"Hands out!”
The expeditor slides a plate of greasy mozzarella sticks down the stainless steel counter, hoping that a server will soon heed the call and take the food to its rightful table. When no one appears through the kitchen entranceway, he calls out once more:
“I need one hand going to table 18!”
Turning his attention back to the computer monitor mounted over the hot window where food is appearing at a quickening pace, the expeditor realizes that four more tickets have sold and he frantically begins pulling plates out of the window.
It’s a Saturday night at one of the busiest family restaurants in town and the dinner rush has just begun. Long lines of hungry customers pile up at the front doors, the adrenaline flows, and there’s no time for idle chatter. Anything can happen—and usually does—in the fast-paced world of suburban food service.
As the orders stack up on the monitor, the expeditor moves faster and faster to get the food out and to stay out of “the weeds,” a term for the time when a server gets so busy they can’t even think (see the glossary sidebar for more definitions). It’s his job to make sure that the right orders get to the right tables and as quickly as possible. If the finished, or “sold,” orders on his screen stack up too high before he can get them out to the dining room, angry servers and customers will no doubt be giving him trouble.
Hamburger, medium-well, no pickles, extra tomato on the side, no season on the French fries.
Trying to pay close attention to the special instructions on each order that appears on the screen, the expeditor scans the window for the correct plate and, staying as organized as possible, sets the food out, in order, on the counter.
Sirloin steak, well-done, no mashed potatoes, substitute broccoli.
“I need a side of broccoli! This sirloin is going no mashed, sub broc!” The expeditor shouts his requests through the window to a grouping of busy line cooks who, too busy listening to rap music from their headphones, ignore the demand. He waves his hands at them through the window until a bewildered fry cook lifts one earphone to hear the expeditor’s request.
“Hands to the kitchen! I need one hand to table 41! I need two hands to table 83! I have food dying on the counter!”
A body walks into the kitchen, but much to the expeditor’s dismay, it is not a server but rather only a hostess. She drops a stack of dirty glassware off at the dish station, a job that is not in her description but rather a task that has fallen upon her due to the lazy performance of the busser on duty. As she turns to retreat back to the dining room, where it is her job to stand at the door and great and seat the guests, she is bombarded by shouts from the line cooks who have taken a moment from complaining to one another about their full pages of orders to notice her presence.
“We need an open count! We haven’t had one all night!”
The hostess politely agrees before walking out of the kitchen and muttering under her breath, “What the hell do they need an open count for? We’re busy, just cook the damn food.” Dutifully, though, she walks the rows of tables, counting how many menus are being examined by customers and soon returns to the kitchen to relay her findings. The open count is supposedly helpful to the kitchen so that they know how busy the restaurant is at any given time and, therefore, how many orders they should expect to come back onto the electronic “pages” of their screens.
“There are 30 open!” she shouts through the hot window. She can hear the cooks’ remarks as she leaves the kitchen: “Yeah, thanks, but we’re already full-page with orders,” or “Would’ve been nice to know that 20 minutes ago.”
“You asked, assholes,” the hostess saunters back out into the dining room.
Back up at the hostess stand, she joins the other two hostesses on duty just in time to hear a customer complaining about the wait time.
“Excuse me, but you said that the wait was 25 minutes and I’ve been standing here for over a half-hour.” The angry woman waves her idle pager, the device that will notify her when her table is ready, at the hostesses, as if avenging the awful lie that that had been told to her. “And on top of that, the couple that just walked in got seated before me!”
“Ma’am, they only had two people in their party,” says the hostess, holding the waiting list. “You have 12.”
Spotting a table getting up to leave in the back of the restaurant, the hostess quickly calculates that if the table across the row can finish their dessert in record time, she may be able to seat the table of 12 while effectively shutting the woman up, in less than five minutes.
“We’re clearing a table for you right now,” the hostess lies and hurries to the back of the restaurant, brainstorming a way to seat all 12 people at a table that only fits six. She needs a second table to leave, and fast.
“Can you drop the check at table 32?” the hostess asks a server who is trying to balance four wine glasses in one hand.
“I just dropped their dessert off!” The server forces a wine glass into the hostess’ hand, having given up on carrying them all. “Fine, just take this and follow me to table 14. I’ll try my best to kick 32 out of here.” The server carries the drinks to his table and sets the wine in front of four middle-aged women.
“Are we ready to order or do we still need a few minutes with the menu?” he asks as he takes the remaining glass from the hostess’ hand before she runs back up to her station to deal with the angry table of 12.
“What type of fish do you use for the fish and chips?” asks a woman at the waiter’s table.
“Uh, I think that’s cod,” he responds.
“I wouldn’t get that; they use that frozen junk,” a second woman says to the first.
Playing along with the idea that he can’t hear them talking, the server begins to doodle circles on his order pad, waiting for the women to come to any decision.
“What’s better, the Caesar salad or the Cobb salad?” woman number three asks, snapping the server out of his doodling daze.
“Well, personally, I love the Cobb salad,” he lies. Whatever it takes to make up their minds before the dinner rush is over.
Before woman number three can make the decision of her life, a sudden explosion splatters her fake fur jacket with creamy drops of white.
“My bad!” A busser passes by with his arms full of stacked, dirty plates and grimaces as he surveys the damage. “I’m sorry, the ramekin of ranch dressing slipped off of the plates,” explains the busser, who, unable to be of any help with his arms full, shrugs his shoulders at the horrified, if not particularly disappointed server and walks away. The server turns to run for a rag and tries to hide a smile on the way.
Struggling not to drop anything else on his way back to the kitchen, the busser can’t help laughing himself. Un-stacking the plates at the dish station, he watches as the restaurant manager pushes the mop up from the back hallway into the kitchen.
“There you are!” The manager pushes the mop towards the busser. “Some kid got sick up at table 49. It’s a real mess; I already had to buy two tables their dinner because of the smell. Please go take care of it and don’t make a big deal out of it to the tables around you.”
Of course not.
The busser lugs the mop out of the kitchen and past the bar where a group of French Canadians are cheering on Montreal in a hockey game against the Maple Leafs.
“Ole, ole-ole-ole!” A cheer breaks out as the Canadiens score a goal. The noise radiates throughout the entire restaurant, tweaking the nerves of many of the dining guests.
“‘Nother round!” One bar guest dressed head to toe in hockey paraphernalia shouts at the bartender, who seems to be losing her patience with the rowdy group.
“Of course,” she smiles politely and begins pouring tall drafts of Molson.
“We want some chicken wings!” the visibly drunk Canadian says, with such a heavy French accent that his words are barely understandable.
The bartender hands him his beer and turns to the computer to ring in his order. A split second later, the order pops up on the screen above the hot window in the kitchen.
“Okay, all I have on my screen is an order of wings!” The expeditor stands impatiently in the kitchen, directing his words at the manager who is passing through. “The dinner rush is totally over. You guys don’t need me anymore. Can I go?”
Ignoring the expeditor’s request, the manager moves past the kitchen and into the dining room where he is attacked by a frantic hostess.
“One of the bar guests just told us that two people are getting it on in the ladies’ room!” She seems to be more excited about the information than concerned. “What should we do?!”
Seeing tables turn their heads towards the hostess’ high-pitched voice, the manager pulls her back towards the kitchen. Sensing that something of interest is happening, servers begin to gather around them.
“Did you go in there?” the manager asks the hostess. “Are you sure that’s what’s happening?”
“Well I only peeked my head in, but I’m pretty sure that there were two sets of feet in the handicapped stall and as I was leaving, I think a mom was taking her kid in there to go to the bathroom, so that’s just wrong!” The hostess now seems begin to gain a sense of duty and righteousness.
“I’ll take care of it!” A server listening in on the story slams the glass of water she was holding down on the service bar and begins marching towards the restrooms. The once again excitable hostess eagerly runs behind her.
Opening the door to the ladies’ room, the gutsy server spots the two sets of feet in the back stall and loudly clears her throat.
“Excuse me, but this is a family restaurant, so please grow up and get out of the bathroom, right now!” The server proudly strides out of the restroom and goes to check on her tables.
“That was awesome!” The hostess praises the server as she walks away. A split second later, the hostess watches as a middle-aged couple stumbles out of the ladies room in a fit of giggles. “Gross,” the hostess mumbles as she goes to report to the manager.
“They’re out!” The hostess finds the manager in the kitchen where she left him and gives him the news.
“That’s great,” he says, seemingly uninterested. Disappointed that her exciting story wasn’t greatly received, the hostess retreats back to the front door.
“Dude, did you hear me? This kitchen is dead! Can I please get up out of here?” The expeditor leans impatiently on the counter as he pleads with the manager.
“Yeah, fine,” the manager reluctantly agrees. “I guess we’re not going to get hit again.”
“Hell yeah, I’m done!” Throwing his apron on the counter, the expeditor happily skips past jealous cooks and servers, all of whom still have the rest of the night to endure. “The best part of the night is getting the hell out of here!”
