Chapter 8 : Cook vs Servers

LINE DANCING:

COOKS vs SERVERS - ROUND ONE

Hot food, hot plate: cold food, cold plate

Ding , ding,  ding!

Introducing the principals for tonight's contest; in this corner, the young, the svelte, the smiling, THE SERVERS. In that corner, the middle-aged, the rotund, the cranky, THE COOKS.

Lets get ready to rummmmmbullllllllllll

These two groups are like Ali and Fraser, they need each other to put on the show. Like Ali, the servers are on their toes dancing from place to place, while “Smokin Joe” is taking the punishment.

Even the description of their workplaces set them apart. Servers are “FRONT OF THE HOUSE”. They get to move from dining room to dining room and mingle with the guests. The cooks are “BACK OF THE HOUSE”. They work their station,“behind the line”, in close quarters enduring the most environmentally unfriendly room in the house. If they get to leave this area, they usually travel in the bowels of the building heading to “dry storage”.

Servers may work, in the main dining room, the porch, outside with tables and umbrellas, the sports bar, or some other room with a name. Cooks get to work “THE LINE”. Its like we’re part of a Johnny Cash song.

It has become politically correct to call these people servers and not waiters or waitresses. The relationship between servers and cooks is like a marriage. We spend long hours together, generally enjoy each others company, and talk. Talking however, does not always mean communicating. When a dispute occurs, the other is always wrong. 

A large difference between these two groups, is that servers have to deal with the public and cooks don’t. Servers work in front of the guests and have to be diplomatic. Cooks work in front of an oven and curse.

These close working conditions foster a love-hate relationship. As it was explained to me; “that's why we love to hate them”.

On to service.

Servers will take a an order, key it into the computer, the cooks prepare the food, the expediter trays up the order, and a food runner or server will deliver it to the customer. If there is no expediter, the food sits until the server arrives. This process works just fine until things get busy

A very common practice among servers is to take orders from several tables and send them to the kitchen at the same time. As a result, most of the food is ready at the same time but the server can’t deliver it promptly. The cooks do not want to prepare the same meal twice and they are soon screaming, “ there is food dying in the window”. And you can be sure when that server explains the delay to the customer, It was the kitchen’s fault. 

The above situation usually results in a shouting match. The cooks screaming to get the food out of the window and the server bitching that the cooks should know better than to put everything up at once.

Another fun time, without expediters, is when servers take food without a ticket. There is a lot of the same food going out during a meal service, and it is not uncommon for several plates of the same item to be sitting in the window. A good server knows it takes time to cook something and will wait several minutes before coming to the kitchen to get their order. A less talented server, goes to the kitchen right away and takes whatever is waiting. How their food was prepared in a blink of an eye never crosses their mind.

Some of my favorite server stunts are; ordering items not on the menu, multiple order tickets for the same table number, ordering meat cooked medium to rare, firing a table that has not ordered, ordering Sunday’s nightly special on Wednesday, and telling a server to 86 an item and later receiving five more orders. What were they thinking?

It may seem that the cooks are at the mercy of the servers, but we will retaliate. The number one method is the hot plate, see the opening of this chapter. All culinary schools and chefs drill into their cooks that hot food should be served on a hot plate. This prevents the food from cooling before it gets to the customer.

All cooks spend their days handling hot material. As a result our hands become hard and callused. Therefore, we can hold hot objects much longer than most other people. And we use this to our advantage.

If a server has annoyed a cook, the classic response is to overheat the plates on their next order. Restaurant food plates are heavy, and servers are used to gripping them hard. An unsuspecting person can get a good burn from a plate.

The cooks will wait for the offending server to see their reaction. How long will they hold the plate and how loud will they curse? All the while, the cook is keeping a straight face and may not even be looking directly at the server. But the best part is seeing if the servers touches the second plate before grabbing a towel.

Of course, they catch on at some point and start yelling that we did that on purpose. Our first response is to pick up the plate and hold it, with desensitized hands, and say “this plates not hot!’. We then look them in the eye and chant; “HOT FOOD, HOT PLATE”.

Ding, ding, ding!

That's the end of Round One.

I owe, I owe, its off to work I go.

Into THE CAULDRON!

Is tuisce deoch na sceal