Restaurant Workers Want You to Know About These Things.
We recently asked people who have worked in the food service industry if they have any ideas about their work that they would like to know to restaurant patrons and got great answers. Whether it’s tips, food orders, or how you should and shouldn’t treat waiters, these are the secrets to being a good customer.
Waiters are not servants – treat them with respect
It’s nice to have people waiting for you and filling your glass, but that doesn’t mean they’re below you, says Todd T. Belka :
Number one with the bullet: just because I work in the service industry does not mean that you are better than me. You are a guest in my establishment, behave like that.
lmoneyfresh666 agrees:
It hurts. Why waiting tables are seen as work for the lowest of the lowest. I would say that at least half of the staff I worked with were female students or mothers trying to pay their bills. Yes, you can get some shady people to work in restaurants, but most people are just trying to make ends meet, and catering is decent money for the time it takes.
Not everyone treats the waiters badly, but the actions of the characters in the films don’t help, says Dotard Trump :
I’ve always hated people who learned their restaurant etiquette by watching movies. Snapping fingers, waving a bill in the air, sniffing a wine cork …
However, the worst part is when people are all too familiar with their waiters and waitresses, says River – why :
You might think this would be taken for granted, but don’t sexually harass your server.
StarryNight17 says that it is most often the problem of men who misunderstand things:
Please remember that waitresses are paid to be nice to you. When the waitress smiles at you or laughs at your jokes, this is not a sign that she likes you; this is because her rent literally depends on her politeness and friendliness. This is nothing more.
And no matter what, IthinkHamNoblockedme explains the main rule that doesn’t need to be explained:
Don’t touch the server, don’t grab them when they walk by, don’t put your hand on their hand when you talk to them, it’s either rude or weird.
In general, lmoneyfresh666 says there is a basic rule for communicating with waiters:
I think it’s very simple: “Treat me like an ordinary person doing your job.” It’s shocking how bad some people treat the service staff, and I never understood why. Most of the people I have worked with are honest people just trying to pay their bills.
The server is not to blame Your food is not ready yet
The waiter takes your order and brings you food when it’s ready, but there is a time in between the two when they can’t control your meal, says the forgetful burner third (GDI) :
WAITING STAFF CANNOT CONTROL YOUR DIET, PLEASE DO NOT TAKE FROM YOUR CHEF ON A POOR WAITER / WAITER.
hambubger87 agrees, assuming there is a polite way to raise the issue:
If your meal takes a while, you can ask the waiter what’s going on, but don’t blame them. Usually the kitchen is screwed up, or just generally backed up. The server is just as annoyed as you are that your food isn’t ready.
Chefs also know that the time of day matters. The hired chef assumes that arriving for lunch or dinner guarantees longer waiting times:
If you come in during peak hours and order food that usually takes fifteen minutes to prepare, don’t be surprised if you don’t see it for at least half an hour. Grill / frypot / deep fryer space is not that big, so if we get it, your food will be on the waiting list. So relax, try some chatting with your horrible blind date, or just read The Onion.
Be clear about what you need or need
The restaurant staff can only work with the information they receive from you, so let us know in advance what you want. For example, as Rangalaxy17 points out , if you are just thirsty and not hungry :
If you only want a drink, please let us know. Otherwise, we will have to keep visiting you in case you think you are hungry and asking, “Why are you here again?” every time you look at you.
And Mike Herbst invites you to find out how much you love food before you order it. Cooks can’t read minds:
Know what temperature the meat is cooked at and which cuts are best served at what temperature. If you are unsure, leave this to the chef.
But reasonable food requests are okay, says Chris Murray :
Any reputable kitchen will do its best to fulfill a reasonable request, just be clear about what you want when you ask, and understand if we say we can’t do it for whatever reason.
Mike Herbst agrees:
Let your server know if you need accommodation. (But be reasonable.) … Basically, it’s all about the approach. If you are polite and ask rather than insist, most establishments will do their best to make you happy, within the limits of their time, opportunity and ingredients.
Just keep in mind that some queries are not possible, even if they seem reasonable to you. The hired chef explains:
No matter how trendy the restaurant you go to, many things are prepared in advance, so when we get jammed in a rush to have dinner, we can still deliver the food within a reasonable time frame. for example, most sauces are made in batches, so no, we won’t make you a single serving without any ingredients you don’t like.
When in doubt, it doesn’t hurt to ask a waiter or waitress a few questions, says Lali :
It’s okay to ask questions! I would rather have someone ask than get angry later. One day a dude threw his Americano at me because he was expecting something like a frappuccino.
And if you don’t know what you want, you can ask about that too , says StarryNight17 :
If you don’t know what you want, ask me. Remember, my goal is to eat well and leave happy. I can tell you what I’ve heard from customers and other service personnel about any item on the menu.
“Just don’t get upset when the waiters ask you a few questions in return,” says IthinkHamNoblockedme :
Don’t roll your eyes and don’t be suspicious of my questions. I’m just trying to fix the situation for you.
Please do not name your food preferences as allergies
If you have food allergies, it is very important to inform the waiters so that they can alert the staff. But he asks in absentia not to pretend that you are allergic just because you don’t like something:
Don’t claim your preferences are related to allergies. A kitchen may well accommodate both, but allergies are much more of a problem, and asking the kitchen to tackle this problem for no real reason is a drastic step. A special hello to a customer whose egg allergy disappeared after explaining the contents of the caesar sauce.
“This is an especially disgusting thing to do if you just stick with what’s in vogue,” says the hired chef .
… that creating allergies or intolerances for the sake of being trendy is a surefire way to provoke insults from kitchen staff. The real problem with allergens requires, in fact, a complete disinfection of every affected station, which halts production, causing backups across the board. If you don’t like cilantro, tell me you don’t like it and we will do our best if you are not a jerk.
“Even if you think you’ll get away with it, the staff probably knows anyway,” says pandorasmittensv.3.2 :
We know the difference between allergies, intolerances and the fact that you don’t like something and want to cook your own damn dish. Don’t lie.
Tips for restaurant staff are more important than you think
You’ve probably heard this before, but tip is important in most food outlets. Remember, as the butcher , toilet maker points out, the tip is likely to go to anyone who has participated in your dinner in some way:
Tipping isn’t just for the waiter / bartender. The waiter should usually tip some of his tips to the bartender and service staff (and in many cases kitchen staff), and the bartender will often tip the buses. As restaurants move to computerized ordering systems, this tip is automatically removed from the payout to the server / bartender at the end of the night.
If you’re wondering why you need to tip, Senshi34 all tell :
Anyone who is a tipped employee (waiters, waiters, hosts, and bartenders) can and usually gets $ 2.13 [per hour]. You must tip.
This hourly wage can vary depending on where you are, but it is always startlingly low. Lali also notes that your tip should be based on the actual prices of items, not their discounted price:
For heaven’s sake, tips are calculated at the regular price, not the happy hour discount.
This is important because, as the toilet maker butcher explains, tips are often based on sales:
SERPs are calculated not based on actual server hints, but based on what the computer calculates what the server “should” have received based on the sales it has accumulated – and these two numbers almost never coincide in favor of the server …
And don’t forget to tip people before you move to another part of the establishment, says pandorasmittensv.3.2 :
If you carry a bar tab, tip the bartender anyway. While servers break the bar, they often get tough, especially on large tabs.
When it comes to tip, this is probably the best way to say the river-why :
Include a generous tip with your meal. If you think a generous tip is too expensive, you cannot afford to eat there. If you want the waiters to love you and treat you like royalty, tip a generous tip. Every time.
Closing time means “we closed”
Wading to a food spot 10 minutes before closing is not ideal, but ok (technically they are open). However, Chris Murray says you shouldn’t stay too long:
Closing time is not the last possible minute you can order food, it is the time you have to shoot to get out the door. We certainly understand that some leeway is needed, but we have families and lives, and sometimes other jobs to go to.
lmoneyfresh666 does the following:
See, it didn’t necessarily bother me given that I usually had a job at the end of my shift, but with that in mind, don’t wait after eating. I’m more than patient, but don’t make me waste a couple of bucks a night.
You got here for a reason
Getting a good seat in a restaurant is a pleasure, but sometimes the staff need to take you to a different location. Commentator pandorasmittensv.3.2 explains why:
The host is often placed on a rotation or coverage basis to distribute sales across servers. If you are desperate for a particular table, make a reservation rather than screw up when they seat you. On this note, if the tables are empty, don’t assume you can’t have THAT TABLE. The section can be closed or tables reserved for a big party.
If sitting at a particular table really matters to you, Rangalaxy17 advises raising this issue before you sit down:
If you have a preference for a table, it’s better to say so at the door rather than waiting for you to be seated at a table that you won’t accept.
The chefs don’t spit on your food, but the staff will still bite off in a different way
We’ve all seen movies and TV shows where chefs do disgusting things with food, but StarryNight17 says it’s rare:
Don’t worry about someone spitting on your food … For several years of catering in various places, I have not even heard of a rumor about it actually happening. Primarily because there are always a lot of people in the kitchen, and this is a violation of the level of danger of arson.
They really suggest that the restaurant staff will do other things if you are rude:
Instead, revenge comes through wiping out the harvest, literally taking your orders, sitting you down at the worst restaurant table, saying only what’s wrong to ruin the date, and other things that settle scores while maintaining a thin layer of believable denial.
The hired chef says that being rude to the staff is very distracting for them, and they will find a way to make you pay:
We work with knives, fire, and easily contaminated food, and while most of us can perform multiple tasks at the same time, this chatter increases the likelihood of mistakes and “accidents.” And if you ever see a chef just standing outside the kitchen door and looking around the dining room, chances are they were told there was an ass on the floor. Don’t make them focus on you, we’re kind of vindictive.
It’s okay to ask for individual checks, just do it ASAP
What was once a headache is now much easier with point-of-sale machines. It’s quite cool to request separate checks, just do as IthinkHamNoblockedme suggests and say it ahead of time:
If you need separate checks, please tell me at the beginning, not at the end. It takes 10 minutes to receive an invoice because you did not prepare your server correctly. We are not going to ask, we have been pissed off too many times for this assumption.
But it is even more important to prepare a waiter or waitress if you are having a grand party, says pandorasmittensv . 3.2 . This can complicate and redundant their workflow:
Splitting checks is easy, but if you have more than five people in your group, don’t. If the restaurant is busy, the server is increasingly skipped over for every check they need to cash, especially if they need change.
Bonus: it’s perfectly okay to hand over your card to the waiters as soon as you receive the invoice
Finally, commenter kcunning asked a question that I’ve always wanted to know the answer to:
When my husband and I are dining out, he often pulls out his wallet when he’s ready to pay with his card ready. When the waiter gives us a check, he immediately returns it along with the card.
He says it’s fine and probably comfortable for the waiter. I’m not entirely sure, as it seems to break the rhythm that some waiters have (for example, they drop a few bills and then come back to pick them up). This also seems rough, although I can’t figure out why.
So which would you prefer?
Rest easy, people who have your money at the ready. Most waiters love it when you do it, says Senshi34 :
This is wonderful. Most waiters would rather this than the awkward walk by every couple of minutes to check if you are ready. When it comes to “beating the rhythm,” waiters always have something to do, so they quickly adapt and work as a matter of urgency. They will most likely contact you first, unless they have an urgent issue such as a missing order.
And the butcher, the toilet maker, agrees:
Quite cool – actually better than going back and taking a second, third, or fourth ride to see if it’s ready.
So that’s it! Keep all of this in mind the next time you sit down to dine in any establishment.