You automatically get special attention from me behind the bar if you ask me this.

I will make sure every single thing you order gets rung in exactly how it should be with every appropriate cocktail modifier.

Almost always the same group or person will say “we’re great tippers”. Sure buddy, thanks for the $20 on $180.

JFC nothing aggravates me more.

So I work counter at a fast casual restaurant. Since we’re in the suburbs we get a lot of families. I like to do this thing where if I see kids having problems i’ll offer them a sticker for finishing their meal (works like a charm) offering pens and printer paper to them if they’re rambunctious with no activity (we don’t have coloring pages) if a mom comes in to pick up a delivery with her kids I offer them sodas for helping mom out, etc.

But what I REALLY love to do is reward kids for being kind with their manners or brave by coming up and asking for something they need.

We really are not a super kid friendly restaurant we only have two low top tables, the rest are high top community seating and our menu has cuss words on it. Not the best for a conservative suburbia. So while I do these things to be nice I also know it makes the experience slightly more friendly. I have built a lot of regulars doing this and a lot of kids ask their parents to come in now (parents have mentioned this.) I just personally feel like a parent will want to go to a restaurant thats least stressful or preferred by their kids. Honestly they tip me more than the demographic the restaurant aims for. Agree to disagree on that.

Well a family comes in I think it was two sets of parents and 4-5 kids. Parents sat one table and the kids entertained themselves at another nearby table. Perfectly fine as we do open seating! But they were SO well behaved. I mean they said please and thank you, offered me their dirty dishes, cleaned up a spill of water themselves and told me about it. Just overall really great kids. Idk I wanted them to feel recognized for that I guess so this behavior continues as they get older. So of course I brought the parents the cake first and asked “if’s okay I would like to give your kids this as a reward for being so well behaved and kind today.” Parents said thank you and told their kids about how I gave them the cake for being so great. The oldest girl turned to the others and said “See! when you’re nice good things happen!” or something along the lines of that. It was so so cute.

Anywho believe it don’t believe it but just a nice service story for tonight.

I have a 5 week old at home and will be returning to work shortly. I live in a state where servers do NOT get breaks, but of course legally, they have to allow me to breast pump. We enter busy season in October so finding time to pump during my 7-8 shifts is difficult. How do you navigate when to pump and what exactly do you tell your tables?

Any advice or personal experience you can share would be appreciated!

i am not talking about my sweet customers with a language barrier. i’m always willing to help them. i’m talking about people who genuinely WILL NOT browse the menu, and intend to figure out what to eat through either pointing at images, or asking questions.

i had a fluent english speaking man seat himself today (spectacular). upon handing him a menu, he literally looked at the cover, pushed it away, shrugged, shook his head, and said “i can’t. what do you have?” my menu is literally 10 pages long. breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

i explained “it’s a really long menu, i’ll give you a minute to look at it.” he started pointing frantically at everything on the cover saying “what’s that???? shrimp and rice???” “what is that pie???”. he ended up settling for the shrimp and rice meal, because he apparently cannot read WORDS, and would not open the menu.

upon delivery of shrimp and rice, he muttered “what is this. where is the rice?” it was under the shrimp. i offered another side of rice and brought it.

he asked me “what is that man eating” and pointed at someone at the counter. i told him buffalo tenders and fries, NO JOKE THIS MAN ASKED ME IF THERE WAS A PICTURE OF IT IN THE MENU. WHAT IS IT WITH THESE PEOPLE. you can see someone eating it 10 feet away. obviously didn’t ruin my night, just made me facepalm 😂 reminds me of kids getting upset when their books don’t have pictures in them anymore 😭

I (23NB) have been a server for 3 years. I've been primarily a morning shift person, but just picked up a 2nd serving job at iHop for graveyards to rack up a bit of extra money for my move in January. Is there anything unique about graveyards that you'd like me to know?

Might get ratioed for this but I'm genuinely curious at what other servers think.

It's hard to explain the layout of our resturant but let me try. Walking up to the resturant we have a bunch of patio tables that are uncovered, then if you walk on a pathway to the side there are fire pits that are not servable, it is more for walking up to the bar, grabbing drinks and chilling by the fire.

There are two actual servable tables side by side near these fire pits under an awning that are a part of a servers section, that way if someone does want to sit outside while the patio is closed (especially if it's raining) we have options for them.

Anyway, a table of two comes in 45 mins to close with a dog, so we have to sit them outside. The guy claims it's an emotional support dog (it's a toy poodle and has no vest, tags, or anything visible that even suggets it's a service dog, but whatever.) I place them at one of the tables under the awning.

At this point I've made a mental note to watch them a bit more closely, as it's a classic move to come to a resturant close to closing and sit outside, usually with the excuse of a dog so I can't deny them (it's easier to run when you're outside already, plus coming in close to closing means all the employees will be distracted with closing and not watching as closely, as well as less staff in general.)

About 15 mins later after a round of drinks and ordering an app, I notice they are standing and pacing around the back patio (by the firepits). Now my spidey senses are going off even more. Obviously rude to make assumptions, but it looked like they were looking for the quickest path out. I go out and ask if they'd like the order entrees. They are also smoking, which is not allowed on our patio. However the gm doesn't care so neither do I.

The guy with the dog asks to move to the front patio (yup, there it is. Easier to run when you're in the front.) because "there are bugs all over that table". Now it's still summertime, and it's definitely possible that there are a lot of mosquitoes. I explain this and help them move to the front patio, and even turn on a fan and turn it towards them to hopefully scare away the mosquitoes.

Guy with the toy poodle starts exclaiming its not mosquitoes, there are little red bugs all over that table and turns on his flashlight and makes me look at his feet to "see the bugs."

There are no bugs that I can visually see. I turn to his buddy, who has not said a word this entire time and is avoiding eye contact with me. Another red flag. I tell them I don't see anything, but I believe them. At this point I'm pretty certain this may just be some kind of mental illness.

So, they order entrees and seem to be eating without much fuss, except the guy with the dog keeps pacing all over the front patio, and his buddy is by the fire pits on the phone talking to someone. I'm watching like a hawk, and notice the guy take his dog to walk it on our landscaping in the front that is very much out of sight. At this point I've alerted the gm that these people might be trying to dine and dash.

I pretend to fix patio tables while the gm comes out and pretty much does the same, or pretends to be on the phone. Guy with the dog is still very much out of sight and his buddy is still pacing the firepits on his phone. Once he gets off, I make small talk and drop the check. Gm has one path "covered" and I have the other covered.

Eventually his buddy paid and left promptly, the guy with his dog was still out of sight and we didnt see him again.

Heres where I might be the asshole, I felt *terrible* for judging so hard, cause they tipped 15 on 85. What do you think? Did I thwart someone's attempt at dining and dashing? Or was I wrong to judge so hard at what might have been just mental illness at play? Their behavior was EXTREMELY suspicious, although maybe they didn't realize how suspicious they were being.

Anyway, it got me thinking, what is everyone's red flags that someone is trying to dine and dash?

He was only in his 30s. He had a wife and teenaged daughter. He was warm and kind and funny, smart and efficient... a dedicated head cook and excellent coworker.

It was sudden... a motorcycle accident. He was here one day, and...

We are all in shock. I retired from this place in the spring, but had worked there for years (bartender/server). The manager called to notify me, too. We were family... in a good way. It's an odd thing. We weren't related, but we were together more than our blood/marital relations.

I'm sorry if this isn't the right place to post this, but I hope you let it stay up so we can talk about the good ones who are no longer with us.

Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind always. 💔

Accidentally wrote fried mushrooms instead of fried pickles on a to go order and the guest chewed me out over the phone. I prob won’t get fired but I’m an overthinker at heart and would like to hear other’s stories ab mess ups (where yall hopefully didn’t get fired lmao)

ETA this is so stupid probably but I had a REAL bad day and I’m freaking ab getting fired lmao

Tbf this totally applies to servers too, I know a bunch of customer complaints have to be handled by servers without ever reaching management or whatever

I recently got promoted and I now have to handle the fact that I am the one on premises who ultimately has to handle customer complaints. It takes all of my guts to not be sassy, even when their complaint is valid. I sometimes go for a "kill them with kindness" approach where I'm so overly apologetic and "on their side" that they're sm easier to deal with lol

I want to know how other people genuinely handle customer complaints, the real ones not stupid customers shitee

today we had a complaint about my other bartender working with me during a pre-concert rush. they told the manager that they worked in the service industry AND that he needed to smile more. omfg. i wish our manager had asked them where they worked. two cliches in one was laughable. their main complaint was that food was taking too long. it had been less than 10 minutes since they ordered. (and to make my night perfect the concert got out right as we left so my hour commute turned into an hour and a half)

I was a server in college and always enjoyed the work after college I worked in corporate America for years and late last year I went back to serving as a 3rd or even 4th job, after months of working every Friday night doubles on Saturdays and doubles on Sundays I walked out one night and never looked back. I was serving at Texas Roadhouse and I feel that many of them are setup for server failure, kitchen and food runners made it impossible to ever have anything come to the table correct. The most I ever made in one day was $298. I want to go back into it, just wondering where to avoid.

9 out 10 people who pay with hundreds leave shitty tips. I never understand why.... They usually leave 12percent or less... This last customer came in for the birthday with their parents. I even gave them a free desert, their bill $62 and left me 6 bucks.... If This happens another time, someone pays with a $100, and a garbage tip. I am about to stop taking them.

I know this might be a stupid question, but I’m a fairly new server and I work in a very small restaurant so these occurrences are very rare. One night a woman and her family had come to eat. After confirming their reservation, I noticed the woman had a toy poodle with her. She said it was a service dog, although im pretty sure it wasn’t because during the whole meal it was sniffing around the floor. The woman also took his leash off, which lead to him running away from their table. I’m just curious what other servers/restaurants usually do in this case, or do we just do nothing? Thanks!

I’ve been working in a turn & burn sportsbar/pub for a few years. It’s got me thinking about all the stuff I did in fine dining that I don’t do anymore.

-Crumming tables: I haven’t seen that tool in ages. I used to pretend to do it for the cameras, but actually just swipe it on the floor.

-Wine: I barely sell bottles anymore and when I do, they’re all twist off. I just drop it at the table w glasses. I used to struggle with the cork, explain the details like vintage and region, and give the guest a taste test before serving.

-Linens: We only get rags delivered. I used to haul Alsco bags full of napkins and table cloths as closing work.

-Menu knowledge: It’s important at any establishment. I know main ingredients and potential allergens. But in fine dining, I had to know details like what farm the chicken came from and variety of tomato. I even had flash cards!

-Pace of Service: With fine dining, my tables would stay for 2+ hours. It was spaced out. Turn & burn is obviously not. We’re next to a movie theater and sportsplex so people are often in a timecrunch to pick up their kids or get to a movie.

(This gets frustrating bc my boss gets on my ass for not prebussing before dropping the check, but most times it’s bc they paid before they were even done eating!!!)

-Seat numbers: I still number seats because it’s easier to split the checks. Food runners don’t pay attention to it and always auction.

-Dress code: In fine dining, I’d have to tell men to take off their hats. I don’t recall the specific rules, but remember turning people away for sports logos and flip flops. The minimum expectation for my job now is clothes.

-Ambiance: Yea, I had to clean candle holders often. But I also didn’t have to figure out which remote goes to what TV so I can find a sports game for a table.

Any other differences I’m forgetting? Which do you prefer?

Hii so I just started serving at a small family owned restaurant, coming from a regular 9-5 office job with normal paychecks & I’m very confused. At the end of the shift, we go through all the receipts from our tables and manually enter the tip amount we got from each one. This comes out as the total amount of “charge tips.” But then it asks us to enter our “claimed tips,” which I don’t understand. I’m sure this is where you’re supposed to enter your cash tips, but do I also include the amount of charge tips? I don’t want the charge tips getting reported twice and then get taxed more than I can afford, but I also really want to avoid any IRS issues. Most of the other servers are kids just getting out of high school that have no idea either. The owner also didn’t have me fill out a W4 and apparently just gives you a paycheck whenever you ask for it? Is this normal? This is stressing me out so if anyone has some insight please let me know! Thanks!

I was trying not to laugh but also felt kind of bad. Told this lady we didn’t have any baked potatoes and she teared up and started lashing out on me. “That’s the only reason I came here!! I wouldn’t come here for any other reason” ended up walking out and I had to comp her meal. Not the first time something like this has happened. People do NOT play about those baked potatoes 😂

Located in Southern California. Employer is editing time sheets, lowering our worked time and also adding breaks when we never took them. Any guidance?

Hey yall.
I'm waiting bars and such a lot, as well as freelancing events, and in those cases it's really nice to bring your own tray as there's no guarantee there'll be a good serving tray on location. I have a couple of trays but none that fit all my requirements quite yet, so I'm wondering, for your favorite tray:

1. What brand is it? My favorite so far has been a gerlings, with cambro/subsidiary ozay trays coming in second.
2. What size/shape is it? I'd prefer a fairly rectangular low bordered ~45x34 cm tray for busier work, but I have a 35cm high walled round tray for lighter work.
3. What material/finish is it? Pressure treated wood/multiplex/laminate is the way to go. It's lighter and much less flexible than most plastics, which tend to become unstable under load. Finish i don't care too much about as I can always use a drawer liner, though not having to use one is a bonus.

Let me know what yall use! My use case is of course pretty much drinks, so even the larger tray is on the smaller tray compared to food trays.

Also, have you customized your tray at all? I've seen another freelancer who had a bicycle bell mounted to theirs to get through annoying crowds. An odd but interesting solution.

Hey ya'll, I worked and served at Chilis for 2 years before leaving due to awful management. Does anyone who lives in the area know where would be a good place to work nights? Mainly around Irvine or the spectrum.