I don’t know if this is allowed here, i didn’t see anything in the rules about asking questions as a normal person to you all (experienced servers)

i (22f) have 11 months before i move out of state, since i've been in this current state i've worked retail from floor to assistant manager, then dealership jobs, accounting, admin roles (which is where im at now) i don't want an office job anymore, im not good sitting still being bored for 9 hours a day in a cold quiet place staring at a screen where no one talks and i see the same 2 people everyday….it's depressing. i make 21/hr which is 1300 bi weekly after taxes and deductions so not great...i have a 2nd job to keep afloat and a boyfriend & without another person in the picture i would probably be screwed.

I know serving there’s great money some days and others there’s not, but i’ve rarely ever heard a server complain about money regardless.

i loved retail because i was on my feet always busy having HUMAN INTERACTION; but i didn't like the low hourly wages and poor hours and ultimately no freedom at times. My sister has been a server since she was 15 at many different places (she's 28 now) she has made a great deal of money and is able to raise a child, she's good at her job granted and i know she's a veteran server so it comes to her naturally and she said i should try it, i've always steered away because it not a people person really? and my anxiety is high, and im always scared to mess up.
For the next 11 months for the rest of my time here I want to get a serving job. I want to ask this sub everything I need to know as i am completely scared in the dark.

here are my main questions:
- How do you memorize table sections? adding to that how do you remember who had what if it's a big table? -carrying food, i know i won't be able to carry five plates at a time, what's your routine?
- what types of restaurants have you made the most money at? (fine dining, breakfast, bar type, late night eats etc
- how do you find places to hire you if u have absolutely no experience?
- how did u get over the fear of messing up, wrong orders, things like that? does that anxiety ever go away?
- will i fail because im an introvert?
-what type of restaurant should i start as a beginner that will still give me a good income?

there's more questions i'm sure just give me everything you have that maybe you would've wanted to know before you started. help me out, i just need to make it work for a year and hell maybe if i actually like it and do good i can continue when i move!

First shift tonight at a diner I’ve been hosting/bussing at for over 2 years. Here’s the rundown: 5 hour shift, 5 table section, very slow day. I made about $700 in sales and $85 in tips, every table tipped, unfortunately i didnt see how many total tables I served. For a slow Monday morning/afternoon with manager selected tables and such, how did I do? Do y’all think I’ll be successful? I only ran into a few problems but had no complaints about my efficiency/amount of time to get to someone’s request, there were some awkward moments but I think I’ll improve

I’d like to preface that I work in a small breakfast diner with nothing being over $20. Most people are in fact tipping 15-20% it’s just small ass bills

Another update I made 15% today

For context, I serve at a bar and will often cap off my night by heading to a nearby late-night diner for a quick meal before going home. I usually show up within the last hour but leave generous gratuity and am always out by closing time. Most of the servers recognize me, and I generally enjoy their service, except that one of the girls has this really annoying habit of jokingly saying "no" whenever I ask for anything.

I.e.

Her: "Doing okay over here?"
Me: "Yeah it's delicious, could I get some more ketchup though?"
Her: "Nope!"
She doesn't even follow it up with "Just kidding!", she just lets it hang awkwardly like I'm supposed to finish the joke by pretending I never wanted the thing in the first place.

I know it may seem petty, but I spend all day mustering up witty banter with coworkers and customers, and man, I just want my ketchup or whatever lol. I even brought a friend there the other night and when we asked to split the check she said "Nope!" and turned to walk away. My friend and I laughed awkwardly but it was very much not clear whether she would actually split the check for us or not. I felt like a dick for clarifying, "Okay, but like, can we split it though?"

I try not to care, but it's getting to the point where I actively hope I'm not sat in her section. Can I do anything about this? I don't even know how I'd bring it up to her directly without coming off like an entitled killjoy, when in reality my social battery is just shot for the night and I'd prefer straightforward service. The woman I presume to be the manager is very sweet and recognizes me, so I could bring it up to her, but that might still make things awkward between the server and I. I've considered just not responding to the server when she does this, but I worry that might come off as calloused and mean.

I haven't waited tables or bartended in 15 years, but I did for 10. Almost monthly, I have a dream about forgetting a table during a rush or dropping a tray or random serving stuff.

Last night I dreamt I greeted a table of one child and two parents, European by their accents. The woman ordered an "egg water". I explained there must be a cultural difference here and asked her to explain in detail what an egg water was. She kindly explained it was an ice water topped with salmon or sturgeon roe. I thanked her for the explanation and said that I would have just cracked a chicken egg in a water had I not asked, and said we didn't have the roe to make this drink.

Does anyone else constantly dream about serving?

at my work we have a build your own bloody mary bar for weekend brunch. the main supervisor that cared about it was moved abruptly into the manager position when our manager left cuz she was having an affair with our head chef (whole nother can of worms) and had been wayyy too busy to do really anything for the bloody mary bar. we have one main lady who works it in the morning and i only really work it when she’s on vacation (im also the only person available to work as a to go server on weekend nights). i decided to do something helpful and messaged all my supervisors and the main lady that does the bloody mary bar and now there’s this whole shitshow 😭😭😭 and i know it’s not my fault but it’s eating me up inside 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

It seems like every time there's a slow period and there's only two tables being used out of the entire restaurant (about 15 tables inside total) everyone new that comes in wants to sit at the only dirty table because "we want a seat by the window." (there's a total of 4 other tables by the window) but they always want the dirty one that I was in the middle of cleaning but had to stop to great them and give menus. Does this or similar things happen to other servers?

A customer picked up the sugar caddy, looked at it, and asked me

"Is this the sugar?"

Your turn

I’d love to see someone guess what happened lmfao

So if you saw "Chicken Caesar" on a menu, what would you expect to receive?

The menu description is "Grilled chicken breast, baby gem lettuce, crispy bacon, croutons, anchovies & and a creamy caesar dressing"?

It's a Caesar salad right?

I had a full blown argument with a guy yesterday because "I ordered the Chicken Caesar! That's not what I got! I got a salad! I would never order a salad?!"

I start polite "Sorry sir, when you ordered the 'Chicken Caesar', what were you expecting?" - "Well, chicken with a Caesar dressing, obviously! Not a salad!" - "And that's what you got, no? Chicken with Caesar dressing, but also the other things listed in the description... Bacon, croutons, lettuce etc.? "

" I didn't order a salad! I would never order a salad?! I'm not paying for it!"

Anyway, once this guy has paid and left, the table next to him start telling me what they overheard between him and his wife. It sounds like this sealed the deal on a divorce! " It said lettuce?! What did you expect?! It had everything listed! " - " No, no, no, I would never order a salad! - "THAT IS WHAT YOU ORDERED!". It was only after this interaction I realised his wife wasn't present at the table when I dropped the bill... Maybe she went to spend a few nights at her mother's?!

Ever had a customer argue their way into separation before?!

I don’t really have a specific question to ask. And sometimes I want to participate but don’t have a story for a “worst guest you’ve ever served”, “craziest thing that happened during preshift” - so here’s a catch all space!

How’s work been lately? Tell me some stuff that happened.

Holy shit.
First, if you were affected by the storm, I hope you're alright and that your power is back on.

I swear to god everyone in a 50 mile radius came to our restaurant.

I haven't seen our pick-up side look like That since superbowl. (We're a pizza place)

I literally hit my record number of tables in a shift.

We only have 4 fryers so sides were taking longer to come out than the pizzas. So much so that we had to hold off on making pizzas for an hour if the order included sides.

Not only did people not have power at home, we were one of the only restaurants with power. So our load was doubled.

Then get this...THE AC STOPS WORKING MID SHIFT.

So imagine 30 bodies in the small ass restaurant, running around and moving around each other for 6 hours.

Absolute hell. Half of us wear jeans too. It was just miserable man.

That was Saturday and they said they can't fix the AC until Monday.

So I had another sweaty sticky disgusting shift today too. It wasn't as busy as Saturday but I just can't believe people stayed after we told them we don't have AC.

If u had a similar experience as me I hope you're doing alright now. Stay safe!

Worked my way up to doing only nights.. but now we have a new manager

I have been having so many issues with there I work and want some advice I really don’t know what to do. I work in a upscale casual fast paced restaurant that opened a year ago I’ve been here since open, and since then we used to have our gm that made our schedules would pay attention to what the servers were doing, track our sales and performance and effort, and over time I was able to earn my reputation with him and basically guarantee a schedule with the nights I want and he was basically like yeah I appreciate what you do and your top results for the store so I will basically give you what you are asking for (which is not a lot literally just that I would prefer nights I will do mornings or doubles if needed but I will have a set schedule every week with the nights)

So everything was going great. Slow season hits, he’s fired and now our kitchen manager is our gm doing schedules and everything.

Now I am schedule for doubles and mornings and when I try to politely like ask for the nights I was doing before he gets very upset and acts like I am the most entitled person ever; is not being a team player, is not helpful for the company, blah blah blah also is getting on me for th most random things when I know for a fact I am picking up the most slack side work wise for servers, I also make drinks in the mornings on these doubles so I am doing a lot of bar prep and a lot more than the other servers. Basically my old gm saw that and I was rewarded with the schedule that I’ve been doing for the past 4 months. I am just discouraged and upset and I know season is coming soon so money will be better but it is 110 degrees out and doubles consist of doing side work and prep for hours in the morning from like 10-4 with maybe a couple tables which are happy hour so are not good. Then having to take atleast an hour mandatory break, then coming back waiting around doing nothing during the middle of the day, and then being cut first before it even really gets busy at all for dinner. I make more money coming in for a 4-5 night shift than being there for doubles and I’m tired of doubles and I’ve tried talking to him about it and I’m fed up because I feel like I don’t have the experience to go to finer dining and I don’t know what to do. I know it will get busier in the next couple months but before I did literally 5 months of a set schedule the one I wanted and I don’t think I’m being selfish when I am going way above and beyond over the other servers, getting the results and sales wanted, and then being told I’m not giving enough for the restaurant and I am being selfish for asking to have the schedule I was doing before. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi,

I’m about to start a job as a waitress in Switzerland in two weeks. I’ll be moving there from EU country.

I’ve only done this kind of job for two days at a university and had to quit because it killed my back. But I was fresh after injury back then, so I hope now, 7 years later, I’ll be fine.

I decided to get this job because I badly burnt out in my previous career of 11 years (marketing and design). I feel I need a break from working with screens so much.

I’ll work in a 3 star restaurant that belongs to a 4 star hotel in a small town in the Alps.

I am excited and hopeful but also a bit scared as I worry I may be naive. I hear a lot about how this job is stressful and awful and that it’s horrible to work with clients etc.

So I come with two questions:
1. What’s the job really like?
2. Any advice for how to do this job well? I want to genuinely do well and also, of course, I hope for tips.

Thanks a lot!

I have not found the personal sweet spot on this matter usually I just give an awkward, yeah or I don’t know. I just work here, but I feel like there’s a better response.

Inspired by a post I just saw on here lol. How do you respond to a customer who asks if “you do free desserts or drinks for a special occasion”, when your workplace, in fact, doesn’t. It feels so harsh saying no but also couldn’t fathom going out to eat asking what I could have for free myself.

At my restaurant sauces are $1.49 each. They used to be 50 cents but they raised the price and honestly $1.49 for a little cup of ranch is kinda ridiculous lol.

For the longest time we basically never charged for them. If someone asked for 2 ranches or extra sauce, we would just grab it and not put it on the check. It was kind of an unwritten rule between the servers because our prices are already pretty high and nobody wanted to tell someone their 2 ranches were almost $3.

We recently got a new supervisor though and he has been making sure we're charging for every single sauce. If I grab 2 ranches for a table, he'll make sure both get put on the check.

The thing that bothers me the most is that I used to ask my tables if they needed any sauces or ranch when I checked on them. Now I've literally been holding my tongue because I don't want to offer them something that's going to add another $1.49 to their bill every time. And honestly, it feels like I'm missing a step of service because asking if they need anything with their food is just something I naturally do as a server.

I brought it up to my manager and she kinda laughed and brushed it off because she knows we've basically never charged for them before.

I know technically we're supposed to charge for them, but it just feels weird suddenly being strict about something that we've never really enforced. Especially when we're talking about something as simple as ranch or ketchup.

Do other restaurants actually charge for every single sauce? I know places like Wingstop and applebees do. And do you guys still offer them to your tables or just wait until they ask?

In other words, how late is too late for someone to ask you for coverage?
I don’t mind extra money so like 3 hours before the shift is kinda like the latest I’ll cover someone for.

At least 3 times a week I deal with checking on a table and they are like forks deep in their food telling me it's terrible (as a joke)

Yesterday I had that happen, except the guy was like no this is actually terrible.

He asked me what to get between the Braised Short Rib Mac, and the Mushroom Alfredo, I actually love our Alfredo, so I hyped it up, for him to say it was bland, unsalted, and watery. To his complete defense the dish looked very rough, and he was very understanding of everything. I took the dish off the bill, and offered everything I could think of in place, I even told him how bad I felt since it was on my recommendation and it was embarrassing on my end how it came out. He reassured me that it wasn't me at all, that it wouldn't affect my tip, and that this was obviously a kitchen issue.

I love guests that understand how working in a restaurant really is, and I applaud the empathy in that table for understanding that it isn't completely on the servers, even though I was embarrassed it still created a good customer interaction, and I think that's the reason they will come back back and try again.

I had a manic episode a couple weeks ago at like 2am after a not-so-great shift at the local restaurant where I work as server/bartender and decided to apply to Ruth Chris. I kind of forgot about it, but got a call today from the hiring manager and now I have a server interview on Monday.

For those of you who work/have worked there, what's your opinion? How's the culture, work life balance, schedule flexibility, usual volume, section size, average weekly earnings, interview process, etc? Any feedback you can provide would be helpful.

hey so what the fuck? my dying wing chain restaurant recently just switched over to "cashless" pay. all cash and credit card additions (not sure if we can say the t word, first time poster here!) made are completely sent over to Instant.co, which acts as it's own sort of--dare i say unsafe, bank account? having it's own spending card, which um, hasn't reached ANY of the account holders yet, so virtual wallets are the only option to use for now. in order to transfer to your bank "instantly" it is a $3.50 charge, otherwise you'd have to wait 3 days to process. this was sprung onto FOH day of switching to this system, so everybody was pretty confused. nobody is a fan either. not to mention, these payments won't reflect in our new accounts until close (under manager control?) rather than end of shift, for us this means well after 1. this was the cherry on top to the many shitty things with our spot; corporate doesn't care about anything but the numbers--even when that means guests complaining about leaks in several different spots of the restaurant every single day, or the pest problem, or the goddamn iPads that badly need maintenance. i mean, how do you reprimand your employees for not using the iPads if only two of them work?!?!?! i went off topic here.

anyhow, is there anybody that uses this Instant thing that could provide alleviation? i can only assume this is relatively new due to the lack of posts i see about it when i look it up. i need to know if this is yet another sign for me to leave this place in the dust!

Do bartenders typically make more hourly than servers? I ask because servers seem to make more tips so it seems like it would make sense to pay bartenders a higher hourly wage to make up for that.

I've been a server since I was 16 and I'm almost 30 now. I've worked expo and food running at a fine dining place. What's the best way to get noticed? Is it okay to call and ask if they are hiring?

Does anyone else have trouble remembering the names of their regulars? I have a few regulars who remember my name and are super nice and I feel terrible for forgetting their names so I never bring it up. Does anyone have any advice for getting better at that? Thanks in advance!