Recipe Station

Here are just a few of our favorite stories about great restaurant managers. As you'll see, some bosses really look out for their employees!

Just tip your damn servers
“One place where I was working, we had a table of 18 people who took over the back dining room. They had made a reservation and had a few requests, including making sure that we didn't have just one waitress for the whole group. They were also informed of the 18% automatic gratuity for parties over six people.

“When they arrived everything was fine, the waitresses basically each took one half of the group and we just made sure everything came out together. Now, a table of 18 would have been easily handled by either of these waitresses, and typically we'd just have her just have the one table, though it wasn't uncommon to start giving the waitress a couple more tables after the entree was served. But with a split table of 18, I just seated the waitresses in the regular rotation.

“About 15 minutes after they sat down, a woman got up and asked to speak to the manager, who was still there but getting ready to leave so I just told her I was the night manager. She said, ‘Excuse me, I'm the organizer of this event.' (The organizer of this event? Eighteen people having dinner at a restaurant is an event?)

“‘Hi, I'm Jon, what can I do for you?'

“‘Well, I had requested when we planned this event that we have two waitresses available for the table.'

“‘Yes, I took your reservation, is everything OK? I think both Katie and Amanda were handling your party.'

“‘They did, and everything is fine, but I see they are working other tables as well.'

“‘Sure, but they will keep an eye on your table, too. I've only seated them with customers right next to the private dining room and they know to check on you regularly.'

“‘I had assumed we would have exclusivity.' She used that word with a little bit of emphasis.

“‘Sorry, no, I know I we didn't talk about that on the phone. But the waitresses work on tips and it's really not fair to them for me to not let them have any more tables. I promise they won't make your party wait for anything.'

“She didn't really argue much past making her point, and I should point out that except for this exchange, up to this point, the party had been fantastic. Couldn't have been nicer: ordered real meals, appetizers, drinks. No complaints, no weird substitutions, and they were running up a nice bill.

“‘IT'S LIKE I TOOK MONEY OUT OF THE WAITRESSES' POCKETS, AND THEY ARE FIERCE AND DANGEROUS WAITRESSES AND WILL HURT ME.'”
“So, after desserts and coffees were all served, I combined the two tabs into one, added the gratuity, and they dropped the check. And, of course, there we had a problem. The gratuity, which was discussed on the phone and printed on the bottom of every page of the menu, was a surprise.

“‘I had assumed that you were only putting a surcharge on if we had exclusivity of the waitresses.' There was that word again. She wasn't even using it right.

“‘No, it's just for any large party. Any party more than six people.'

“‘I don't think it's fair to charge that without exclusivity.' OK, third time with that word. I was done with normal customer service.

“Their bill was around $700, and I think the gratuity added $120 to that, and split between two waitresses, $60 apiece, minus 10% tip-out for the bussers, all of $54 for a table that was there for three hours. Yeah, I don't think she was getting her exclusivity on for that. And the whole party of people was watching this conversation.

‘”OK, no problem, I can take the gratuity off.'

“‘Great!'

“‘You just have to promise me you're going to tip more than 18%.'

“‘What, why?'

“‘Because if I take it off and you tip less, it's like I took money out of the waitresses' pockets, and they are fierce and dangerous waitresses and will hurt me.' I should point out that I was bigger than both of them put together.

“‘But what if I don't want to tip 18%?'

“‘How much did you want to tip?' I'm very aware of how inappropriate this is, the whole exchange, but I should also point out that the restaurant had recently been sold and at the end of the year it was being completely rebranded and I was out of a job, so what could really happen?

“‘Ummm, 15%?'

“‘No, that's too low. How about 25%? It's almost Christmas, and everyone likes presents!'

“‘I thought 15% was standard?'

“‘Standard-ish, for poor to average service, but you had two waitresses and everyone liked them, right? Good service? How about we meet in the middle at 20%? That's only like 20 bucks extra.'

“‘You know what? You're right! Just leave the gratuity on, that's fine!'

“She paid cheerfully, possibly thinking that she got one over on me by just paying the automatic gratuity. And as the party shuffled off, one of the guys in the party gave an extra 10 bucks to each waitress, telling them that they deserved the 20%.” — Jon August

Let's check the videotape
“I worked as a waitress in an upmarket four-star hotel, where I quickly learned that the more expensive the place, the more people unashamedly try to get out of paying for ANYTHING.

“One quiet afternoon in the hotel lobby, and we have two guests order a dessert each to have with coffee (posh chocolate cake and brownies with a dollop of vanilla cream). It's not my section today, so one of my colleagues takes the order, serves, clears the empty plates, and brings the check, at which point the guests kick off massively, saying that the desserts were the worst food they'd ever had, they were pretty sure the cream was off, there's no way they're paying for it. On such a quiet day, we don't even have a manager in the lobby, so my colleague has to go beg for help from the bar manager, since she wears a suit and the authority tends to help in these situations.

“She comes over and asks the guests if there was a problem with the food, why they ate it all without saying anything. They say they didn't eat it: They only had one bite and could tell it was off. She says ‘Then why have we the got the empty plates in kitchen?' They say, ‘Well he' — literally pointing fingers at my colleague — ‘probably ate it himself! And now he's lying to protect himself!'

“That's right, they're suggesting someone had the uncontrollable urge to finish partially eaten, gone-off desserts.

“It's getting ugly and the guests are shouting now, so the manager says to wait a moment, goes away, and comes back… with the bouncer, who's about 6'5” and looks like an ex-Marine. She says, ‘OK, let's all go to the security office together and watch the CCTV footage to prove that the waiter ate the desserts and then I can refund you' — and here points to the cameras that we have in every corner, which they clearly hadn't noticed before the finger-pointing.

“The guests immediately start mumbling about how they don't have time for this now, they need to go, they'll sort it out later. We know their room numbers so we let them go… and she simply adds the bill for the desserts and coffee on to their room tabs.” — Sara Farragut

Wow!

We've heard plenty of horror stories about both restaurant guests and managers, so we're heartened to read these stories about managers who really go above and beyond to support their employees.

Well Done!

Article Source: Thrillist