Guest post: Chefs Versus Customers Revisited

My site's first guest post comes from Hellraiser at Chef's Kitchen Rant. Check out the blog, or another guest post from Chef's Kitchen Rant at So You Want To Be A Banquet Manager. This post makes me wish I worked with actual chefs, who care, instead of asshat fry cooks who laugh when servers get screwed!

Chefs Versus Customers Revisited

If you're easily offended, exit now, this is not going to be pretty.

Well, it happened again. Another waitress in tears due to a table of prize fucktards.

It's Saturday night, we have a well booked restaurant, a wedding for 90, an understaffed establishment and we're ready to fucking rock and roll! One of our tables is a 16 pax, no problem, I find big tables easier to deal with most of the time as usually they are all family, friends or celebrating a common theme. All of which makes the event about them and what they are there for, rather than out to have a dining experience or to critique the restaurant.

It takes the pressure off us in the kitchen, as usually they can wait a little longer, on the understanding that we are not a club, RSL or a fucking dining hall. We are a restaurant, we cater for little parties of people, 2, 4, 6 no problem. If you all want to dine at the same time you need to book a fucking function room, accept one of the function menus and then we call the shots as to when you will receive your courses. That is simply the way it is done, if you don't like it, go somewhere else that can accommodate your needs, that's business.

If you really want to come to our establishment to dine from the 'a la carte' menu, then you are going to have to accept that your large group experience is NOT going to be an intimate journey of fine wines, Michelin star food and exquisite service. We are not set up that way and we cannot change the entire restaurant to suit the needs of 16 people out of the 160 or so that we will cater for this evening, so...

SIT DOWN, SHUT UP, AND PLAY BY THE FUCKING RULES!

This particular table turned out to be a bunch of geriatric old fucks, poncing it up as if they were Lords and Ladies, with their cheap nasty perfumes, pink rinses and plastic fucking earrings! Criticising everything they could and generally making themselves difficult and awkward for all the staff. They sat there for an hour, pissing around before they ordered, then placed the order and starting moaning about the length of wait they had after 20 minutes.

What the fuck?


We are an 'a la carte' restaurant. What does Lord Fuckhead, in all his royal wisdom understand this to be? Just calm the fuck down. They are not paying $500 dollars a head, we're lucky to get $30 out of these fucks. We do not have food sitting in bain maries waiting for their order, so that we can 'chop and slop' their meal to the table. Even if we did, the reaction we got from the great food that we did serve, would have been insignificant to the reaction they would have with 'chop and slop' style.

Rude, arrogant, ignorant fucks!

The situation seems to be in control however, our specialist on the floor, who has the ability to pacify such groups has moved in to take control. Fine, job done, eat up, pay up and fuck off, thank you :)

The last meals go out and I'm soon heading out for a ciggy, only to find waitress pacifier in tears! She might not be the perfect waitress, but intelligent and certainly not one to be fucked with, and the arrogance of our 16 pax has created this!

I am so fucking pissed off. It makes my blood boil. Read my previous post for a more in depth look at why I'm so angry.

http://chefskitchenrant.blogspot.com/2009/05/chefs-versus-customers.html

So, now we are a staff member down. Is this group of fucking arseholes happy now? That they've upset someone to the point of tears, should we bring her out to show them what they've done? Will they go home tonight thinking that they had a great night because they fucked with someones emotions? FUUUUCK, I'm FUCKING RAGING! But yet, somehow, somewhere, there is still something in all hospitality professionals that keeps us from returning the arrogance. Why is this? Well, just maybe, it is because we have a passion for excellence and a drive to ensure every customer has an enjoyable experience, it's why we do the job, and it's what we were taught to do. And maybe, it's because we are simply better people.


One of these days though, I'll be caught off guard and I'm going to throw the fuckers out myself!


If you'd like to be my next guest blogger, please drop me a line at slightlycranky at hotmail.com -- be it a new post or one from your archives, I'd love to share it!