Valentines Day

After an exhausting Valentines Day weekend I have had many experiences to share with you diners. What is it about holidays that make people go crazy? This weekend I saw the craziest event I have ever seen in a restaurant. Here's the play-by-play: A family of 5 sitting at a round table. Three adults and two children. During dinner one of the children slapped the other kid at the table which started an argument between two of the adults at the table. Knives were shed and threats of "I'll cut you!" were echoing off the walls. Servers and diners sat staring with mouths wide open while management calmly diffused the situation. A few minutes later the man from the argument came back into the restaurant to get his box and jacket and the woman from the table started shouting again. The server told them that they were in a restaurant and they needed to stop making a scene...at which point the guy threatened to stab the server in the heart. Isn't that romantic? Seriously people, wtf. Again, there is stunned silence in the restaurant. Then BAM, here's the new boss...I'll call him Charles (and if you know him you'll get the reference ;) and if not...sucks for you) carrying a metal ice paddle asking who has a knife in his restaurant. Then of course the woman from the argument interprets the threat and starts her own freak show. Two males servers and two managers try to block the woman as she attempts to attack Charles while he is locking the front door so they can't get out until the police get there (fire hazard). All the while the words "I'll cut you!" continue to reverberate through the room. Way to keep it classy for the rest of the diners trying to impress their loved one on Valentines Day....dinner and domestic violence!

The Saturday night before Valentines Day was also extremely busy. I had two tables and two little booths so fortunately I had a versatile section and had two big parties that night. My first party did many things that will be good mini lessons for you non-servers. When I get to this old woman to take her drink order she says she wants a "sweet wine"...wine is an acquired taste so what is sweet to me isn't going to be the same for everyone. When I started giving her what little information I had on sweet wines it seemed to me she had never tasted any kind of wine before! I end up taking her a sample of pinot grigio which she hated. And then she wanted to sample three different kinds of mixed drinks. THIS IS NOT BASKIN ROBBINS TASTE ALL 32 FLAVORS! Towards to end of running my ass off for these people they asked to talk to a manager and got four of their dinners deleted from the bill because they didn't like them. And then they took the leftovers home in a box. I hate that. Oh, you hated your dinner so much you have to take it home with you? Customers get pissed when you tell them that since they don't have to pay for their food they can't take it home. I don't understand why you should get to take home food you didn't pay for to begin with...and if you hated it why are you causing a scene that you can't leave with it. My last party was a group of 11 women and after I handed out the checks I realized that I had forgotten to put gratuity on the party. Luckily my serving skills are off the chain and they hooked me up in the end!

And now it is time for me to talk about the desperate measures people go to get a free meal. Monday night I had a table of three 30 something black people. They were rude from the moment they sat down. Play-by-play: "Hi how are you? My name..."
"Get me a Budlight." What an asshole. But I'm used to people cutting me off so I say "Sure one moment," take the other drink orders and bring them back. When I get back over the dickhead in seat one says, "Why haven't you told us your name?" Well jerk, you interrupted me. I could tell this table was trying to piss me off so I would be rude and then they would have a genuine complaint...but please....I'm a server. I deal with rude people ALL day. I then go over to take their dinner order and it was like pulling teeth. The guy orders chicken alfredo with extra mushrooms and broccoli. "I want a house salad with that."
"Okay sir, would you like house dressing?"
"What is it?"
"Its honey mustard and hot bacon."
"Oh hell no I do not eat pork."
"Okay no problem, I'll take the pork out of your salad, what kinda of dressing would you like?"
I seriously asked this man three times what kind of dressing he would like before he yells that obviously, he wants his salad dry. Then I get to the girl at the table and she orders wings. Maybe I had fallen mute while taking this order because I also had to ask this bitch three times how she would like her wings before she screamed that she wanted them hot. Maybe I should start bringing my crystal ball with me to work so I already know what these people order. Later on they demand to talk to my manager. When Charles gets out to the table they told him that it was obvious that I didn't like black people. I was nothing more than sickeningly sweet to these motherfuckers. If this jerk got the impression that I didn't like him it was because he and his friends were a bunch of assholes. How dare anyone call me a racist. The only person being rude at that table was him and since he was rude before I even told him my name I will also pull the race card and say that I believe he was the racist.
And Beauty Queen (all you coworkers know who I'm talking about!) sucks, lets make her quit.
Can't say I'm not glad that Valentines Day is over!