Eye Can’t See You
It’s the Opening Night at your new restaurant: The Chef has his A-Game going and there will be no screw-ups in the kitchen. The Maitre’d promises to greet each arriving patron with a smile, provide reassurance that a table will be ready shortly and express how honored he feels to have such wonderful guests joining him for dinner. And finally, the waiters will be constantly scanning the dining room, looking for tables that need attention, guests who appear to be confused, or any other signs of trouble. At the end of the night, the efforts of both the kitchen and the wait staff will be greeted with big tips, promises of future visits, and rave reviews in the local rags & blogs.
Opening Night shouldn’t just happen on one night. It needs to happen every night. That’s how a restaurant gets the “good vibe” going that garners long lasting support from the locals, spur of the moment interest from tourists, and of course, attracts big-spender Foodies looking for great dining. But how often does Opening Night actually play out? Most of the time? Occasionally? Almost Never? In my experience, it’s not nearly often enough. Let’s talk about each of the elements of a good Opening Night.
The Chef needs to have his or her A-Game going. This means that the food is prepared according to a routine that others in the kitchen can comprehend and replicate. When I go to a restaurant, I don’t want to consider the Chef’s vacation schedule or daily distractions in whether I should book a table or not. I want a consistent experience, with food that is faithfully replicated from visit to visit. There are three simple tests I apply to determine whether the kitchen operates according to a doctrine of discipline or is in fact a concert of chaos. First, is the food properly seasoned? Second, is meat cooked perfectly according to the guest’s preferences? And finally, are rice and pasta over or under cooked? Any restaurant that can routinely pass these three tests probably has their act together elsewhere.
The second element of Opening Night has the Maitre’d greeting each guest with welcoming enthusiasm. This must be very hard since so many restaurants do such a crummy job of greeting and seating. I’ve concluded that those employees who can’t cook or wait on tables, and are either exceptionally good looking or related to the owner, get to be the “greeters”. My experience, on average, is that this faux Maitre’d looks extraordinarily busy and harried. When a new guest arrives, rather than immediately offering a broad smile and welcoming open arms, they offer a tight grimace and start staring at the computer screen. There expression reads like a book, and it says: “Oh crap, I’ve got to find some place for these people to sit. This is really confusing!” After poking at the screen for a moment or two they whisper to their companion, who is standing around looking bored. Finally, our “hero” Maitre’d looks up and offers that your table will be ready soon. This scenario will happen even in an EMPTY RESTAURANT!
Occasionally, the Maitre’d will try to seat you at the worst possible table in an empty restaurant. For example, right next to the kitchen service door, or the restrooms, or the main entrance. What are they thinking? The restaurant is EMPTY! Let me sit where I want, thank you very much. When I walk in to a restaurant, I want to be greeted like a long lost brother. I want to be treated like the kind of brother who brings toys for the nieces & nephews! Some restaurants can do this. Sadly, most do not.
Ahhhh, now we come to the wait staff. Being a waiter has to be one of the most difficult jobs on earth. Low on the totem pole of respect in a restaurant, they vie for second from the bottom with the guys and gals who clean off your table and bring water. But the waiter is first in line to hear about all of the stuff you don’t like. If the food is bad, the waiter hears about it. If the food is good, the waiter may never hear about it, or at best, he’ll get to deliver the compliment to the Chef. If the delivery or timing of service is off, the waiter takes the blame. When was the last time you complained about the bad chef and crummy kitchen staff who failed to deliver everyone’s food at the same time? The waiter gets blamed for these and most other kitchen performance problems. Even an over-cooked steak will likely be handed to a waiter with a terse, “This isn’t what I ordered. I said medium-RARE!” For all of these reasons, I have quite a bit of empathy for the plight of the wait staff.
However, wait staff do have one universal trait that is irritating. For some reason, the ability to make eye contact with guests throughout a dining room undergoes complete atrophy at some restaurants. The mission of a waiter is straightforward. In a timely and professional manner, determine what the guest wants, communicate those wishes to the kitchen, and then deliver food to the guest according to the restaurant’s overall timing plan. This mission is ongoing throughout the entire time the guest is on the premises of the restaurant. Where does it say that once you’ve take an order, or even worse, taken only the drink order, that the waiter is now free to avoid ALL eye contact with guests?! Further, it’s a restaurant! I’m RIGHT HERE! If my waiter is tied up on something and I need an extra fork, it should be bone-simple for me to get the attention of other waiters to ask for my fork. Try this as a test: Pretend you’ve dropped your fork on the floor and see how long it takes you to flag down a waiter who is NOT the waiter assigned to your table. At a great restaurant, this will be trivial. At most restaurants, you will never be able to get the attention of a waiter who is not assigned to your table. Your best bet will be to grab one of the folks bussing tables. The ones who still care a little.
The next time you’re dining out, judge the restaurant. Are they performing like it’s opening night, or did the restaurant’s staff check out and go home before you arrived?
– Chris