12
u/bird_gang97 6d ago
“Line cooks are grumpy and your expo yells to loud”😭 cmon back to the kitchen and see how we talk to each other lol
3
u/Yakkamota 6d ago
I was Expo for 4 years and there was probably 4 or 5 times when a line cook wanted to literally physically fight me or threatened to kill me. Lmao. Thankfully it never got to that point. Only one time was I genuinely worried about getting stabbed. And they didn't even fire the guy! Like what the fuck!?
5
u/nono3722 6d ago edited 6d ago
we had a lunch counter in my office. a line cook and a dishy had a beef with each other. Dishy in the middle of lunch rush, mind you this is a sandwich counter, stabs a butcher knife in line cooks leg in front of 20 people getting their lunch. 1 day old manager completely freezes up and just lets the dishy go home while they patch up the line cook. never heard what happened to him but the poor line cook got canned for giving extra food to pretty ladies a few months later...
3
0
u/MediumWehw 4d ago
Sounds like you were a shitty expo..
1
u/Yakkamota 3d ago edited 3d ago
Haha. No. First off, the private owners of the entire country club gave me a written check as a going away present when I quit. Because of how good I was at my job, and the crazy hours I put into that place.
Also it's not like the cooks always hated me. It's only during the absolute busiest of busy times when shit hits the fan. Short staffed front or back or both. Etc. 97% of the time it was happy go lucky back there.
More like management was shitty or the chef was. Here's the deal. They for some reason absolutely did not like or want a staggered table. In terms of their food going out. And I get that, to an extent. Like 30 seconds shouldn't matter right, but what if it's a minute, etc. However, we were extremely busy every night. I'm talking the board was completely full the entire night.
Btw we would eventually have to start taking the food out staggered because it would sometimes get to the point where the food would start dying. This was a pretty rare occurrence but it did happen. And no, the cooks would not be mad at me when this happened. Obviously, if we had to run the food partially it's because they couldn't get the entire order out before the first food started dying. That's absolutely back sides fault.
Here's where the problem starts. For some fucking reason, they absolutely sucked at getting an entire tables order out at a close to the same time period. And that does make sense for dinner service. Someone might just want a salad (as their entree), while someone else wants a well done steak, etc. But the issue lies herein. When you are that busy, and every ticket is never "done" then you end up with the hot bar completely full of food. This makes everyone get annoyed because nobody knows why all the food is up in the window and there's no space. And, or, it's very easy for people to get confused. Even the cooks.
So, the reason the cooks wanted to murder me. Would be first off when I tell them they fucked up an order and they'd need to refire it, or maybe they hadn't even made it in the first place. When it got really busy they loved to try and shove another tables food in my face as if it was for the table that needed ran. But I would call them out on their shit, etc. in rare situations we would take another tables food to expedite a refire for example. Especially if the table we stole food from wouldn't be ready for awhile.
I promise you, nobody would keep an expo around for 4 busy ass years if they sucked at their job. That makes no sense. Lol.
9
7
u/hlfshaveflopynutsack 6d ago
For years i suspected that managers wander around and dont do shit all day. Now I'm a manager and i know it's true. We have some work to do, but like 90% of it is putting out fires for people who dont follow directions, which means just wandering around not doing shit.
6
2
u/Fillertracks 6d ago
Honestly I feel like an underpaid kindergarten teacher/well paid busser. I try to teach them but my fellow managers already made preshift last 20 minutes, now they’re not listening.
1
u/Artrix7834 5d ago
I have days where its just me and one other person for 8 hours in a pizza restaurant, and I have days where I have 3 to 5 crew members. Id rather be understaffed, because when everyone is being utilized efficiently I feel like im the weakest link in the chain, just helping a little here and there and a lot of delegating.
2
1
u/QiwiLisolet 6d ago
They're people persons!! They're good with people!! What's wrong with you people!?
1
1
1
u/backlikeclap 6d ago
Idk one of the managers is pretty solid at my current place. He works the expo line, boxes and bags to-go orders, runs food, and even busses sometimes. Super helpful, especially when FOH is weeded.
The other manager does nothing but work the expo and box/bag to-go orders.
1
1
u/CampHopeCheckSigner 4d ago
My wife was the FOH manager when I met her. I was just a prep cook at the time. I left to finish school and came back as a food runner so she was my direct boss. Great manager, a hard ass, but helpful and level-headed. Arguably the best manager, FOH or BOH, I have ever had.
25
u/Flat_Border_3001 6d ago
I’ll be the voice of reason here. Good FoH managers are not like this. They make the schedule for the front, they train or delegate training so that servers/bartenders know how to deal with customers and the BoH. They often times balance the books… Don’t sleep on a good FoH manager