9% Sunday Lunch?

Apparently Sunday is the day for trash to come out to eat. If you think about it, it's Sunday dinner and you want to take the family out. My family would go to a nice sit down restaurant that serves bread and salad with the meal, and leave a nice fat 25-30% tip for the server who probably didn't work half as hard as I do in the corporate chain restaurant. Anyhow, it's Sunday lunch and after a long and well earned broken sleep, I exhaustedly drove out to my job this morning. Aside from the Sunday drivers (and there were a ton of them) there was a huge motorcycle gang which also happened to get off of my exit and managed to all cut in front of me so that I got stuck at the light. I already should have seen this as a kiss of death.

For the most part, the beginning tables were easy going, mostly families with young kids. Aside from having to handle my tables, sidework, and dealing with hunger while serving food, I also had to train a new manager in training how to be a server. Luckily, he was already experienced as a server (most MIT's are cooks or bartenders it seems) so I thought this was going to be an easy shift.

My first bad table was a husband and wife with their bratty little girl. They must have been straight from Europe because I could barely understand a word they were saying. Anyhow, I let them point to things on the menu and out went a Grey Goose martini, a kid lemonade, and a pint of Guiness. The lady sent back the martini saying it was "too strong." I took the drink back to the bartender and asked him to put it in a shaker. He threw the shaker at me and left me to fend for myself. The couple ordered their food and I made sure to check on them often. They were pretty cool after that and asked me to wrap up their leftovers. They then gave me a $50 and I went to get change for the $48.20 check. I figured they needed the $1.80 back so they could drop me a tip from money they already had. When I turned around they were leaving. Ouch.

The next bad table was a group of 3 girls who were waiting for the 4th person to show. Like always, the 4th never showed. They all had "water with lemon" and ordered entrees, all with special modifications. When they were done eating, I wrapped up the girls food, making sure to give her little cups of each of the sauces that she asked for. They then proceeded to camp in my section for over an hour and left me $3 on $30. Come again!

I love making $27 on over $300 in sales.