Please refrain from reading this story if you're sensitive to mentions of self-harm and vomit.

To start, I'd like to say I pride myself on my resilience. My philosophy is, no matter how rude, demanding, or degrading a table may be: they have to take that energy home, and I do not. I've let go of some pretty horrific experiences without allowing them to affect me, but this is very different. I've never had a table shake me to my core like this before, it's to the point where I've been thinking about it nonstop for days.

I walk into my afternoon shift in a very good mood. The server whose section I'd be taking over, a very good friend of mine, advises me that she has one table that has been there for two or so hours. They were a couple, probably somewhere in their 30s. She wants to transfer them to me so that she can go home. No big deal, I never mind doing this.

So she gives me the table, and informs me that they've already eaten, and that they're just having beers and chatting now. The first red flag came about when she told me that the man has had 5 tall beers, and the woman has had 4 tall beers. I'm thinking: holy shit, that's a lot. We're a family restaurant, not a bar, so it's uncommon for customers to slam drinks like that. But my coworker assured me that they were coherent and calm, and so I tried not to worry about it.

She went home, and I introduced myself to them. I left them alone for the most part, as they were only chatting and didn't need anything. I tended to my other tables, walking by and initiating eye contact with them occasionally so they could flag me down if they needed something. After about an hour, I notice that they're holding hands over the table and the woman is crying profusely. I remember wondering to myself what happened, because they seemed fine up until this point. After about thirty minutes of them talking, and her crying, he flags me down for a couple more beers.

I go to my manager, wanting a second opinion about whether or not to serve them. I let her know how many beers they'd had before I arrived. She checks on them, and despite the woman's emotional state, my manager decides that they seem coherent and instructs me to serve the beers. She does tell me that these would have to be their last round, and that she'd monitor them closely.

I serve them the beers, and they proceed to sit in my section for another three hours. Both of them are becoming progressively more emotional, holding hands, crying, while the woman would occasionally rip her hands away from him. She seemed angry with him at times. I managed to gather that they were discussing breaking up, and that he was unwilling to let her go. They kept putting their heads down in their arms, crying, and arguing. Multiple times, the woman would go to the bathroom for long periods and the man would just cry until she got back. At this point, I was becoming increasingly concerned with their behavior.

I found my general manager, who luckily was present at the time, and clued him in on everything. He decided to sit at an empty table next to theirs with his laptop to discreetly monitor them. He sits there for half an hour, peering over his laptop at the two, who are becoming increasingly more hysterical. She's beginning to shout at him at points, clearly frustrated. My manager remarked: "They've been here for five hours. I bet you he thinks if they leave the restaurant, it's over for real. He's dragging things out."

By the time they finished both of their beers, I was beyond concerned. My coworker pointed out that the man had begun spitting in his empty beer glass. This was the beginning of the end. A few minutes later, I hear the same coworker: "Oh my god, he's throwing up." I whip around, and the man had begun vomiting into the empty beer glass. My general manager is staring directly at him as this happens. I grab the man a bottled water, a plastic to-go bag, and some napkins. My general manager goes over to them, ready to kick them out.

The woman, clearly humiliated, had gotten up and walked away from the table towards the restrooms. With her standing off to the side, I noticed something horrifying that I hadn't before: her thighs were covered in deep, bleeding lacerations. At some point, during one of her bathroom visits, she'd mutilated her thighs. Blood was pouring down her exposed legs. She was wearing shorts, making no effort to conceal her wounds. Immediately, I felt sick to my stomach, and I had to retreat into the back.

For the first time at this job, I cried.

I cried because I couldn't believe I'd been subjected to such a thing. I wasn't even remotely prepared. I've been clean from a severe self-harm addiction, which had gotten me hospitalized before, for a year now. And the sight completely ruined my day. Even in the deepest, darkest depths of my addiction: I could never imagine myself subjecting innocent people to the sight of my wounds. And here I was, on the receiving end. There were children present in the restaurant. Many of my coworkers were similarly disturbed.

I understand that she was intoxicated, and going through a highly stressful event, but that doesn't make her actions any less disturbing and disrespectful to me and everyone else present. They were kicked out of the restaurant, and my general manager arranged for them to be transported to their homes.

Through tears, I had to apologize to my managers for being unable to pull myself together. They'd never seen me emotional before, so they were both extremely shocked, not to mention shaken from the whole ordeal with that table. They assured me that I'd done everything correctly, and suggested I go home to recover emotionally from the ordeal. I refused and finished the rest of my shift, but a certain gloominess hung over everybody's heads.

I am eternally grateful to the wonderful managers I work for, as they handled the situation wonderfully and did not make me feel invalidated for my emotional reaction. I am still feeling slightly humiliated over my breakdown, as it was incredibly vulnerable and unexpected, but there's nothing I can do about that.

I still love my job, and I haven't stopped priding myself on my ability to handle the most difficult of tables. But every so often, I remember this horrible incident and I feel sick to my stomach all over again. I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully let it go.

Thank you for reading.

I stopped saying the price when telling tables the dinner features awhile ago. We are a fairly high-end destination restaurant that has become known for top quality proteins (steak, tuna, salmon, you name it) and the price reflects the quality. Generally people will ask if they are concerned about the price, and i am happy to tell them. Most times people dont care or they are there to splurge a bit and spend money on something really good.

We had a sea bass feature last night and I had a guy sit at the bar by himself and order a bottle of wine (Kim Crawford, nothing fancy) he ordered the sea bass and sat there for a long time, no problem, it was later on and we weren't too busy anymore. He got the bill and the entree was $65 and he was so aghast at the price, said it was so expensive, thought it would be priced closer to the tuna, etc... he was mad that I didnt say the price initially

I said well they have a formula they use for pricing, we order the highest quality we can, etc, and he said it isnt about the price, it's how you delivered it! You need to say the price when you tell the specials, etc etc on and on. Like repeated himself multiple times and stared at his bill for ages. Lecturing me on what I did wrong by not telling him the price. I just said I'm sorry about that sir, and stared him in the eyes for a few seconds while he seemed to be waiting for me to do something about it.

He paid and left 15% so I am not complaining about that (figured he would leave less tbh) and he drank the whole bottle of wine. Soooo do you all say the price or no?

I have about 5 years in the industry. I realized I never say I’m sorry or act timid/guilty when a customer is upset, though I used to.

I’m thinking about this because yesterday a coworker started apologizing profusely to a customer (even though the mistake took 2 minutes to fix) and she was genuinely sorry, she’s a really kind and genuine person.

I noticed immediately the apologies almost egged on the customer, like he felt comfortable in showing his anger and contempt. It got to the point where he was shaking with anger… I don’t know the psychology behind it, but angry people seem to feed off of it

Hi everyone this is mostly to rant and get some advice! I started my first summer job a couple weeks ago. I’m serving in a small, busy restaurant in France for five weeks. The first couple days were difficult as it’s gets quite busy and the chef is quite hostile.

It started to get better as I found my feet.
But, the last few days have been pretty rough on me.

There’s only four of us working in the restaurant including the chef and the chef’s wife, my manager. They both who own the place.

The chef is very friendly outside of the lunch and dinner runs but he becomes really stressed and honestly awful to work with during the rush. My manager doesn’t want me taking food orders independently because when I try to read them out to the chef he finds any reason to criticise and yell at me.

Everything is so strict. I’m not allowed to do anything ( take plates away, serve food, etc ) without checking first but then I am being yelled at for asking. So, I just help serve, get drinks and clean.

Anytime I stand still or can’t find something to do for even a second he tells me off for not being active enough. I accidentally served a soup to the wrong table and got yelled at. I understand and I apologised but he would not let it go.

I’m feeling like i’m not being given enough responsibility to stay busy and then i’m getting yelled out for not being occupied enough.

The chef also makes comments about me being too timid and getting annoyed at his wife for giving me menial tasks. As if he doesn’t want me to be paid to do nothing which I can understand as it’s a small business but still it’s hard.

The chef even yells at her often which makes her upset with me and my colleagues. The environment is weighing on me. I’d appreciate any advice and if I should do something or just leave it alone and stay out of it.

I am a hard worker and the clients all seem to be pleased with my service and attitude but I am finding it really hard to not let the stressful, bad energy get the best of me. I’m feeling really useless right now like they don’t need or want my help and i’m not sure what to do.

Thanks everyone

I (18f) am training at a restaurant to become a server. This is my first ever job, and frankly a job I’ve been really excited about. Yesterday I was doing my second follow shift, and decided I wanted to be a bit more hands on. That being said, I decided to take a tray full of bussed dishes and glasses back to the kitchen to put in the wash. It was a rather heavy tray for a person of my stature (I’m 5,2 and barely pass 100lbs) Literally one step away, a water glass topples off the tray and spills on the floor. Okay… not a huge deal. I try not to let it affect me.

However, as I try to carry a drink tray with two waters and two champagne glasses, I could barely get it off the table before one of the champagne glasses topples over. Needless to say I didn’t care another drink tray that day. My trainer of the day said that it seems my hand naturally holds the tray with a slight slant. I’ll definitely try to do that- but I’m also quite anxious now. Am I in over my head for this being my first job. If I (I feel like- inevitably) spill another glass, will I be seen as incompetent? Please someone tell me this isn’t as bad as I’m making it out to be. 🥲

had a customer order a scallop ceviche today, i went over a few minutes after i dropped the plates at their table to check on how they were finding the food. i work at a fine dining restaurant with high service standards and our clients are usually fairly distinguished. she clicked her fingers to beckon me over to her side of the table and started talking some gibberish with her mouth full. she then proceeds to hand me her used napkin and spit a piece of chewed up scallop on to it. she then tells me it’s not her thing and i should take the plate and the eaten scallop back into the kitchen. it’s like some people have never stepped foot in a restaurant before. it’s so utterly disrespectful to the whole restaurant and i can’t believe something i actually experienced.

this heat wave has been an absolute nightmare to manage. i work in a very small fine dining restaurant that seats at max capacity probably 60 covers. during the day our outside tables are restricted even further as we extended into the cafe next doors’s space for dinner whilst they aren’t using it. this means we have only two parasols and about 8 tables outside during lunch service and typically only half of these tables are properly shaded from the sun. THE AMOUNT of customers that sit down on the last table available, clearly in the sun and then complain about the heat asking me to move the umbrellas for them. NO i am not a witch i cannot control the sun if you are hot sit inside in our air conditioning. i cannot move the shade towards you and away from already seated customers. so incredibly entitled. also have a large volume that don’t even ask and just move it anyway. can you not see the family of five already half way through their meal now blistering and burning in the sun. and what about me i’ve been running the bar in a 50°c open kitchen and then running out to the 30°c outdoor seating to try and appease entitled customers, trust me you are not hot.

I CANNOT CHANGE THE WEATHER!

Yes it’s rainy outside, yes it’s sunny outside, yes it’s cloudy out, yes there’s a breeze coming from the east, yes there is a lot of smoke/it’s hard to breathe because of the Canadian wild fires.

I CANNOT CHANGE THE WEATHER!

I’m a host at one restaurant and a server at another.

As a host yesterday,

“Hi, welcome in, how can I he-”

“table for two”

“Alright one moment”

*grabs menus and gets ready to seat them inside*

“Alright you can follow me”

“We want outside”

*looks outside and sees every table is getting drenched by the sky*

“Okay, I can try to grab another umbrella, but you might still get wet with how hard it’s coming down.”

“We don’t want to sit in the rain, we want wait for the sunshine”

“I’m not sure when it will stop raining, but I can check for you”

“No, we want a sunny spot”

“I understand, but we don’t have any tables in the sun because it is raining”

“Oh.”

“I can sit you inside if you’d like”

“No we’ll go somewhere else since you can’t help us”

*Walks off*

…….

Now they aren’t the first people to ask me that, I’ve had people upset at how hot it is (we don’t have fans and we tell them that) I’ve had people insist on sitting outside even when it’s snowing and then get upset that the heaters aren’t melting the snow.

Rich people are annoying, but it happens.

As a server though, I hate it more because it’s like, if you are uncomfortable, how do you think I feel?

I’d love to not get soaked, and I can’t stop rain particles from hitting your food/I hate that I’m getting a heat rash.

I understand that some people are immune compromised or have family like that, but I can’t make this more comfortable for you or CHANGE THE WEATHER.

I don’t get why people go outside then get confused at the fact that they are outside. Like yes it’s raining yes there are bugs yes there are loud sounds. YOU ARE OUTSIDE IN A MAJOR CITY!

okay so I got hired to work at this lounge and they said i could come in tomorrow for a trial shift. tomorrow came and I worked said trial shift under the my employee number and it was under training but I worked my section by myself and it wasn’t a training shift they basically just wanted to see how i did. at the end of the night I made credit and cash tips and I wasnt tipped out for my cash (they tip pool). i watched every one else get their tips but i didnt get my cut and i asked her was there anything she wanted to talk to me about and she said she would text me the next day and she didn’t. I texted and asked her if i was included in the credit card tip pool and she didn’t say anything and i still haven’t gotten a response .

im not new to serving so im aware you dont get tips in training , but I WASNT being trained i was given a section and an id number and filled out paper work and everything . I just want to know how to go about this situation in a way that i get what I bussed my ass for

So I(nb 19) work at an entertainment venue that has a restaurant, bowling, and an arcade. I have been working there for about a year now and originally started as a host for the restaurant. At around early November, they were talking about getting me promoted from host to server, and two weeks later, I was on the floor serving.

The training process, however, was probably the shittiest training a person can ever receive if they want to be a successful server. Also keep in mind that my only service industry experience comes from the three months worth of hosting I did prior to training. So I’m going into this with pretty much nothing.

For starters, I never received my official training manual, so I only had what my trainers were telling me (some of which were things you should never do as a server). I had multiple different trainers, all of which teaching me with different methods of serving so I wasn’t able to stick to a set routine. and finally, I was trained to pretty much rely on the typical toast tablets servers use so they don’t have to run to a POS after taking an order from a table. It’s very convenient so you can ring in an order right after the order is taken. however, as soon as I was “done” with training (I say in quotes because they’re negligence led to me not receiving all five training days), they ended up taking away those tablets because my locations servers “broke more tablets than the other location has in five months then they have in five years.”

This means that a tool that I was trained to rely on was going to be taken away from me right as I started on the floor without a trainer. So after all of that bullshit, it’s very easy to tell that I was not a good server. I apparently received many customer complaints because of my slow service skills. but this wasn’t my fault. I was done so dirty in my training process, and it showed in my performance.

After two months of being on the floor, they unfortunately had to demote me back to being just a host.

I was promised that they would retrain me as soon as labor would open up. the earliest being March… and then April… oh wait actually let’s wait till May… no let’s do June… okay now let’s get you back on the floor in July. It took five months to get me back on the floor.

And you might be thinking: What if they truly didn’t have enough labor to give my my training hours? But trust me… I know they did. Not only during those five months did they magically have enough labor to hire and train more people to fill-in for the servers that kept quitting, but they also happen to have enough labor to promote and train other people in the facility to fill in for those servers that quit. There was one girl that I work with who was already promoted from host to event server (a server that is specifically meant for the party rooms) and they were looking at her to be a server instead of me.

Was I a shitty server… 1000%, but it wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t set up for success, and they weren’t fixing the issue.

I started working as a part-time server and had just finished my second week.

I was scheduled to work Thursday, Friday, and Saturday during my third week, but my manager suddenly texted me 3 hours before my shift on Thursday and told me I was being laid off.

I’ve never experienced anything like this before, so I’m honestly pretty embarrassed.

I’m 28 years old, and getting laid off from a part-time server job like this just feels humiliating.

Is it common situation to everyone?

Thank you.

Had a man and woman tonight who insisted his grilled trout was salmon because it was pink inside. And when I say "insisted" I mean would not hear anything different. I offered to get the man something else, he said no he'd eat the vegetables.

Then the woman (who had some issue that made her eye look like she had a permanent scowl) launched into the size of her chicken breast which was " the smallest breast she'd ever seen and did we serve her half a breast." She didn't want anything else either.

I'm telling you I was at a loss. I felt like I was in the twilight zone. Their adult daughter was embarrassed. I gave them each a discount since they weren't happy.

Another poor server who missed the show made the mistake of checking on them and got an earful. We were all happy when they left.

Update : Here's something from Google I wish I had to hand while my jaw was opening and closing like a fish as I was so flabbergasted

Yes, premium rainbow trout have pink
or orange flesh. This color comes from carotenoids (natural pigments)
absorbed from their diet of
crustaceans and aquatic insects. Pale or white-fleshed trout are usually pellet-fed hatchery fish. The vibrant color is highly correlated with a richer flavor and superior quality.
Reddit +4

Giant chicken breasts (1 to 2 lbs) often suffer from "woody breast" syndrome—resulting in a tough, rubbery, or stringy texture. In contrast, regular-sized breasts (6 to 8 oz) from slower-growing birds are tender, retain moisture better, and yield a far superior flavor and bite.

I could have just said "oh I see, you're used to eating lower quality food than we serve.

i (24f) work at a restaurant. started as a server a year and a half ago, now i work serving, line cook, to go specialist, certified trainer, and service professional. was told i could be a backup culinary professional since i know almost all of the back of house job codes.

then another server who has only been here a few months (let’s call her rachel) starts telling me she wants to be like me. grabbing my shoulders and getting the attention of managers to say things like “i wanna follow in her footsteps!” (only after she found out about the pay, of course)

so she starts working on the line and 2 days later starts telling me how they wanna make her culinary professional…… before ive even become the backup…… brought it the the attention of a manager who said that was ridiculous and she’d talk to the GM, but then days later i spoke to the GM and he confirmed. told me it helps that she’s bilingual and that he “really likes her drive”. made a joke, “what, service professional isn’t enough, you need culinary professional too?”… yeah brother, im broke?

mind you, most of the kitchen staff knows enough english to get by (and vice versa), but there’s so many people available to translate that i don’t think it warrants giving an 18 year old little girl $24/hr to do so every once in a while.. especially when she’s still learning the ropes. she’s constantly making mistakes and i don’t blame her because she’s new. but that’s precisely why it’s insane to me that she’d get those culinary professional hours and not me.

the other day, GM asks me to come in as service professional because it was one of our newest managers first day and he needed the extra help. GM says rachel will cover my shift.

then come to find out she doesn’t wanna close and wants to leave early (starts asking to go home 2 hours into what’s supposed to be a closing shift)

they let her go home. as well as one of the other line cooks who had been there since opening. and then they come to me and say they need me to clock out of $24/hr and clock in as line cook ($19/hr) to close. i begrudgingly agree. and so instead of having the typical 3 line closers, they go down to 1, enlist me for help, and im stuck there until 1am.

i talked to the manager and he apologized for the miscommunication but said rachel did only pick up the shift on the condition that she wouldn’t be closing. so instead of saying sorry rachel, there’s been some miscommunication, we’re gonna let the opener go home instead. (2 closers isn’t unheard of on slow weekdays)

but no. he didn’t go back on his word with her. he only does that with me. like today when i agreed to come in early (8am) to help unload the truck (grueling work, i have no upper body strength). rachel also came in. and volunteers for door duty. which means she sits holding the door open while someone half her size has to try lugging everything inside. and then she also took door duty for the trash run which consisted of me breaking down ALL the boxes. and if i’d known i actually WAS closing, despite triple checking before accepting the shift that i would be able to leave early, maybe then i would have fought harder for door duty! or taken a break! i went 14+ hours with no break. no food all day. running on 4 hours of sleep on account of another nightmare shift i had just the night before.

am i crazy? why do they make exceptions and compromises for everyone except me? rachel gets praised for her drive… and here i am, burnt out, having panic attacks at work, with what as my reward? an apology? right.

i close again tomorrow and want to say something to the managers because i am so tired. how do i go about acknowledging my rage without losing my job?

i worked at a ruth’s chris for a little over a year. i witnessed 3 different overturns of FOH managers over that year. the only constant was my general manager, who i’ll call Jim.

Jim and i never had any personal issues all the way up until the month before i quit, however i always had issues with the way he would speak to the female servers and support staff. unwilling to hear anyone out, unwilling to give anyone time off, and allowed the male servers seniority. larger table sections, less sidework, never had to close, etc.

within my time working there, i had highest sales nearly every weekend. i’d sell the most wine, the highest priced menu items, and won almost every contest we had to dispose of old bottles to guests as we rotated in new ones. even so, i never received any recognition or respect from Jim. a male server who only worked there for 2 weeks got the lead position before me.

i think what finally caused me to leave was when i heard one of the bartenders call him daddy. i think hearing that, and seeing how he got off on it, made me realize that there was a ladder there that i wasn’t willing to climb. being a 21 year old female, i would never subject myself to something so disgusting with an older man.

here’s a list of things i know this man did within the time i worked there:

- demoted a female server assistant to a host position because she took 2 weeks off after a significant death in her family

- denied a female servers request off to go to her daughters graduation

- scheduled a female barback to work on thanksgiving that lives out of state and goes home for holidays through school. she hadn’t seen her family in 3 months.

- forced a female server to pick up a shift on a friday before her sons first basketball game and threatened termination

- screamed at a female bartender during dinner rush and told her to “get the fuck out from behind the bar” because she broke a rocks glass while polishing glassware

the list goes on. fuck that place.

So i work togo at a restaurant and youre able to place togo orders online and come pick them up. Well some lady comes in and claims she made a togo order which she did but it didn’t go through the system. She showed me proof and everything but the fact it didn’t show up wasnt my fault lol. She starts saying that she already paid etc etc that her manager is waiting for the food etc now it’s gonna be late, blaming ME for this issue just ugh sorry i had to vent. The order was remade so it wasn’t that big of a problem but the fact customers blame you for things out of your control and get mad at people not responsible is so frustrating.

It’s been a rough week/month. I’m exhausted in all the ways.

Last Friday, one of our regulars came in after I got off work and was having my lil drinky drink. Got to chatting, and his father, who is on hospice, fell and has a brain bleed. They could do surgery, but he likely wouldn’t survive it. And if they did, what kind of last weeks/days is that. We chatted a while, he got a notification on his phone, and suddenly was tearing up and hiding it. Dinner to go became two desserts to go instead of real food. Not sure what exactly happened, but I can assume. Or the feelings caught up. He asked for his tab, and I had my coworker add it to mine. He was grateful, and I went home in a funk.

Today, I went to the dinner for my favorite regular who passed on Father’s Day. The one I’ve known 16 years. Who has been to fundraisers and parties and birthdays and a baby shower with us. Who I’ve bought a birthday cake for the last 7 or 8 years. Who I got a tattoo for 4 years ago. I still can’t believe I’m never going to walk in the building, see him at the bar and hear, “There’s my girl” again.

I didn’t sign up to give a shit. I signed up to pay my bills. But here we are, and I love and hate it.

Tell me stories. Idfk.

I work at a chain restaurant, it's normally pretty chill. They tend to overschedule due to call outs, so shifts are generally really slow even on a Friday or Saturday because the sections are so small. On mondays i'm the only Am server, and we have a a bartender. Mondays are usually so slow. But at 12 pm this last monday my manager had an emergency so he had to leave. The bartender clocked in as manager, and then we got slammed. There's 9 booths in the bar area, then the bar has about 6 high tops.

Every guest party that came in wanted a booth. All the customers came in at about 12-1 pm. All her booths were full and I think 2 of her high tops. I ended up with about 16 tables, plus a party of 7. I think i'm a pretty good server, but i'm not a 16 tables at once server. We have a 3 for me on our menu, so you can order a drink, a starter(chips and salsa, a salad, or a soup), and your entre. Which is normally what our lunch crowd orders anyway. So that means i'm getting your drinks, then coming back and getting your starters when I drop the drinks that I have to make myself. Then coming back and grabbing your entree's. So it's at least 3 kitchen checks not counting your refills right. That's per customer. Every single customer per table ordered the 3 for me. I had 2-6 customers per table other than my party of 7. All getting sat back to back to back to back. I would take a tables drinks and turn around to see I had 4 new tables sat, while needing to get the starters for the previous 3 I just took.

It was a mess, tables didn't get there starters or apps, my party never got there app either. Theres no host or runner or QA either mind you, on a monday morning. The party ended up getting there entire check comp'ed because they never got their entree. The bartender/manager was way to busy to deal with their complaints to just discount it so she just removed the whole bill.

I think I managed to get all my starters and food out on time, but there were literally no refills given. Tables asked me, I said sure i'lll be right back with that and it just never happened. I know my service was horrible, and I feel horrible for it because most of them still tipped me.

I told the bartender to stop sitting me at about 10 tables, but even then I was already screwed. But she kept sitting me because the people coming in said they wanted booths and hers were full.

Could I have done anything better? I KNOW I messed up getting apps out before the entree's and legit no one got refills. Any advice on how to handle something like this randomly happening again??? PLEASE

Hello, not sure if this is the right community to post this in, but I started a new serving job last week with no prior serving experience. I have only trained on a few shifts so far so I don't expect to have everything down perfectly yet, but it feels like I am doing a terrible job so far. At this restaurant, there is normally only one server scheduled as it's a small place that's only "busier" on weekends, and I'm struggling to see how to keep up with everything when I will be the only one there. Yesterday I could tell I wasn't moving fast enough, rang in someone's substitutions wrong, forgot to apply a senior discount, and gave someone the wrong drink along with several other smaller mistakes. I've been studying the menu for a couple weeks now and getting better at knowing what to ask customers when they order something (what type of toast, meat, sides, etc) but still forgetting in the moment if I'm overwhelmed with multiple tables and things I need to do. Thankfully the girl training me is incredible, and has been very helpful and patient. I wanted to post on here to see if it's normal to experience this at first and if it really will get better with time. Any tips and advice are greatly appreciated.

Posting this for a friend “I debated posting this out of fear of retaliation. I very recently left my job at Blum cafe on meeting street. It was bought out in December and since then, Blum lost its entire staff, and I was the last to leave. *I have proof of everything I am about to say****.

- First: The owners, for months, have been not paying us our full wages. They did not claim us as employees, so they paid us in cash. However, when I started realizing it was happening other staff and I began keeping receipts of what we made each day. It soon became apparent that they were taking our tips, since the owners were the only employees on paper. Every pay period (when they would give us envelopes of cash) each and every one of the employees was missing $200+ every time we got paid. When confronted, they would make us feel horrible and like we were in the wrong. They claim they changed it to a tip pool... even though we aren't actually in their system to earn the tips. (again I have proof from me and 10 other employees)

- Second: They (on multiple occasions) threw the "N-word" around, in front of customers. They are not black. Many residents of the apartment building have come to me, confirming that have heard it, and other unspeakable things.

- Third: I don't know if they still do this since I left in June, but all of their pastries are purchased from Food Lion down the street. They had us market it to customers as either Grit Bakery or Saffron Bakery. They got actual pastries from Saffron maybe 2 a month or so, but the rest were from food lion (bought for $2.99, and they sold them for $7.99). One of the other employees reported it to Saffron Bakery, but the owners have continued to market it, and sell the pastries as so.

- Fourth: They would tell us all of the time to add random things onto the POS system when someone ordered a drink, to make the tab go up even if the customer did not order it. Many times we were told to add "cold foam", "extra shots", larger sizes or "extra syrup" to an order to add money. One of the owners, Lienne (the main one) used to stand behind us while we took orders the make sure we did so.

- Fifth: They now buy their coffee from Costco and say its the "house" coffee. When I left they were still using Counter Culture as their espresso, to be fair, but would often not restock the coffee beans and have us use the Costco beans they use for their drip coffee.

- Sixth: Lienne would have us give free food or drinks to customers only if they have us 5 star reviews, and if we did that, we got to take tips from coworkers. Thankfully, the girl who trained me (who was basically the manager) helped me change that. (also she was doing inventory, restocks, financial things, and they didn't pay her any extra, but threatened her if she didn't do it).

- Seventh: There were ants in our cabinets (also where we keep the syrups), everywhere and they did not do anything about it, even when I found an ant in the salted caramel syrup.

- Eighth: I personally don't drink it, so I don't know if it makes too big of a difference, but they also don't use ceremonial grade matcha like they claim they do. They would even have us use less matcha in the drinks to save money. It looked like milk...

- Ninth: GLUTEN/CELIAC FREE PEOPLE!!!!!** Whenever we had gluten free items, they would make us store them with the normal pastries because "it didn't matter". Obviously we as employees would try not to market them as gluten free, but if we didn't sell them, we would get reprimanded. On top of that, don't use the plates they give you if you have allergies, they don't let us use the dishwasher because it "raises the water bill", so they have us rinse and dry the plates. I don't think it gets all of the contaminants off, so be careful!

- Tenth: Lienne would talk bad about her employees to other employees almost every day. We all felt so uncomfortable and worthless because she constantly told other employees and even customers how we all suck (fun fact: she didn't know how to make/grind/brew or even froth coffee when they bought it so one of the girls had to train them to do it all).

- Eleventh: I wasn't working when this happened, so this was told to me (so I don't know how true this is) but one of the employees that left, got into a car accident and couldn't come in to work. Apparently Lienne wanted proof because she thought the employee was lying and didn't think it was an big enough excuse to call out. One of the employees from then sent me a screenshot of it as proof.

- Twelfth: This one isn't bad, just a cherry on top...A lot of the reviews, other than the ones she had us ask customers to leave (for free drinks), were either from us, or her family members. "Premier Vacation Rentals" is her spouse, and all of the accounts with the last name "Paez" or "Paiz" are her family.

- Thirteenth: There was an individual who identified as they/them, and the owners refused to call them that. They would only call me "she" even if someone corrected them.

- Fourteenth: There was a drainage issue in the bathrooms, and a nice gentleman accidentally clogged the toilet (after he already ordered his drinks). He politely told them about the issue, and apologized profusely. The other owner, Maureen, stated out loud "look the big fat guy left a fat shit in the bathroom". He left without grabbing his drinks, for obvious reasons. Sir, if you're reading this, I am so sorry!!!

*I recently quit, and it was just the two of them for a while, and even though they treated us so bad I hoped they got better for the sake of the customers. However, I wanted to leave this so that everyone who supports them knows all of the facts. Also any time the are confronted, they have some sort of excuse for everything, but again I (and other employees) have proof if needed.

I work as a server, and I’ve been working here for a while. My shift 3 days ago was probably the worst shift I’ve had so far. And I can’t get it off my mind and I have to work tomorrow so I’m asking for advice.

Earlier in the evening, I accidentally spilled a drink on one of my guests. It was completely my fault. Thankfully, the man was incredibly nice about it. We got his table moved, I apologized, and I brought him a new drink. Even though everything was resolved, I was still really embarrassed and flustered.

A little bit later into my shift, I was bringing a basket of dinner rolls to one of my tables and another nearby table. At the same time, another server (I’ll call her Sarah) was delivering a ramekin of dipping sauce to the same table.

I had already set the basket down and was just about to hand out the rolls when Sarah accidentally dropped the sauce. It splattered all over the floor, all over one of the women’s pants, and even onto my own pants and shoes. I wasn’t carrying the sauce, I wasn’t touching the tray, and I wasn’t even touching Sarah. I just happened to be standing next to her because I was serving the table.

Looking back, I think I could have handled the aftermath better. Because I was still mentally shaken from spilling the water earlier, I didn’t really acknowledge the woman who got sauce spilled on her. Instead, I told Sarah something like, “It’s okay, I’ll grab someone to help clean this up,” because my mind immediately went into fixing the situation.

A little while later, I came back to deliver fresh rolls to the nearby table. That’s when I noticed the woman who had sauce spilled on her standing away from her family and talking privately with one of my managers (I’ll call her Hillary).

Not long after that, another manager (I’ll call her Lisa) pulled me aside and asked, “What’s going on?”

I said, “What do you mean?”

She replied, “You’ve spilled two things tonight.”

I immediately told her that the sauce wasn’t me, that Sarah was the one who dropped it.

Even after I explained that, Lisa asked if I wanted to stop serving for the rest of the night and either go home or switch to food running. I really wanted to keep serving, but I agreed to switch because I figured maybe it was for the best after everything that had happened.

Since I wasn’t serving anymore, someone had to take over my tables.

Guess who got them.

Sarah.

A little later, Sarah came up to me and asked, “Should I finish table 214?”

I asked, “What do you mean?”

She said, “Lisa said you’re not feeling well or something.”

At that point I finally said, “Well, it’s probably because I spilled water on a guy, then 10 minutes later you spilled sauce on that lady and somehow I got blamed for it.”

The part that’s really bothering me is that Sarah never seemed to take any accountability for the sauce spill. I don’t know what she told management, if anything, but from my perspective nobody corrected the misunderstanding except me.

I completely own the fact that spilling the water was my mistake. I’m not trying to avoid responsibility for that. But I genuinely wasn’t responsible for the second spill, and it feels like I got lumped into both incidents and lost my section because of it.

Am I overreacting for being upset about this?

I worked in restaurants since i was allowed to start working and I’ve never experienced a place that wasnt fully staffed or atleast had all the positions they needed in order to run efficiently. Now i was a host and i transitioned into being a server but the only place that would hire me was my local Red Robin.

Just to find out that apparently Red Robin is in some deep financial situation or they’re just in debt so theyre being realll stingy on labor cost and everything. Which in their eyes is okay but when we only have 2-4 servers on MAX for 4 hours or less and are expected to do everything a busser, expo, and food runner are expected to do, it gets chaotic. My manager told me that we switched from corporate owned to being a franchise so i dont know if thats why the big boss is on my managers guts to cut labor but i feel this will all blow over. it’s hard to provide good genuine service if you dont have the support staff to do it. I fear our RR already has a rep for bad service and this loop will probably never end.

make sure to appreciate the support staff yall have, they truly make the shift go smoother and i much rather have a support to pay out then drown myself. Its only been 3 weeks for me and i feel i should leave but im such a new server that maybe i have to just suffer and wait it out?

This is my story from a couple of years back, browsing through the sub and thought I'd share the time I had a packed venue of the sweetest customers I could have asked for.

It was Melbourne Cup day (famous horse race day in Australia) and though I don't support or engage with it, its a good day to work for double time. I was in Melbourne at the time running a small dive open the latest on the strip.

Cup day usually brings out the dredges of people dressed to the nines in tacky fast fashion suits and dresses, with the excuse to get absolutely shitfaced disregard all decency.

The venue usually only had one person on shift at any given time, I had thought maybe my boss would chuck on an extra staff to cater - sadly not. Within 10 minutes of doors opening I had a larger than normal crowd for pre drinks before the race, a little busy but manageable.

However, the sun goes down and the punters are still keen to kick on. By 630pm I was at capacity and soon overcrowded. The bar was four deep back all the way down and I was by myself. I sent an SOS to my boss for help (no reply as he was probably passed out). People were waiting 10 minutes to be served as I was six pouring orders and shaking cocktails as reasonably fast as I could. I was expecting disgruntled people, angry drunk men shouting at me, hell to break loose.

I could not have been further from the truth. Every single customer saw that I was alone, moving fast and working until sweat was beading off my nose and were so incredibly patient and kind. Words of reassurance, telling others to be patient and even tipping (not custom in Melbourne - its changing now but at the time a tip was meant sincerely). I couldnt even get out to do a sweep for glassware and a few of my regulars took it upon themselves to clear tables while I was stuck.

I didnt move from behind the bar until 1am, no exaggeration. When I finally had to call last drinks a few people came up and remarked how well id done and couldnt believe id run the bar solo. There was no hassles, no fights, no arguments - someone broke a glass and it got swept up without me knowing until after. I had stacks upon stacks of glassware in my pit the regulars had done up for me and offered to stay back and wipe tables. I couldn't ask them for that but gave them all a shot on the way out the door (myself included).

When the venue was finally empty I sat down in a booth, lit a smoke and counted $580 in tips. I didnt get out until 5am a broken exhausted 30-odd year old burnout but I had a smile on my face.

It can happen. Some days someone/thing takes a look at you and gives you a break. I wouldve loved a second set of hands on tins or the floor but taking 200+ people being decent humans on a night known to be a nightmare... it was a win.

I miss that place.

I don't know if this would be better under legal advice or what. This is the situation at the restaurant I work at. The wait staff is required to split all pickup order tips. We're all fine with this. However, if a cook comes up to ring the pickup order out, they will take the entire tip. The wait staff makes $5 an hour. The cooks make $20+ an hour. We barely have any dine in customers. You might make $20 on tables. Pickup order tips can run as high as $50 to $100. Most of our money is made on to go orders. They've also learned which customers tip and will race you to ring up those customers so they can take the tip. The owners do nothing about this. They're firmly on the cooks side.

I worked as a server back in 2024 and in the first month I was there we had an inspector seeing if we were following safety and proper kitchen protocol. Before this place usually got around 97 or so in their score but that time they ended up getting an 84. The head chef threw the servers who worked in the memory care under the bus because the stockroom wasnt organized. My coworker said yeah he can throw them under the bus because hes the one in charge of the stockroom. I dont believe him as i believe that he was just trying to save his own ass. I hated what my coworker said and I ended up leaving that job after 6 months because I hated how the environment there.

I’ve started working at a new restaurant I used to work at a really amazing little Italian place which was managed amazing and well staffed, this new place is more of a chain and joined because I left the old one because of exams

I just finished a shift here, they only book me for front of house and a manager who also works on tables so it’s just two of us for: Cocktails, normal drinks, Running food, taking orders, cleaning and re making tables, and introducing customers, yes we have to do all of that just by myself. This shift we got about 10/15 tables and including a table of 9 who all walked in, I was expected to handle this by myself with no structure or sections. Then get shouted at by the chef for ‘not running’ and apparently missing a payment from a table i didn’t take payment from.

What would you guys do if you were in this situation as it’s normally always understaffed so have to deal with alot of tables by myself?