Restaurant Rip Off

Restaurant Rip Off 

There are those that will come into a restaurant with what seems like a determination to “beat the house” so to speak .   To find a loop hole and yank on it knowing the restaurant will bend, there by giving the guest what they want.  It would be rude to tell a person they are cheap so we simply won’t do it.   Instead, we give in and let demands run about in dining establishments.   In this business, it’s certainly not true that the customer is always right, on the contrary, they are almost always wrong but the customer can almost always get what they want.  And they have figured that out.  Some pull simple rip offs like letting their teenagers order  off the kids menu knowing they are well past the age of twelve.  Few take a more brazen approach and ask their server blatantly to slip them something extra on the side for an extra tip.  This happened the other night with one of my coworkers.  A man had ordered gourmet cheese dip for he and his family.   After finishing he slyly asked my coworker if he could bring him another one on the slide.  He told my friend that it would help his tip if he could make it happen.  The cost of the dip is $9 so we can assume that if Mr. Cheese Dip didn’t want to pay the $9 for the dip, then he wasn’t going to give my server even $9 extra on a 20% tip to risk unemployment to get him a free cheese dip.  The rest of the dinner went off without  a hitch until the end of the service when my friend was cleaning his table and realized what Mr. Cheese Dip left him and why.  The tip was $15 on a $175 check.  On the bottom he signed his new nickname “Cheese Dip” letting my friend know that the reason for his poor tipping percentage.  Only because my friend would not give him a free cheese dip.  Twenty percent of a $175 check is $35.  Mr.  Cheese Dip left $20 less than that only leaving a little less than 9% of the check total.  If you have read my previous posts then you know we pay a 3% tip share.  It is 3% of total sales not tips so my friend had to pay $5.25 back to the restaurant for this table.  So he kept less than $9 on a table that should have been much more profitable for him had Mr. Cheese Dip not had such a unflattering sense of entitlement for his name sake.   Another one of my friends came up to me the other day with tears of frustration from a table that was playing the “loop hole” game at her table.  Here’s the set up.  It’s a man, woman and teen.  The couple says that they are going to order a “soup and salad” combo and split it.  She having the salad and he the soup.  This cost $11.  If they had ordered it separately then his soup would be $5 and her salad $9 totaling $14.  This couple found a $3 loop hole and they took advantage of it.  They also ordered a “child cheeseburger” for a girl that was at least 15 years old.   While a child cheeseburger is only $5 compared to $10 it is exactly the same size as the $10 burger.  It is only sold at a discounted price on the children’s menu for those 12 and under.  When the bill was brought the lady complained about her teenagers drink being itemized as soft drinks were free with items off the children’s menu.  Anther $2.50.  This lady found anther $2.50 loop hole to shave down the price of her bill.  By exploiting a restaurants weak spots, she was able to save $10.50 off her bill.  But what she also did was whittle another $2.10 off of the tip by bringing her check average down.  Ordering all of this directly to the woman that she was pick pocketing that extra $2.10 from,  there by earning her nick name “Polly Pick Pocket.”  There are other Polly Pick Pocket’s in this world.  One of my coworkers told me about a friend she has whose intentions are to get her entire meal paid for every time she goes out  to eat simply by complaining.  These rip off artists have found a way to skim off the top when they go out to eat.  But it doesn’t make them savvy, it only makes them cheap.  The moral of the story, don’t grow up to be like Mr. Cheese Dip or Polly Pick Pocket.  If you already are one, it’s time to make a change. 

Be Nice to Your Server

With this next post I would like to let everyone in on what seems to be a little known fact.  It’s pretty profound.  Ready?  Server’s are people, too.  It’s okay to treat them with the same courtesy that one  would extend to a friend.  Truth be known, a guest who is polite to a server will probably get better service.  Crazy concept, I know but true none the less.  I would say (and my colleagues would agree)  that about half of the tables that I greet have a dialogue that goes something like this.  The comments that stay in my head I will put in parenthesis.  

Me:  “Hello, how are you doing today?” 

Guest:  “Fine.”

Me:  “That’s wonderful.” (I’m fine also, thank you for asking.)

And even some go like this: 

Me:  “Hello, how are you doing today?”

Guest:  “Water.” 

Me:  There is no response from me here, I’ve already left to go get the water.  Obviously to this guest, each syllable is a waste of breath. But as I walk away I can’t help but think (How does one have a “water” day?)

Some guests will continue their conversation when I approach the table and not even acknowledge my presence.  I will never interrupt a conversation between guests because it is rude.  It is obvious that I am not a part of their party or conversation so my mere presence should be cue enough that I have a purpose for being there.  It is  completely understandable that a guest should be able to finish a point they were making and then turn attention to the server but when there is a stopping point and that opportunity is not taken to acknowledge the server, most of us will kindly step away from the table and come back to get a drink order at a time that is more convenient for the guest.  Some servers will choose to teach a lesson in manners this way.  My approach is quite the opposite.  I opt to “kill them with kindness.” After all it is obvious that they missed out on their lesson in manners.  Or they have mistaken my job title which is server for a similar one but one that is completely wrong;  servant.  Either way I use what little time I have to drop as many manner “hints” as I can at the table hoping that maybe they will take even a small part of that with them.   

Servers are not only ignored at the greeting of a guest but all throughout the service.  Today for example I had a lady that had over half of her entrée left on her plate but was clearly done eating for the time being.  While reaching for the plate I informed her that I would be happy to box the rest of her food for her.  Immediately after the words left my mouth she spun toward me and snapped, “I want a box for that” as if I were trying to steal her food right from under her nose.  My response, “Certainly.” (Really lady? I just said that three inches away from your ear.)  Also I can’t even count how many times I have been describing our specials for the day which ends with the daily vegetable only to be asked immediately after, “And what is your daily vegetable?”  As if I have forgotten to mention it.  (Really?  Those were the last words that just came out of my mouth.)  On occasion when I walk by my table to ask if my guests entrées are prepared to their liking I get no response at all as if I had just asked to question to a brick wall.  If the average guest sits at my table for an hour then I would say I am probably only physically at the table for five to seven minutes.  Is it too much to ask of a guest for five minutes of focused and courteous attention in the span of an hour?  Apparently so to some people.  I hope with this post that people will pay more attention to their servers but more importantly to simply be kind.  I’m not asking too much.  I don’t want to be buddies.  I only want my position as part of the human race warrants me:  common courtesy.  It’s as simple as that. 

The Business Meeting

Lately I’ve seen an astounding number of business meetings in my work place.  I’ve mentioned before the campers that come in and make their sales pitch to a client over lunch.  I will admit that the establishment that I work in makes for an inviting and professional atmosphere.  It is a place that I would take clients to for lunch if I needed to do so.  But lately it seems that people are completely abandoning their office or board room for a meeting place and taking over what I consider to be my office.  I have three different examples from this week alone.  The first lady came in twice in one day.  First she sat in my section with one gentlemen.  The ate lunch and I wouldn’t have been able to distinguish them from any other lunch outing until I cleared their plates and then they spread out the paper work on the table to discuss some lucrative topic.  An hour after they left my table, I saw the same lady come in with another client.  This time she wasn’t seated in my section but I noticed when I walked by her table that she wasn’t eating this time around.  She only ordered a San Pellegrino.  The next day I was eager as I saw my round table being set up for a party of six.  In the eyes of a server, that’s a good way to start the day.  Think about the potential earnings on a party of six.  My restaurant averages sales of about $16 per person at lunch.  So a six top should produce a check of about $96 before tax.  My restaurant has a policy that an 18% gratuity be automatically added to all parties of six or more.  That would make my average gratuity for a six top around $17.  This is how a server thinks, in earnings potential.  This is how I pay my rent, buy my groceries, etcetera, etcetera.  So back to this six top, my eagerness quickly dissipated as I offered the table an appetizer to begin their meal and they informed me that they would not be eating, that they were there to have a meeting.  I’m sorry but are we not in the business of serving food?  I am certain that we are not in the business of leasing office space.  Especially not without a charge.  I suppose these gentlemen thought they earned their keep by ordering one $9 cheese dip and four iced teas between the six of them sitting there discussing important topics for over an hour and then leaving me a generous 15% on their check that only totaled $19.   That’s a $3 tip for those who are baffled without your tip guides (kudos to those of you that carry one.)  That’s a far cry from the $17 I could have made if these guys had been made aware that dining establishments are meant for just that, DINING!  And to make it worse, one of the guys had another business meeting immediately following and moved to another table with a new client.  Still he sat in that server’s section, making his pitch and ordered nothing.  Finally, there are the MLM ladies that come in every Wednesday.  These ladies usually reserve a separate private dining room that we have available.  It costs nothing to reserve this room and there is no minimum that you must spend like there are at some places.  You simply have to make sure it’s available and request it for a party.  These ladies will reserve this private room for a party of 16 and invite anyone and everyone to come to this meeting in the hopes that they will sign up in the down line of their direct selling campaign.  Every week this dining room is set up for a party of 16 and a separate server is assigned to this event.  That means this is their only table all day!  Generally with this group only about 6 will actually show up and out of that 6 not everyone orders food.  The gratuity on this party usually winds up being less than $10.  Can you believe that a server could end up only making $10 in tips all day?  Remember we only get paid $2.13 an hour so it’s not like I’m saying the $10 is extra.  Even with the $10 if that’s all the server makes for that day then they made less than the national minimum wage for a days work.  This week these ladies sat out in the main dining room.  The saleswomen arrived early to set up their displays in the middle of the table and to cue their power point slide show.  They sat at the table throughout the whole lunch shift.  And although the gratuity proved to be a little better than usual for the server she was still unable to turn the table and have the opportunity to make more money.  I couldn’t help but notice the irony that as these ladies are pitching “unlimited earnings potential” to their clients, they are directly diminishing their server’s earnings potential.  The idea that it’s okay to go take up a table at a restaurant and not order anything is absolutely asinine.  It makes about as much sense as me trying to walk into a sold out movie theater and tell them that I won’t me purchasing a ticket for my seat because I’m not actually going to watch the movie, I brought a book instead.  Whoever started the rumor that restaurant’s are the new meeting place, this one was for you.