“He came, he saw, he capitulated.” -Winston Churchill
Far too often incompetent restaurants get away with every rotten thing under the Sun and maintain a reputation they don’t deserve. They limp along with mediocre food and meh atmosphere so long as the price is right, regulars are loyal (and forgiving), and there’s eye candy to compensate for terrible service and wait times. But eventually most suffer a humiliating blow during unexpected rushes that exposes their supposed sexy establishments as useless as a rusted, Soviet era tank in Ukraine.
Just like armies throughout history restaurants can look good on paper but the real test happens when they come up against a real challenge… or a shock to their system. That’s when months, even years, of poor leadership, hiring the wrong people, and a toxic culture reaps a well deserved whirlwind. Because while it takes a long time for restaurants to create a good reputation (warranted or not) it can lose it in a single day… or over one scandal.
***
It was a Friday, summer night at my least favourite bar job. I was serving the dining room as I wasn’t the main bartender yet. For some reason the GM hadn’t scheduled a manager, an expo, a host, or a dishwasher. In fact, he never showed up at all and took the weekend off. Nothing says you’re a ‘great leader’ like abandoning your staff on a busy weekend and forgetting to provide adequate reinforcements. This was already inexplicable as it was a long weekend. But had our GM, or corporate, bothered to keep up on events they’d realize this day in particular was a bad time to drop the ball. Because either there was holiday or a concert and we were about to get slammed!
I’d been there for less than a year but still liked the place. But as a veteran I knew that management, training, competency, and even the giving a shit factor weren’t at great levels. Thus, I had long dreaded the day everything would fell apart. At least the FOH staff got along relatively well… besides the usual gossip, backstabbing, and drama. There was plenty of cocaine, sleeping around, and occasional feuds, but it hadn’t created a toxic work environment… yet.
Anyway, I had no idea I was walking into one of the worst shifts of my life. My friend Casey, the night supervisor, was hovering around the hostess station and while he greeted me warmly I knew something was off. Casey was a nice guy, an ideal waiter, and always worked hard. Unfortunately, his leadership abilities were questionable and he sometimes focused on pointless tasks that served no purpose when all hands on deck were needed. But he was unequalled regarding the tactical level of restaurant operations and irreplaceable when properly utilized.
After catching up he told me the bad news. “You’re kidding me right,” I responded, thinking it was a joke. “Nope…” he merely replied in a flat tone, knowing I was about to become… displeased. My mood darkened and I let loose. “You mean we don’t have a manager, dishwasher, expo, or host on a busy Friday, during (whatever event or concert was in town).” Because once again a combination of time, alcohol, and trauma has forever erased such details from my memory.
Casey turned away and wouldn’t meet my gaze. “No, we don’t,” he finally said with shame or regret. I don’t remember what happened next but I was pissed off for the millionth time in my career that management had no common sense, foresight, or even consideration to come through for the staff. Given our GM had left us in this mess, went on vacation, and made far more money than he deserved, I wasn’t surprised by his inevitable fate. One day corporate fired him without warning and produced a well-dressed suit replacement for us within 48 hours. Because soulless, bean-counting, chains are great at churning employees through the meat grinder, and finding new lambs for the slaughter, but rarely succeed at creating competent, positive workplaces in the first place.
***
After getting over my initial disappointment, I entered industry mode and prepared for the onslaught. I rushed to my section to make sure tables were cleaned, stocked, and presentable. Then I went to the hostess station (sans hostess) to see if I had reservations. Sure enough I had 2 groups of 6 at the most inconvenient times possible. “FUCK, of course!,” I thought. Indeed, these groups would sink me later on. But I threw down menus, coasters, and water glasses on the tables to give me every advantage possible.
Next, I scoured the server and expo stations to make sure we had enough roll ups, side plates, and all the other crap we needed for a huge rush. I wasn’t impressed, or SURPRISED, by my findings. Despite the day staff knowing of the blitzkrieg that would hit us the preparations were mediocre… and that’s being generous. I was never one to engage in pathetic rivalries between FOH and BOH, or day versus night staff, but sometimes there’s a reason restaurants put their laziest, most incompetent employees on days. I can’t exactly remember what I thought after discovering these logistical shortcomings but words like “useless,” “big shock,” “bastards,” and “I hate my life,” were likely included.
To be fair, the night staff weren’t much better. When I told them we needed to prepare and stock up to weather the gathering storm they initially dismissed me. It was only after I explained how this would impact their sections and tips they sprung into action. Because appealing to the greater good and teamwork can work some of the time, depending on the professionalism and integrity of the staff. But appealing to the wallets and purses of FOH staff never fails… EVER!
Fuckers…
To their credit the bartenders and servers and hustled, belatedly, enough to produce a decent reserve of supplies to weather the first wave of customer hordes. But as we had no dishwasher, expo, manager, or host to replenish this, we’d be hard-pressed to fight off subsequent assaults. The only chance we had is that it wouldn’t get too busy, or that we’d be hit in slow, incremental waves to give us just enough slack to get by. Ha… if only we had been so lucky.
Once this crazy flurry of activity and half-assed preparations was over I tried to calm down, collect my thoughts, and prepare myself for the coming battle. Because as restaurant veterans know the quiet, seemingly never ending minutes before zero hour are usually more terrible than the chaotic rushes themselves. Because when everything is going to hell and you’re struggling to not drown in the weeds you don’t have time to stay to sulk or panic.
So I quickly visited the restroom to make sure my appearance and uniform were immaculate. Thankfully, despite a previous night of hard drinking I was young and fit enough to hide most of the signs and there were no ‘visible’ stains on my all black apparel. Which is why most restaurant dress codes are black and anytime I visit a pasta place with white uniforms I want to find out who suggested this policy and give them an back-handed slap to the face.
After returning to the floor I made a last mental note of the specials and most complicated items on the food and drink menus. Finally, I made sure I had at least 3 pens and enough notepads to write down more passages than the King James Bible once the floodgates burst and drowned us in customers.
***
Between 5:15 and 5:30 the supper rush avalanche began and it was constant, brutal, and merciless. For the next 120 minutes (or 7200 seconds) I never had a break or moment to myself. Though I know for a FACT every employee who smoked had their ‘ENTITLED’ puff breaks. There aren’t many constants in the industry but it’s rare a smoker goes a shift without one. It never matters if their sections are collapsing, the kitchen is crashing, and I doubt even an incoming asteroid wouldn’t dissuade them from their nicotine fuelled focus.
Yet non-smokers don’t get such a privilege… not even alcoholics. Because I’d have less resentment had I been given two shot breaks per shift where I could down an oz of gin and relax. Even British soldiers on the Somme got that before going over the top to face artillery, barb wire, and machine guns. That’s okay though… each cigarette costs human beings 5 minutes of their lives and unless I get hit by a bus I’ll live a few more miserable months than many former colleagues.
I don’t remember much of the 120 minutes from hell because it was one disaster after another. But I do remember fleeting moments, like unpleasant flashes from a bad dream.
I recall seeing the entranceway and groups of customers standing around like lost children… with no hosts to shepherd them to booths and tables. I remember stacks of dirty dishes that got higher and higher, that nearly toppled over until I organized them into shorter piles. I recollect a leaderless kitchen (the KM wasn’t there either), that took far to long to pump out our mediocre, supposedly mass producible crap that passed as food. One steak took an hour… and I had to apologize to every table for the ridiculous wait times.
Then there was our supervisor, who should’ve used this crisis to prove his mettle and leadership qualities. But instead of leading from the front or inspirational rhetoric he spent 7 minutes at one point fixing a jammed stapler… I’m dead fucking serious. But as he was a martinet who used CSI precision to dissect closing duties and once pulled out the dishwasher to do a deep clean (during Mother’s Day) this wasn’t surprising!
Most depressing of all was watching our veteran bartender forced to train a newbie, on the busiest day of the year. Needless to say this meant fucked up orders and late drinks coming out from the bar. Perhaps this was the worst oversight of our GM. Because most customers will be appeased, temporarily, as long as they have a drink in front of them. But alas, I had to explain to pissed off customers why highballs, pints, and beer bottles were taking 15-20 minutes to get to their tables. Had I owned the restaurant I’d be ashamed!
Finally, someone had the bright idea to call in one of the managers to help us. It was the 23 year old girlfriend of our 42 year old nominal fuck boy manager. We were lucky because when she called him he wasn’t currently with a woman (or women) so he came to our rescue. While he wasn’t my favourite manager in the world he certainly was that night. The man was sent immediately into the kitchen to expedite the mass of food that was coming all out at once. He’d be stuck there throughout the crisis.
Thankfully, our supervisor, perhaps motivated by the presence of an actual manager, finally stepped up as well. He dropped the stapler, picked up the slack, and came into his own. Because whatever criticisms I have about Casey, even at my best I never matched him as a host, busser, or waiter. Thus, roughly 80 minutes into the ordeal we started our counteroffensive… but by then the damage had been done.
***
It was most apparent in our tips… the only metric 98% of FOH employees care about (the other 2% are in the industry because they actually enjoy serving human beings). Admittedly, being a lower class chain, with cheap clientele, the average tip ratio was insulting already. I call it ‘the rule of 7.5.’ because it’s in between 5 and 10 percent and depending upon circumstances and the mood of the customers that’s how much less tips per check you’d get versus serving at better restaurants. There are many inconvenient truths about tipping, which I’ll detail another time, but in general most people tip based on preconceptions or surroundings… not on merit or service. They’re also more likely to tip higher if you’re attractive or share their background and race.
Because besides dumb rules like “I tip 10% no matter what” or whatever their parents or social groupings taught them, most people tip solely on how prestigious the place is. It’s why at lower end, garbage places (like this one) I’d often get 0% instead of 10% at decent ones, 5% versus 15% at reputable ones, and 10-15% at best versus 20-25% at the most prestigious, like the piano bar. I’m not making a judgment on the merits of tipping and what servers actually deserve, but let’s be honest! Critical thinking goes out of the window for most people when they tip and they simply give what’s inherently expected. It’s why I was always shocked when I’d get next to nothing at the piano bar for great service, and 25% at places like this when everything went to shit. Because the first instance shows the actions of a psychopath, and the other one a saint.
Anyway, after my initial tables left I saw a distressing, disappointing trend which never improved all night. That’s why the most successful, or at least less bitter, servers don’t check tips until the end of the shift. Because bad morale is contagious and a losing streak will destroy your mood and any chance to recover from early losses.
It started with the smaller groups, who perhaps understandably didn’t understand how a few beers and appetizers could take an abysmally long time to arrive. Once I realized the 5% tip averages were accumulating, and angrily recalling our 4% tip out policy, I resigned myself to going home with barely enough money to buy a Red Bull, pack of Hubba Bubba, and a cheap condom from a gas station washroom. Yet things only got worse after my bigger groups and reservations went home. Two tables in particular piss me off to this day.
One was a table of 3 working class couples who were understanding and friendly despite the chaos… until it came to the tip. Because despite my profuse apologies and generous discounts I got between fuck all and 2.68%. I’d never treat another server or human being like that and none of them had obviously served a table in their lives.
The other table were a bunch of relatives and likely there for a special occasion. But they were either having a bad day or just another dysfunctional, predictable family unit, given how much alcohol they consumed. Because I sent way too many scotches, Caesars, and pints to the kind of group that generally has 1 drink per capita, but still panics if any of them can drive home sober. They sucked from the beginning and while I understood their frustration at the shit show that night I did everything to explain, apologize, and discount, and on a nearly $300 bill I didn’t get a penny.
Fuck some people… I’ve gotten the worst service imaginable, complained politely, and all I’ve gotten is a laugh to my face. There’s a circle of hell for people who show no mercy for servers who all but bend over for them. Oh well, some of them were seniors and 10 years later statistics would suggest a few of them are probably dead. Because just like tips human life is often fleeting, and ultimately cheap.
Eventually, the restaurant died down, closed, and we licked our wounds. Then we calculated the cost of our GM’s incompetence and complacency. We had survived but it was a pyrrhic victory. Our only consolation was being a low brow place no customer had the energy, willpower, or ability to write a coherent, scathing review. I can’t remember how my night ended, perhaps due to my CPTSD after a 17 year career. But there’s a 99% chance I went out for a few drinks or drove straight to the off-sale, so I could drink at home after a disastrous shift.
***
At the time I was either too tired, naive, or just struggling to survive to realize how rotten and unprofessional our GM was to leave us in such a position. Later I remember the manager who came in to help us bitching “it’s not my name on the door.” The GM wasn’t a bad guy and to be fair was just like countless mediocre kogs in a corrupt, soulless machine.
But he was our de facto, if not deserved leader, and he’d soon face his reckoning. Because if you want to see the Peter Principle in practice just go to any local restaurant with a poor reputation and observe management. He’d be fired a few months later and while I liked him enough (he was fun to get drunk with at least) with hindsight I usually think ‘fuck him!’ There’s no lack of subpar managers and the man didn’t deserve the kind of salary and benefits he received, especially from a low class, underperforming establishment.
However, our GM was just one cause among many that came together to create the perfect firestorm that day. Because to me that disgraceful evening is my favourite (or perhaps least favourite) case study of the consequences of a toxic, incompetent restaurant, reinforced by out-of-touch, bean-counting corporate hacks, who’ve never washed a dish, poured a pint, or waited a single table.
The best historical parallel is how the Israeli Airforce destroyed its Egyptian counterpart (that had more and better planes) on the ground in 3 hours during the Six Day War. Because it’s people, backed by good leadership, thorough training, and properly motivated, that win wars and makes restaurants great. I’ve worked for corporate chain with deep pockets that couldn’t run a bar to save their lives. And I’ve served independent restaurants with modest means whose staff could run circles around their corporate counterparts. The big battalions don’t always triumph.
Our GM’s replacement arrived a few days later. He was around my age, easygoing, and fun to work with. We became close friends and hang out all the time. At the time I thought things had turned around for the better.
But as usual, I was wrong…