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.