Sunday, March 6, 2011

Dear Serving in A Small Town..

You kind of suck sometimes.
I've been lucky in coming back to my restaurant. Working great 8 to 4's and still making 65-70 on a 11 to 4 pm for the most part. Today I walked into a two to eight thinking it would be okay and in the beginning of the night it was great. Until five pm (I got cut at seven)!

I was giving the service that normally gets me 20 percent or more and it was like that for the time from 2 to 5 where it was just two of us on the floor and I was getting double sat and in the ten's. People were sipping down cocktails and keeping me moving which is when I'm in the best mode. Tonight?! 17-18 percent tips everywhere I looked!

I'm such a complainer haha. To a normal person, this would be okay. To me, not so much! Especially when I could have been at a local show today which keeps this lady thriving and it had stereo skyline headlining acoustically who are a two time interview.

Today's highlight:
-the amazing new BLOOD ORANGE/mixed berry vitamin water which has natural caffein :-) So fucking yummy.

Today's lowlight:
-working my first shift with Jealous Freak (beautiful name I know) and Pro (so good at these names..will have to make a list of the stand outs) who just happen to be dating, probably getting married due to a little baby just now being announced that's on the way. Pro and I have always flirted though and talked yet this was the first time. It's funny because I'm always the one it seems he doesn't want to hurt in it when the three of us are working together. he got my tea all set for me when these two regular ladies came in and always asks if can help. amazing!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Back with Apron.

So I've decided to throw back on the apron and have found myspace back at the good old HK. When I started this blog, it was all good times and at a small town italian restaurant that would maybe get me three tables a night. I may have had the last straw and peaced on the place but then only spent two months at HK before I went to Boston.
I had a serving job there that was quickly turned into a clusterfuck which was lovely and ended up hosting. I loved all the servers I worked with and the people were great but I would see this people ring up mad money yet complain about it being slow when they all had three tables. I was barely making it by and made the decision to come back to HK which I'm already happy about so I thought I would bring back this blog!
It does mean that I won't be able to be covering as many shows in Boston but I'll still be around. That's all that was keeping me happy there but I was getting to know everyone, had a connection to the local scene which I had missed before but I'll be bringing back this blog which is the important end of the story :)
My first shift back was the day shift on Valentine's Day and instead of being shorted like so many people say I was making at least an extra dollar on many tables. I got a $7 dollar tip on a thirteen and a $10 dollar tip on a twenty for the best ones and am about to clock in for my first lunch shift with two 8 am starts this weekend. Back to small town living for a while and I'm not sure how well my ballerina buns and boots with leggings and itty bitty dresses are going to go over here...

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Just one of those nights..

Oh Wednesday nights at Messina. It was my first one in a while and since I was the only one on the floor with Opera (worst codename ever but she's obsessed) doing the local Lion's Club meeting. I ended up only having four tables but I walked away with $65 so I was happy, all 20 percent but people did not read the menu last night at all!

From wanting a panini which we only serve to four at dinner time to how to work an Early Bird but the biggest issue was when I got sat fifteen people at the same time..in seperate parties so when I asked for some help with drinks from Opera who hadn't started yet on her Lion's Club she was just expasarated but still demands that I take huge piles of used dishes and crap like that when I have tables of my own I have to attend to. Love it.

But of course, the cooks always make me laugh when I have been having a bad night. One of them told me tonight that he's considering putting in his two weeks and I was like ,'please no for my sake!' and was making goofy ridiculous faces behind our boss while he was talking to try to make me laugh. They save me in that restaurant jeez, them and my favorite other waitress Smiley and my bartender Forever 21. My names are random as heck , I love it! Back there tonight with Smiley on a 5 to close like last night. Silverware out the caboose!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

You know how I know you're gay? You have Ricky Martin on your mix cd.

Fifty bucks on a Thursday.

Seems pretty lame but it's the winter where I work and believe me, that's a good night. Seems like we are slowly but surely starting to pick up as the weather gets a little nicer out which is always good. All my tables were great tonight, I don't think I made less then 20% from anyone which is always a good thing so it was a low stress night. No campers, no complaints, and no sass.

Resulted in a sing along session to up and coming Rap Idol's mix tape. Will have to make one of those lists of the people I work with because this kid was hilarious. He was the old sous chef but had the worst temper and would under cook food all the time and think it was totally alright. He recently got let go..well a month ago..and would constantly tell me how he used to win singing competitions and all of his friends wanted him to go on idol. Well we found his mix cd tonight that he left among his stack of them that we found in one of the storage closets in the kitchen and as we were closing up the restaurant we all listened to his great selections of "I'm like a bird" by Nelly Furtado and "She Bangs" by Ricky Martin.

Such a solid Night and back to the place at 11 am tomorrow. awesome.

Benefits on a Wednesday.

Living on the Cape, six inches of snow cause the town to freak out so when I clocked in last night, I thought I would walk with maybe ten dollars but I came right into a benefit. Normally I'd be excited going into one of these but it was a weird situation where your check at the end of the night after discounts would most likely be 0 to 2 dollars per party. We were slammed from the start of the night at 5 and it didn't let up at all but suprisingly my tables were still tipping me at least twenty percent for most of the part of what the original bill would have been (the meals and everything) so I was really happy despite the stressful situation of a not so normal wednesday night.It was the first night I've walked with 100 in a while which is great considering it's the middle of the winter and we are completely dead for another month or so!

We were all on edge with each other for the most part till the end of the night when we slowed down but that's normal around there. I have a pretty lucky situation where I don't make too too many mistakes (last night it was just dressing on the side for one salad and it wasn't a fancy salad, they throw together a few greens, two cherry tomatoes and some onions and I was rushed so right after I did a slip, I didn't add the last dish but told the cooks right away so I was safe) so I'm in good shape with the cooks, other wise I would have been a lot of worse off in attitude. I walked out with double what the other server on made and I don't normally talk about it but she kept on talking about it all night. I had been cut down to one shift and this week I have three and when I was leaving, the foh manager asked what days I can't work next week and said things are going to be changing drastically next week so hopefully I'll pick up more shifts again!

Sorry for the lengthiness and craziness of this post but I have been reading all of these server blogs and really wanted to start writing one. I also balance this with a music journalism kind of career and that's all on my music blog www.mixandmark.blogspot.com!