Re-posting: 13 things your waiter won’t tell you.

Since my comment is #2,720 of 3,000 or so, and half of the replies are about as … challenged … as the original author, here’s my response to “13 things your waiter won’t tell you“. A sensationalist piece that makes waiters and cooks out to be unprofessional buffoons who simply hate, hate, hate, their diners, take short cuts, disregard safety and laws, and will do anything to get “up” on the paying customers they serve… Seriously, if you’re a chef or server or cook, go there and let Reader’s Digest and Shine know what you think…

Starts:

I’ve worked both FoH and BoH for way too long to care to remember. This list, funny as it is supposed to be, is about as wrong as it rhymes with nullwit.

1. Avoid eating out on holidays and Saturday nights. The sheer volume of customers guarantees that most kitchens will be pushed beyond their ability to produce a high-quality dish.

#1 – sure holidays and Saturdays are high volume days. Sometimes we even get into something we call “the weeds”, a state of utter chaos that seems unrecoverable. But, alas, believe it or not, the guys and gals in the back of the house are professionals and this isn’t their first holiday or Saturday. In fact, there’s a good chance it’s not even their 100th or so. Chefs and GM compensate by scheduling more staff and by a more elaborate Mise En Place, the trick that allows cooks to make dishes that take you an hour in 12 minutes or less. If anything, most food purveyors have special delivery schedules for the mornings of holidays, and we have a schedule for Saturdays, which makes them good days to have fresher foods if you can brave the line in.

2. There are almost never any sick days in the restaurant business. A busboy with a kid to support isn’t going to stay home and miss out on $100 because he’s got strep throat. And these are the people handling your food.

#2 – it’d bode well on the writer to familiarize themselves with U.S. food safety regulations and Serv Safe training. Any employee with a communicable disease marks a potential million-dollar lawsuit for restaurants. This isn’t just paper wisdom, google Marler and Clark and you’ll see what I mean. GMs, Maitre d’s, and Chefs learn over years to spot the sick employee trying to conceal it – and we relentlessly remove those people from staff for the duration. I can not, and will not, take the risk of bankruptcy due to that. In fact, most of my staff know, that their job is safe as long as they have a doctor’s note (we even pay for the visit) but will lose the job if they come in and we catch them. Anyone eating at a shady restaurant that doesn’t do this, deserves what they get (that’s true for all points on this list, I don’t speak for Applebees or Carrows, I speak for real restaurant dining).

3. When customers’ dissatisfaction devolves into personal attacks, adulterating food or drink is a convenient way for servers to exact covert vengeance. Some waiters can and do spit in people’s food.

#3 – again with the “professionals”. Do you really think, that service staff and food handlers have that little respect for the food they serve? Really, no matter how rude the diner, we take insane pride in our food, and would never “alter” it. Does it happen? Yeah, in those restaurants you shouldn’t be eating at, anyways. If someone abuses my service staff, they’ll be looking at the menu we post outside – that’s as far as they’ll get. My staff knows that, and most staff knows that. Spitting in food is insanely rare and never happens at good places.

7. Don’t order meals that aren’t on the menu. You’re forcing the chef to cook something he doesn’t make on a regular basis. If he makes the same entrée 10,000 times a month, the odds are good that the dish will be a home run every time.

#7 – a diner asking for an alteration to the menu or asking for something else will be accommodated as well as possible. Again, we’re professionals (I sound like a broken record), and we are in the service business. We work to make our customer happy (and have the come back, which earns us money), and we strive to do this for anyone. No matter how much I personally detest the vegan khmer rouge or “dressing on the side” cop-outs, there’s no reason to treat someone like this any different than any other diner. You want your steak well done? Sure I’ll hate you for it, but I’ll work my butt off to make you the best well done steak you’ve ever had in your life. You’re a vegan? I’d never, ever, cross the street to piss on you if you’d be engulfed in flames, but I’ll work harder than ever to make you the best vegan varietal of whatever dish you ordered. It’s my job, my professional pride, and it’s what I charge for and make a living with.

4. Never say “I’m friends with the owner.” Restaurant owners don’t have friends. This marks you as a clueless poseur the moment you walk in the door.

#4 – what a B.S. I am friends with more than one Chef and/or GM. If I dine in their restaurant, I’ll ask the waitstaff wether either is around and will make sure they know I am. Yes, this is in part to elicit the same favors and gimmicks I extend to my friends coming into my kitchen, but it’s also because I want them to know that I value their food and am happily paying for it. Guess what? In a world full of Yelp buffoons and wannabe foodies with Food Network education, it feels good to know that there are actual industry insiders who come and eat at my place, this gives me more validation than any restaurant critic review could.

I’ll skip a few, they’re just as dumb as the rest, except for:

13. Never, ever come in 15 minutes before closing time. The cooks are tired and will cook your dinner right away. So while you’re chitchatting over salads, your entrées will be languishing under the heat lamp while the dishwasher is spraying industrial-strength, carcinogenic cleaning solvents in their immediate vicinity.

#13 – my kitchen goes cold at fifteen past closing. Unless there’s still stuff to be sent out. My guys and gals are paid for that, my staff knows it, and – again – if you decide to eat at a place that cuts corners or peruses heatlamps as hot holding area, you’re at your own. Good restaurants will accommodate diners until the very end with the same professional zeal they served the first diner. And, let’s just say this, restaurant critics are known to do the “10 before closing” thing, too. We’d be stupid to send out sub-par items.

All in all, one sensationalist piece that has no place anywhere. I hope the writer, whomever he or she is, will never, ever, get a job in a good restaurant. We don’t need such unprofessional refuse, and we usually spot them quickly and send them back to their 24 hour truck-stop gigs.