Valentines Day In A Restaurant
One of the most (if not the most) popular days to eat out. People swarm to some of the finer dining establishments looking to capture that perfect night. The wine swirls into your glass, silverware is polished, and plates come out with delicious meals. You would never think that this amazing scene is created by a place that is so chaotic on the inside.
Noise pours out of the active kitchen. Stainless steel crashes everywhere while a cart with a squeaky wheel transports a set of dinner plates that hit each other from the bumpy ride the floor provides the cart. The industrial dishwasher releases another burst of steam from from its core.
Everyone is moving frantically to take care of their own, acting as cogs that make the whole machine run.
The front end is more controlled but it is only aesthetic. Servers rush to meet the needs of their tables. One person wants a hot tea? Get the tea pot and pull back the red lever that releases hot water from the coffee machine. Wait for that to fill up so you can get the tea bag, pull on the string and place the bag by the pot which has to be served on a doily plate. Grab a coffee mug and present everything together. Thats one out of twenty people that are counting on you at that moment to have a great Valentine’s Day dining experience. Other people at the table see the warm drink and decide they would like one as well.
There are a lot of workers cursing under their breath in the kitchen. Job titles, egos, and the task at hand are blended together to form how each person interacts with the other. Food gets sent through, and prepared by a team of five people. Three handling everything that is hot and two handling everything cold. The meals get sent from the cooks through a person that acts as a buffer between the back and front ends. Getting the food organized for the servers and making it look its best. Trying to keep all the trains running on time. The different sides remind each other of of their responsibilities as every meal is made. A checks and balances type system. When they are on top of things they resent this nagging but when things fall through the cracks they are thankful and apologetic. Two steak dinners are double checked and sent out.
A large table sits and looks over the menus. They were talking when you were explaining the specials so they ask you about them again. The group seems fairly sure they are ready to order so you look to the nearest lady to start the ordering. She is still deciding so she points you to start the other direction. Your gaze finds its way to the gentlemen to her right who tells you to get the ladies’ orders first. You must move your eyes across the table for someone (anyone) who knows what they want to eat. This dance could go on for a while.
There is a log jam in the kitchen. Cooks are yelling to get the hot line cleared to make way for more food. Servers are getting yelled at for not getting food out to the tables. Servers yell right back explaining their tables are not yet ready. Everyone has a very precise order in which things have to happen. These different processes can not always coexist without friction. Orders keep coming in.
You punch a few buttons on a computer adding drinks to a ticket before it gets printed out. A bill gets nestled into a small book with a pen. As it gets dropped on the table you could tell they were happy. Everything went as it should because they had no idea there are people fighting each other to make the place run. An invisible line shields diners from the show the back end creates. No matter how frantic a server is when they cross that line towards the diners and away from the circus they are clam and composed. It is second nature.
A rush comes and goes. In the kitchen people that were literally yelling in each other’s faces are now laughing while telling stories that is vulgar and untrue. Cogs are telling other cogs how good of a job they did throughout the night.
Everything is cleaned and put away. The lights turn off for about 6 hours when they are flipped on again to signal the start of another day.
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 15th, 2007 at 2:49 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
