The Restaurant Guy  

Part I

10.     Know what you want when asked. We have given you ample time to decide what you want on the menu. It’s not like you are voting for the last President, or you are deciding on what car you want…it’s food, come with it already.

9.        Know who the person helping you is. There is nothing more frustrating that busting your butt for someone who doesn’t know who you are. It is not like the old stereotype that we all look alike, this is not China. Also, it is really irritating to call and yell or rage at someone, who is not your server, It will simply go in one ear and out the other.

8.        When placing your order, please inform the server of all sides that you may or may not need. This ensures that you will receive all of them and rules out the possibility of enraging your server even more. So sour cream, mayonnaise, ketchup, butter, or anything else that you could possibly want so that your heart attack is sooner rather than later.

7.        I am never surprised when one of you comes out to eat and you have got to have more than one non-alcoholic drink. “ I’ll take a sweet tea and a water.” What, do you want to hydrate the truckload of caffeine that you just took in?

6.        Bunches of you are guilty of this one. Let me set you really straight…. We do not care who you are. If you are on TV, we don’t care. If you play professional sports, we don’t care.  We don’t even care if you know someone who may run or own the joint that we work in. Just know…We don’t care. So when you pull your stuff about, “ I’ll just talk to your boss,” chances are, he doesn’t give a damn either. So shut your mouth and eat.

5.        This really isn’t a “don’t do,” rather it’s a warning. If there is any type of seafood on “special” move on from it. Don’t get it because 9 times out of 10, it’s bad. Or it’s going out of date, which is a restaurant term for “it’s bad”. Don’t get it. If you do you’re usually the ones that are made fun of in the kitchen and called suckers or something like that. Word to the wise, get the feature, not the “Special.”

4.        Many people, if they eat out a lot, are going to have a bad experience. Some of the times even, the server may upset the guest and the guest may ask to speak to the manager. While this is your prerogative to do this, what good is it really going to do? No manager is his right mind is going to argue with you and you are probably going to lie to him anyway. This challenges the integrity and character of the people asking for the manager because it is an age-old belief that you are trying to get something for free. Every so often, you will have the gall to ask for the manager to tell them something positive. We appreciate that. We work very hard and very long hours and if you think about, the job of  “ Serving people” is very demeaning and brings us back to the slavery stages of history. But you pay us for that, at least some of you do, but we will get to that later.

3.        When you come out to eat you expect to pay for a meal right? So you know your budget and you choose where you are going to eat accordingly, right? So when you arrive at the place that you have checked your budget and you have chosen to drive all the way across town to go to eat, don’t bitch and complain about the prices on the menu like you have just bought a BMW. It ‘s embarrassing for you to come in, sit down, get your tap water, and bitch that you can’t afford a burger for 6.99. Why come in at all?

2.        When you arrive at a restaurant, a host seats you. You are seated at a table by that host for a reason. You are allowed to get up at will to use the restroom or go visit the bar or whatever, but return to that table. Not to see another table and just get up and sit there. What if someone (not you) had the good sense to call ahead and reserve that table. Right, you don’t know that, so sit at the table that you were given and like it. For that hour that is your home, go to your home. Oh yeah, and one more thing. When you are up wandering aimlessly around our restaurant, STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN, unless you want us to put you to work.

1.        In this series of top ten I was thinking long and hard about what should be #1. In this series we will explore the people who make life difficult for everyone. You know the people who make the server, manager, host, and every other guest in the room uncomfortable. This is the unhappy couple that comes in and all they do is argue. They fight all night. About what they are going to eat, about what they are going to do after dinner, about what started it anyway. These people need to have a license to leave their home. If you can’t get along keep it in your home or break up, we don’t want to hear your problems and neither do the guests that actually came here to have a peaceful dinner. You have made the environment around you so uncomfortable that the server is now scared to even serve you because you may turn on him. So now you are pissed at your spouse, you are hated in the room, and you are getting bad service. I guess the only thing for you to now is what every one of you winds up saying; “ Can I speak to the manager?”