaps grim, on my part) the behind the scenes action was a ruling factor. I apologize for any and all service glitches and I sure hope this situation never, ever happens again. But chances are it could...and we better be ready!
I keep telling you that you should call me! but noooo.... you would rather suffer through. Oh well, I couldn't have made it any way. :)
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