No Complaints
So, in the restaurant industry, one of the busiest days of the year is Mother's Day. In fact, for brunch, the benchmark is Mother's Day. This past year on Mother's Day we did 150 covers with 3 cooks.But for some freakish reason one recent Sunday we did 190 covers for brunch with our normal staff of two cooks. It was balls to the wall for the entire day. Literally, at 8:30 I put my head down and the next time I looked up it was 12:30. Absolute nutso. I didn't even have to complain about the wait staff because they didn't have any time to do anything else but run the food.
Doing 190 covers is a pretty good accomplishment in and of itself, but there were two things that made this day exceptional for me. The first is that I was working with a cook that, well, to be honest, wouldn't be the first choice of who I would want working on a day like that. Nice guy and all, but he's dirty, sloppy, doesn't work smart, and just shouldn't be there. Give him a small number of tasks to focus on and he does fine for now. But just don't let him have the blueberries near the goat cheese ... you'll have purple cheese by the first pancake order. But I dealt with it because I had no other choice. There wasn't even really any time to be mad ... just have to keep on pushing out the orders. Supposedly he has more practical experience in kitchens, but in reality I have had more time in our kitchen, I can run every station in the kitchen (he knows only two), and I'm consistenly trusted to open and close the place. So basically I was lead that day.
The second interesting fact about doing those 190 covers is that we did not have a single comped meal that day. That means there was not one single signficant customer complaint about the food. Mother's Day? We had plenty on Mother's Day, but on that recent Sunday, when I was leading the line, there were no complaints. And I think that comes back to the fact that I hold different standards than my employer. The difference? If I don't like it, I refire the order (and with my compatriot that day, I had him refiring a good number of orders).
No complaints. Now that's an accomplishment.
4 Comments:
That's something to be proud of, Martin! Well done. =)
- tinymich
I'm impressed that you didn't kick that sloppy s.o.b really hard somwhere where it hurts ;)
U got some goods nervs to keep you'r head cool in a situation like that.
Awesome job! Ability underpressure is a good thing indeed!
-Ash-
Thanks guys. That was truly one of the most difficult things I have ever done ... I was recovering for days after that.
Post a Comment
<< Home