WARNING: The opinions expressed below are DEFINITELY those of The CoLab Theatre Company! Learn more at www.colabtheatre.org!

Monday, January 11, 2010

And Now... A Quick Lesson in Restaurant Etiquette

Happy Monday Everyone! First off, I want to thank everyone who came out to our first official event (insert wildly cheering crowd here.. or Becca's number hehe) Colab's Audition Circle. It was a success if I do say so myself. I love holding these workshops because I love conversing about theatre in a roomful of people who adore the subject as much as I do. Plus, we saw some really cool monologues and hopefully helped some folks out! If you missed this event (and the yummy cookies I made for it), we'll be holding another one in a few months so don't fret.

That being said, today's post is about restaurant etiquette. I figured that this was semi-pertinent to the blog because many of you creative-type people out there probably have, will, or currently hold a restaurant job like yours truly. Here are some facts about the restaurant industry. 1. Servers make $2.63/hr. In case you don't like math (and I don't) that does not add up to a very hefty paycheck at the end of the week. Sitting down at a table in a restaurant is like signing a contract with me where I pledge to provide you with excellent, smiley service and you tip me in accordance with how well I hold up my end of the bargain. 2. I have to tip out the bartender, the food runner, and the busser based on how much food I sell, not how much money I make in tips. 3a. Booths are lucrative when it comes to making money. For some reason, everyone wants to sit in a booth. 3b. Not all section are created equal - some sections come with only one booth. 4. I like my job as a waitress. (Okay, so that's a fact about me and not the industry itself but stay with me here.) Since I enjoy my job, I come in 99% of the time (I'm not perfect) ready to work and give you excellent service.

Now that you know all of these facts, I'm going to tell you a story. Four women came into the restaurant yesterday for brunch. They sat in my only booth (I had three other tables - two of them can only sit two people at a time). I was friendly, I kept their waters refilled, I provided them with suggestions, I correctly entered their meal modifications into the computer ("You don't want ginger on your caramel chicken? No problem!") I prepped their table with salad dressing and share plates, and all of their food arrived on time with all of their meals properly prepared. These women stayed in the restaurant for over three hours. This meant that my booth (aka HOW I MAKE MONEY) was occupied for the entirety of my lunch shift. To add insult to injury, these women left me $11 on an $82 check. That isn't even 15%!!! Needless to say, my Sunday lunch shift was not very profitable. I was pretty upset but I was thinking about it, and my guess is most people don't know all of these things about the restaurant industry. So I decided to post to this blog (and maybe write an editorial for The Globe? ha - kidding. Sort of.) If you didn't know, you learned something today. If you already did, you're officially a baller and thank you.

So that's my rant. I promise to be polite to you and get you what you need over the course of the meal and if I do that, I think I deserve my 20% tip. Don't you?

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