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"Hi, my name is Buffy. I will be your server tonight"
Like we are all one big happy family.
No, Buffy, you are NOT part of the family. You are the server. The help. Your job is to remain silent and do a top notch job of meeting my every need, for which I will provide you a very good gratuity (provided of course, you make sure to "sell" us some dessert).
This approach just bugs me. So "canned". So impersonal. Let's me know I am in a chain restaurant. Nothing special (except the check inside a book).
Ugh. So sad that unless you are in NYC or a major metro area the individually owned, and unique places, have been run into the ground by places like that high class Italian joint, Olive Garden. $16.95 plus tax and tip.
Plus Buffy!
See, my brain is big enough to grasp that although Buffy is "the help," she is also a human being, so I'm not gravely offended -- or offended at all -- that she is sharing her name with me.
Went out to lunch today, at a midrange restaurant (for our area) and I started thinking about how different going out to eat has become in "modern" restaurants.
1. Stay hydrated. Now in every casual place there is s serve yourself water station. Usually with a fancy pitcher. And nicer places give you a pitcher for your table (or a carafe). Uber fancy places ask you still or sparkling.
2. Faux rustic. Nicer restaurants, in aims to appeal to a more casual dinner, have buckets of silverware and napkins resting on all the tables. Less work for the waitstaff. Gives off a "friendly" impression for the patrons.
3. Weird vessels for your bill. These days your bill might come clipped to a slab of wood. In a cup. Or in one place I went to, a hollowed out old book.
4. Deconstructed or fancy kid food. I went to one restaurant that had deconstructed hot chocolate. You got some hot milk and a bar of chocolate. You "stirred" the chocolate in the milk till it melted. It came with a side of marshmallows. I have seen a few different takes on smores: fancy / deconstructed / homemade. And my favorite was cookies and dip.
What trends have you noticed?
The only one of these I've happened across here is the "deconstructed" trend. It's a little cutesy/twee for my tastes.
Here, we don't have faux rustic so much, but we do have actual rustic...comes with the territory, being a BBQ mecca. When you've got a giant smoker on site, that's kind of built-in rustic.
That was something I loved about dining out in Paris. Nobody tries to push you out the door or speed you up. You just take your time. 4€ glasses of wine are nice, too!
Hah, when we were in London, turning tables over was rampant. I saw a pair of Indian brothers completely blatantly rush a couple of diners out so our party could have the table. I was mortified.
I haven't noticed any of those trends but one place I went
(and will not be going back) brought us an empty styrofoam container
when I asked to take the rest of my meal home.
We were supposed to fill the container ourselves from our plate.
I would not ever let a server lick their fingers while
placing it in a container, taking a bite... never worked in a kitchen I guess as a young person, I see !
What goes on back there is quit shocking...enough people probably asked to do it themselves. So they made it policy.
A friend and I went to a new restaurant yesterday. It was trying to be trendy, tried to mimic a night club, but it was just selling noodles. They were pretty fancy noodles, but hey, they're still noodles. At $12 for a bowl of noodles we probably won't eat there often, but it was a very good bowl of noodles so we may go again, but I don't think it will be a standard choice for lunch. We did like the noodles, but didn't like the atmosphere, though, it's the middle of the afternoon, we don't need to pretend to be in a night club. It's probably more popular for dinner, I'd guess.
The staff was young and trendy and there were more of them than customers, I don't know how long that restaurant is gonna survive. They may do a lot of take out for a nearby hospital, though, or more customers at other times, we were there pretty late for lunch.
Small menu so not a lot of choices, but trendy ingredients, some of which I've never seen before. Pea tendrils? Didn't even know those were edible. Some sort of yellow thread like spice but it wasn't saffron, didn't have a lot of taste or texture but it looked interesting. Shredded daikon radish instead of noodles for folks who want gluten free noodles. A soft boiled egg. I like an egg in ramen, but generally it's pretty good to cook it in with the noodles instead of serving a boiled egg in it. I guess they can make the boiled eggs ahead of time or something. They seemed to be happy with their eggs and specifically called them out as 6.5 eggs meaning they'd been boiled 6.5 minutes. We did have to ask what a 6.5 egg was.
It was a change from the rest of the eating establishments in town, though, so that might be a good thing just on it's own. It did have locally sourced ingredients freshly made so we will probably get some of their noodles again, although I suspect we may get them to take out. There also didn't seem to be options for drinks other than water, at least, on the menu, but I did see other options show up on another table when some folks came in later. Serving a can of soda at a place trying to be trendy just seems a bit odd, but they may be so new that they don't have the drink service set up yet. Hard for say.
Generally how servers act has a lot to do with the level of restaurant you're eating at. The diners and more casual places will have the happy perky wait staff, the more formal dining places will have the more unobtrusive staff. We go to one place and chat with the staff about their family and livestock, just because we've been going there for years. (Considering we swapped baby ducks for lunch there several years ago, we kinda have an interest in their livestock, too. The ducks are doing fine, should you be interested.)
See, my brain is big enough to grasp that although Buffy is "the help," she is also a human being, so I'm not gravely offended -- or offended at all -- that she is sharing her name with me.
It is easy to do and not sound like the lawn service.....
"Good evening.....I am Buffy...now that everyone is settled in may I get you a cocktail?" Just leaving out the "server" part makes it so much more personal. It's not like I mistook her for the dishwasher!
As to the "are u finished" or similar, it is real easy:
You don't touch a single plate on the table until EVERYONE is finished eating. It is extremely rude to start taking plates away while someone at your table is still eating. If that frustrates you having a dirty plate in front of you, just remember your manners and understand how much worse the "slow" eater feels about being rushed than you fell about having a horrible dirty plate in front of you.
You don't touch a single plate on the table until EVERYONE is finished eating. It is extremely rude to start taking plates away while someone at your table is still eating. If that frustrates you having a dirty plate in front of you, just remember your manners and understand how much worse the "slow" eater feels about being rushed than you fell about having a horrible dirty plate in front of you.
The etiquette on this actually varies greatly by culture, region, country, etc. The above approach is not universally deemed appropriate.
No, Buffy, you are NOT part of the family. You are the server. The help. Your job is to remain silent and do a top notch job of meeting my every need, for which I will provide you a very good gratuity (provided of course, you make sure to "sell" us some dessert).
!
Actually, that's not the job of a server. A servant robot, maybe. Not a server.
It is amazing to me, that people demand bottled water, even though it was probably just filtered to get rid of chlorine and other tastes in the water tap water.
This way they sell tap water for way more than the price of gasoline. Nice profit in that.
If people are willing to pay for water that's been filtered for taste, isn't that their prerogative?
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