soft opening
Posted 07-31-2008 at 12:03 PM by paloma
I got suckered into helping a friend out with a restaurant opening. I thought my blog title would lure in the pervs 
Last night they had a "soft opening"-they held two benefit dinners for a local women's shelter, to help out the community and get the staff broken in too. I couldn't work the 5 pm seating, but I worked the 8 pm seating. It was chaos, but I knew it would be. I've never worked a restaurant opening, and I hope to never do it again. One of the hostesses, who had never drank an energy drink before last night, was puking up bright lime green into the nasty ass dish-scraping trash when I first showed up. It was a true Technicolor yawn. There were people who had never served before asking me things like "How do I ring in he wants extra ice in his soda?" Bussers were grabbing people's clean water glasses by the rim and setting them down at tables. A bartender's ex-wife bought tickets to the benefit dinner, but there's a restraining order involved and she didn't know he would be working there, and we had to ask her to leave. No one was taking care of the cooks, making sure they had cold water to drink. A breaker tripped and the Micros went down. The expediter up and left halfway through the night. It was rough.
About an hour into my shift I realized I had a huge grin on my face as I was wading through all the mini-crises, trying to serve my own tables as I helped the less experienced staff. I missed serving! It's been about 5 years. I think I'm gonna work weekends there. I convinced a few other servers to donate a percentage of their tips to the women's shelter, so I'm feeling pretty jazzed about that too.
I'm a bit sore today though. I am chalking that up to time away from those giant oval trays loaded up with heavy plates. It's got nothing to do with me being 30 now. Nope, nothing at all!
Last night they had a "soft opening"-they held two benefit dinners for a local women's shelter, to help out the community and get the staff broken in too. I couldn't work the 5 pm seating, but I worked the 8 pm seating. It was chaos, but I knew it would be. I've never worked a restaurant opening, and I hope to never do it again. One of the hostesses, who had never drank an energy drink before last night, was puking up bright lime green into the nasty ass dish-scraping trash when I first showed up. It was a true Technicolor yawn. There were people who had never served before asking me things like "How do I ring in he wants extra ice in his soda?" Bussers were grabbing people's clean water glasses by the rim and setting them down at tables. A bartender's ex-wife bought tickets to the benefit dinner, but there's a restraining order involved and she didn't know he would be working there, and we had to ask her to leave. No one was taking care of the cooks, making sure they had cold water to drink. A breaker tripped and the Micros went down. The expediter up and left halfway through the night. It was rough.
About an hour into my shift I realized I had a huge grin on my face as I was wading through all the mini-crises, trying to serve my own tables as I helped the less experienced staff. I missed serving! It's been about 5 years. I think I'm gonna work weekends there. I convinced a few other servers to donate a percentage of their tips to the women's shelter, so I'm feeling pretty jazzed about that too.
I'm a bit sore today though. I am chalking that up to time away from those giant oval trays loaded up with heavy plates. It's got nothing to do with me being 30 now. Nope, nothing at all!
Total Comments 6
Comments
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Very few people will acknowledge that being a good waiter/tress is an art... one that unfortunately very few working in the industry possess...
For a lot of people it is a "shit job" that they do before they graduate or if they have not found anything.
It is a hard job. But if done with style and class it's a whole other ball game! Glad you had fun and kudos on convincing others to donate percentage of their tips! That is totally cool!Posted 07-31-2008 at 12:23 PM by Bergamot
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Perv here checking in. D'oh! Wrong blog!
Hey maybe you can at least get some free eats once in awhile as a thank you?Posted 07-31-2008 at 12:25 PM by nycport v 2
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30 years young. And yes, I too got suckered in by the title.Posted 07-31-2008 at 01:21 PM by Beerbuttchicken
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Wah?! No vag? You tease! Your next post better have pootang or so help me...Posted 07-31-2008 at 02:04 PM by Ricecooker
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you are a power house. it sounds like there was some entertainment in there somewhere.Posted 07-31-2008 at 08:14 PM by xqzmi
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Hahaha, "true Technicolor yawn", I am so stealing that one, it's brilliant.
Yeah, gotta agree with x, seems like nothing can kill you.
*steps off to sew palomas "power woman" cape*Posted 08-01-2008 at 02:39 AM by Lady_Fate
