Lost in Translation
Servers and cooks have difficult jobs. I’ve hosted at Brewster’s in New Buffalo, Mich., which is a very busy restaurant, so I’ve dealt with the public and the servers a lot. But I haven’t really ever been a server, so I won’t pretend to know and understand more than I do. I’ve spent much more time in the kitchen, and I know that one of the things that drives me and every other cook I know nuts is when hot food sits dying in the “window,” ready to be picked up but cooling off, or just sitting there under the lamp.
While at the Buddha, I definitely got on servers about letting food sit in the window, eventually just taking it out to the table myself when they were too busy or too whatever to get the food. I know there are good reasons why they didn’t pick up their food promptly, but it really doesn’t matter at some point, and I got tired of yelling. After a while of yelling their names, and feeling like I was becoming a loud-mouthed fool, I made a simple rule for myself. If the server (or somebody, ANYBODY) didn’t run the food when I called them twice, I would run it myself.
Of course at the Buddha, I was management, the chef, so I had the flexibility and authority to do that. I felt so much better doing that then continuing to yell and steam about it. I think the servers were grateful, but at that point, I really didn’t care. Going to any restaurant isn’t about the server or the cook or the management, it’s about the food and the experience, and if it takes forever to get your food, and the food is cold (and shouldn’t be), you’re having a bad experience.
Usually it’s not the kitchen or the restaurant’s short-term bottom line that suffers when someone has a bad experience (I’m not talking horrendous, just not good), since most people will pay for a meal when things are less than perfect, but customers see it as a service issue, and they don’t tip their server well. So it would behoove servers to get food to the table as quickly as possible since customers like their food appearing quickly, and hot (or cold as the case may be), instead of room temperature.
At the full staff meeting on Sunday 28 June, Tom apologized for yelling at the servers when they were slow to get food out of the window, but he stressed how important it was to do it. Most of the staff is very young and inexperienced, and on this issue, it shows. I’ve worked at the Bentwood Tavern in New Buffalo, Mich., and at Brewster’s, and the food never stays in the window long, mostly due to the server’s experience. At the Bentwood, they also had a full-time runner, and service there is excellent. Servers at both places are older and more experienced than at Port 412, and that’s one of the ways it shows.
On Tuesday night, one of the hosts, a high-school age girl, was in the kitchen while some food was languishing in the window. I asked her to please run it or find someone to run it. She smiled blandly at me, walked out of the kitchen, walked back in without having talked to anyone (I watched her), and stood at the window again. Not yet knowing how much authority I have in Tom’s kitchen, I refrained from talking to her about it again, and I wish I knew the table numbers so I could have run it myself. I asked one of the front-of-the-house supervisors to run food as well, with the same result, nothing. I don’t think they’re understaffed up front, especially if someone is hanging out in the kitchen for a couple of minutes without tables.
Anyway, stay tuned. I will not let this be an issue for long at Tulips, especially since I’ll be able to run food myself. And I’ll have plenty of authority there. The only people with more will be Tom and John, the owner, both of whom will back me up on this.
Ultimately, it is teamwork that gets the food out to the table in a timely way, regardless of who is free to run it out. It is always difficult to watch a server who is swamped and would certainly be a delight to meet the cook, but it is also sad to be the customer who sees food (yours or someone else’s) sitting on the counter waiting because you know it is ready from the cook’s position and there is no sign of the server. A team member is sensitive to other members who need help taking care of the customer.
True, it’s really amazing how much teamwork is necessary for a restaurant to work well. I don’t really think a restaurant takes more teamwork than any other type of work place, but there is a constant need for it, and the evidence of teamwork, or lack thereof, is incredibly and almost immediately apparent.