Tips for servers

I have been bartending a long time and have come up with some helpful “suggestions” for the servers of the world that don’t understand how they make my job more stressful than it needs to be. Here are a few pointers from all the bartenders out there to all the servers:

1) Don’t ring in your order at the POS at the bar and then stand there and wait for it. We have 3 to 5 minutes to make your drink. We will try to get it out to you as soon as possible but pressuring us by standing there staring at us doesn’t work. You forget that we have a job that is far more stressful than yours. We not only are making your drinks but we are also waiting on guest, which is your sole job.
2) Don’t refuse to help us when we ask you to run drinks or check on out orders. My theory has always been if you are too busy to help me while you are standing there staring at me, then I am too busy to make your drink and I promptly move your order to the end of the line. Hey….. I have 3 to 5 minutes…. Remember?
3) Please look at the tickets before you snag a drink. Just because it looks the same as your order doesn’t mean it is yours. Take the time to look at the ticket to see if your name is on the top. When taking the someone else’s drink because a habit for you, we have to inform a manager that you are either to over whelmed in your section to take the time to do your job right our that you just don’t care. Either way, your mistake is costing them money.
4) I have one waitress in particular that always has drinks missing. It never fails that she will say “Well, it isn’t on my table”. I finally told a manager to watch her and her tables to see if she was giving away free drinks or drinking them herself.
5) My pet peeve is server’s calling my name for something while I am talking to a guest. Number one rule of thumb… my guest are ALWAYS more important than you or your needs. I tell my servers to go behind my guest and hold up their dollar bills so that I know they need change. If they call my name, I ignore them. If they persist, I excuse myself from my guest for a minute and take that opportunity to give that server a quick lesson in manners, and then advise them to go find a manager to get them change. They leave pissed but generally, it doesn’t happen again. Do us both a favor and bring a bank.\
6) Stop complaining about having to tip us out. At Red Robin, the servers have to tip out 3 % of their sales. It is divided up between the bartenders, the expediters, and the busser’s. We make the same $$ an hour that you do but we don’t have the same amount of tables as you AND we have to split the tips between the other bartender(s). I have to chase some servers down to get my tip out a and that is crap. What if you have to chase down your guest to get them to tip you?
7) And the number one No-No of all time… DON’T GO BEHIND THE BAR!!! There is thousands of dollars of inventory behind the bar and we are responsible for every ounce of it. Nothing gives you the right to endanger my job. When I worked at O’Charleys, we had bottles of liquor disappearing at an alarming rate. The bartenders were catching hell, so I decided to hide in a corner of the restaurant after we closed and see what happened. Sure enough, I watched a server got behind the bar and make himself a little drink in a to-go cup. He lost his job the next day. DON’T GO BEHIND THE BAR!!!! EVER!!! FOR ANY REASON!!!! Get it? Got it? Good.

The Screamers

Lately, we have had a rash of what can only be called “screamers” at work. These are children that are allowed to scream, cry, yell, and shout at the top of their lungs while they are at a table in the restaurant with their parents. It never fails, that the parents simply sits there and ignores the whole tantrum. I will never understand this. I have 4 kids and I promise you this never happened with my kids. Never. Know why? Because they knew I would whoop that butt right there in front of God and man. Only once did one of my kids throw a tantrum in public. It was in a Costco and he wanted something and I told him “no”. He got out of the stroller, threw himself on the ground, and started to cry. I snatched him up and wore him out. His older brother just sat there watching the whole thing. When it was done, I deposited my son right back into his stroller and went about my business. As you can imagine, that child never threw another tantrum again. Just watching his brother get spanked was enough to convince the oldest child that it wasn’t worth it. Then, they passed the lesson down to the younger kids when they were born. One child, one time, out of four kids. Hmm…..

So, if you are sitting in a restaurant and your child is throwing a world class tantrum, DO SOMETHING!!! Take them outside, take them to the bathroom, or take them home…. It doesn’t really matter where you take them as long as you take them away. I don’t understand how you can just sit there and listen to it and not want to make it stop. I have come to the conclusion that you are so used to it that you have become accustomed to it and automatically tune it out. I have a news flash for you. When your child is misbehaving, either in public or in private, and you ignore it…. that’s bad parenting. I have heard some of these same parents say that they think they kids are just trying to get some attention, so by denying them that attention they are “teaching” them that behavior is unproductive. Have you people bumped your heads? Allowing them to get away with bad behavior reinforces in them that it is ok to act that way because there are no consequences. This thinking has been around for a while and now these same kids are starting to enter the work force and I work with some of them. Let me tell you what kind of people they turn out to be. These kids believe that they are “entitled”…. to everything. They have the view point that the world “owes them” and no one has a right to tell them “no”. They feel this way because they never heard that word used at home. They lack work ethic, ambition, and many have no morals.

I do not advocate child abuse. I will be the first one to tell someone I don’t know to keep their hands off their child, if the adult is being overly aggressive. Shoot, I have told a father to “shut up” before because he was calling his son an idiot. However, I do believe in “hands on” parenting and, while you may have no control over when your child decides to act out, you have ALL the control over how you respond to their outburst and what steps you take to rein them in. Do us all a favor… if you are too overwhelmed, tired, frustrated, or passive to deal with your kids when you go out to eat, hire a baby sitter and leave them at home. Give yourself, and the all the rest of us, a break!