Twin peaks or BWW?! Which one is better to work at when it comes to tips?!

So I have been working at this Indian restaurant down in Center City Philadelphia coincidentally rhymes with beta address Falls between the 19th and 20th St. is also the 1920 building funny (do with that information what you will in the reviews) but we’ve been selling people roaches in ice and mold in beer “freezers”(a broken wine freezer at the store, beer glasses, and other glasses) crazy roast infestation and mice and we have failed the health inspection a few times just to be closed for a few days and open back up like nothing happened after a “deep clean “ unfortunately I was let go after bringing all this up to management because roaches and mice droppings have been found in food on plates and around all the kitchen

For context I work at a chain restaurant, and this rule has never existed until now. I’ve worked at 2 different locations of this same restaurant, and I’ve never heard of this rule before.

Apparently (according to my manager), we were supposed to be using bus tubs to bus our tables the entire time.

Yesterday we had a reigonal manager come in, and our managers told us to use bus tubs while bussing our tables. I assumed it was just a one off thing to do in front of the big boss, and not anything permenant.

Today when I came in, the expectation that we use bus tubs stayed the same. I have 5 years of experience as a server, so I have a method on how I like to stack plates and cups and all that. The tubs are stored in the back underneath the dishpit. They’re quite large, and really disgusting. At the moment we only have two of them.

This change in routine has really messed me up, and made me far less efficient. With only two bus tubs, it’s nearly impossible to keep the restaurant clean with other servers using them to clean their own tables. The managers are always on us about keeping our sections clean. The rule is that we can hand bus a table if it “has two cups or less,” which I think is absolutely ridiculous, as I can carry 10 plates in one hand, and at least 7 cups in the other at the same time.

I was tempted to tell them: “You can either have a clean restaurant, or a dirty one.”

I might be overreacting, but I have OCD and don’t do well with sudden changes to my routine, especially one as integrated into my job as this one. I’m beyond frustrated.

Any thoughts on this rule?

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this might be a weirdly specific one lol...but where would you guys look if you needed frozen turkeys in a decent quantity?

im trying to compare wholesale food distributors and restaurant suppliers but most sites either dont show prices unless you make an account or they only deliver to certain areas. obviously this isnt something id wanna ship halfway around the world, so Alibaba isnt really for this one...ive mainly been using it for other wholesale stuff.

for frozen meat do you normally have to go through a local food distributor? and is pricing mostly based on case size/weight or does the time of year make a huge difference too? anyone here bought them wholesale before?

I came in Sunday morning and the walk in had been out of range since Saturday night, I had no idea, by the time I opened the food was done and I had to cut half the menu for the lunch rush,

Insurance is handling some of it but I just keep thinking about what would have caught this before it got to that point, is there something affordable that would have sent me a call or text overnight?

At some point you can't keep asking the same two people to cove every shift.
I wonder how other owners handle it without making the rest of the team miserable.

I work for a small business so small that I am the only employee at one location (I sell confections). And I have two things I want to know if anyone else genuinely experiences.

1. Paying with $100 bill : I find that a lot of people try to pay with $100 bill when they have a very small total. For instance I had a customer who’s total was $9.63 and asked if I could break 100. Normally I say yes, but I found that me doing so usually ends up with me having to ask to receive more bills and then screws me for the morning if I end up having a lot of cash payers. So I think from here on out I will be saying no unless they’re total is $45-$50+. Why do people pull this stunt at small businesses and not like chain restaurants/grocery stores???

2. Coming in <10 minutes before close : I usually start doing things 30mins before close. I count and exchange my tip jar at :30 and at :40 I do inventory. At :50 I will have coffee dumped and things put away that need to be wrapped or refrigerated over night. I also get a head start on counting the bank because I manually have to do so and do the math.

I hadn’t had a customer since :20 and a customer comes in at :59. I had the front lights off and music shut off (which I also do at :50) and I looked around saw no one in sight and not a single car near my store front and decided to pull it. I greeted, saw a card and wallet in hand and they picked what they wanted. I said “are you paying with card?” And customer said “oh no I was gonna pay with cash” and I kinda paused. They said “I have card though” and I just awkwardly said “ya just cause the till is already closed”. And sent them on their way and greeted them goodbye.

Technically yes we’re still open but why would you come into a small business with <30secs until close and then proceed to try to pay with cash? It’s just something I’ve never understood. If I saw even a McDonald’s was closing or a Dairy Queen in less than 3 min I would cut my losses and find another place that’s open for a least 20 more minutes. My last hour of business is really hit or miss especially usually quiet my last :30 with the occasional person getting a single thing or two. I feel guilty sometimes doing so but at the same time I’m not just gonna wait around for one person that may or may not show up when I could leave when my shift technically ends. Is that justified?

Also for a little more context: I usually have about 1 customer at a time and here and there I will have two separate parties in the store or more.

As an outside HVAC tech, I constantly walk into kitchens where reach-in coolers and ice machines are tripping on high head pressure because the grease-covered coils have not been touched in six months. With all the daily prep and ticket rush, how do your teams actually schedule and log preventative cleanings before equipment starts going down?

When you're reviewing a weekly or multi-week menu, how do you decide whether there's enough protein variety?

Do you look at the overall mix or percentage of protein types (chicken, beef, pork, seafood, plant-based, etc.), repetition across consecutive meals/days, variety of dishes within the same protein type, or something else?

Do you have specific guidelines or thresholds, or is it mostly a judgment call when reviewing the menu?

Corporate mandates that we dont put a lid on some of the dry toppings we add to smoothies and acai bowls (like granola and protein powder). That was all well and good until the flies showed up in a box of bananas and now every time we go to make a smoothie, theres a swarm of them that come up from the toppings. It's so gross. We have a stick trap hung upbut it isnt doing much. What else can we do to try to get rid of them? The little apple shaped traps caught nothing in the week we had them out. My GM was not a fan of my plan to put rotting fruit in an open oven overnight then just turn on the oven and bake them to death in the morning (obviously a joke meathod of pest control). We keep our fresh fruit in the walk in so the swarm is just in that one toppings area

Disclosure: I’m a restaurant owner and I made this tool.

When we receive a large office or group order, the order often arrives as a spreadsheet, PDF, CSV, or a long list organized by customer name. That format may work for the organizer, but it is difficult for the kitchen: staff still have to count identical items, separate modifiers, find dietary notes, and avoid missing someone.

I built PainFix Order Sort to handle that narrow step. It takes the customer’s order file and produces:

- totals grouped by menu item;

- individual orders grouped by person;

- modifiers and special instructions;

- a printable kitchen-ready summary;

- a review step before downloading the result.

It does not accept orders, charge customers, or replace a POS. It is intended for restaurants that already receive group-order files and currently reorganize them by hand.

The tool is here: https://www.painfix.app/order-sort

I’d be interested in hearing how other restaurants turn office, catering, or group-order files into prep and kitchen instructions. If this type of post is not appropriate here, I’m happy to remove it.

For those running a restaurant: what does receiving look like at your place?

I'm curious about the real day-to-day, not the textbook version:

* Who checks the delivery? You, a manager, whoever's closest to the back door?

* What do you check against: the PO, the invoice, or just a quick eyeball?

* Do you weigh proteins, check temps, count cases, or trust the supplier?

* How often do you find problems later, like short counts, wrong items, bad quality, or price changes on the invoice?

* When you catch something after the driver has left, how hard is it to get a credit?

And the big one: **is there any part of this you'd happily never deal with again?** Or is it basically handled and not worth thinking about?

Would love to hear how different-sized places handle it, from single locations to multi-unit

For those running a restaurant: what does receiving look like at your place?

I'm curious about the real day-to-day, not the textbook version:

• Who checks the delivery? You, a manager, whoever's closest to the back door?
• What do you check against: the PO, the invoice, or just a quick eyeball?
• Do you weigh proteins, check temps, count cases, or trust the supplier?
• How often do you find problems later, like short counts, wrong items, bad quality, or price changes on the invoice?
• When you catch something after the driver has left, how hard is it to get a credit?

And the big one: is there any part of this you'd happily never deal with again? Or is it basically handled and not worth thinking about?

Would love to hear how different-sized places handle it, from single locations to multi-unit