Old stories and new stories

   I'd apologize for not updating this blog in over a week, but I've been busy with the new job, and a new improv class, and driving people's pets to Ohio and stuff. Seriously. I lead a very exciting and fulfilling life.
I went by the Cafe last Sunday to pick up my final check and found out they were featuring this as a special:

I'd like to say that everything has gone to hell in my absence, but really....shit like this has always happened.  Because nobody really gives a fuck.  Lame shanks are lame, bro. It's just how it is.

I have a couple stories from the new Uptown Restaurant, though none so exciting as anything that ever happened at The Cafe.

Mainly, Tuesday night I waited on Dr Ruth, who to my great surprise was actually still alive. She's batshit as fuck but in the best way possible. She also came equipped with a handbag stuffed with "Sex for Dummies" key chains  and proceeded to hand them out to everybody in the damn restaurant.  Seriously.  When I first greeted her she asked me if I could make her plain pasta, and when I said I was pretty sure we could but I would have to check, she said "I am Dr Ruth. I will give you sex for dummies key chain." Okay then.

I also somehow wound up with two key chains, so now I have obviously have to wear them as earrings.

We're also selling pie that saves kids or some bullshit.  I keep forgetting what the thingy actually is, but all the proceeds for this pie that we sell goes to like, starving children and crap. Which is cool. It also makes me want to tell people that if they by any desert other than pie a child will die a horrible death.  

Because I'm an asshole.

Anyway. I  continue to sift through years of backlog and look at hilarious stories of Roasts of Yore.

Apparently at one point we were keeping a running tally of which busboy could break the most glassware in a single shift.  I don't remember who the fuck Mohammed was, but apparently he broke a shit ton of glasses. I imagine he's somewhere else breaking large amounts of glass on a much grander scale.  

Oh and then there was this:

Jan 2, 2012

Old man eats oatmeal with a fork. I show him the spoon I've brought, and he continues eating oatmeal with his fork.

Yes, that happened to me.  And weirdly enough, that's the kind of shit I miss and don't miss at the same time. Weird fuckers eating oatmeal with forks.

In the meantime, I shall continue to sell life saving pie, and revel in the lack of complaints that creme brulee "tastes like burnt cream" Yes, that actually happened.

Hopefully I'll return later this week with more stories. Lord knows I have plenty left.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

    I guess now that it's officially over, I should probably announce that after a little over 4 years, I finally left The Cafe. I got a job bartending and serving at a nice restaurant uptown and  for the most part I've really been enjoying it.  Of course, you'll find assholes anywhere. You know, like the women I waited on Monday. I made the mistake of saying "good morning" to them at 12:00PM and they smirked at me as though I were and idiot and said, "Actually it's noon."  Dear god, I'm so sorry I offended you poor women. Please accept my most humble of apologies and bend over so I can kiss your ass. God, you're wonderful.

That being said, for the most part it's relatively tame. I shall be continuing this blog documenting stories from the past four years at The Cafe, as I was there for so long and started this blog less than six months ago.

Gratifying tidbit from my second to last shift:

(After telling my regulars the following day would be my last day)
"Wow! I guess this is our last time here then !"

BOOM! IN YOUR FACE MOTHERFUCKERS!
(To be clear, the aforementioned motherfuckers would be some colleagues giving me trouble at work, and not the regulars, who were actually quite delightful.)

Also, I left a surprise in the break room for my friends:

Why yes, I did hang my uniform shirt from the ceiling panel. 

Alright. Now that housekeeping is taken care of, let's catch up on some old school Roasting updates.

Dec 7, 2011

"Hi Sir! One or two today?"

"One or two WHAT?"

"Uh....people"

*blank stare*

I remember that guy. He sat himself at a two top, so I went over with two menus and attempted to inquire as to whether he'd be a part of one or two. Obviously I should have used smaller words, or pantomime, or maybe finger puppets.  I love it when I ask people questions that are so simple like "would you like a beverage?" or "are you ready?" and they stare at me like I've grown another head. It's kind of great.

Dec 8, 2011

After pouring a bar guest a new glass of wine she looks up and asks, "Are you going to charge me for that?" SERIOUSLY? Of course I am not to mention that even if I didn't you would still only leave me two dollars.

This is another great one. I love how this bitch was just acting like my bartender was forcing wine on her.  She wouldn't have poured another glass unless you ordered another. And...fun fact guys....if you order something you pay for it. Stunning concept, I know.

Anyway, I'm sure I will have a few stories here and there at the new place, but The Cafe was such a weird fucking place to work, and I have so many stories, that for now I'm going to keep this blog exclusively dedicated to my time there. If you can think of anything you'd like me to write about, suggestions are also always welcome. Keep reading!

Self seating, special milk pitchers, tiny pieces of steak, and so much more.

Hi Internet! It's been a week since I blogged, but it feels like forever. Anyway.  I'd just like to take this moment  to point out what a horrible asshole thing it is to seat yourself in a restaurant that has a hostess. It happens all the time at The Cafe and usually it's either:

1) People seat themselves on the patio and then look confused and panicky when somebody doesn't come out to wipe their ass within 30 seconds

or

2) People who come in the door, blow past the hostess, and choose their own table while the hostess runs to catch up. Even better than those who self seat are those who self seat and then move because omigod that table was horrible how do you expect me to sit there.

Quite honestly, I have been known to "punish" self seaters by pretending not to notice them and then acting completely surprised when they finally catch my eye by waving insanely. "Oh, I'm so sorry! Did you seat yourself? We normally seat our guests, so that must be why I didn't notice you!"

Basically, self seating at a restaurant with a host is like busting into somebody's house without knocking and ignoring them while you try out their furniture.  On a related note: STOP MOVING THE CHAIRS AROUND. All the chairs are the same. fuck off.


A few weird things happened this past week. My co-worker came back to the wait station last Sunday and told me that her table had requested the kitchen cut up her steak for her because it would be "too much work." I looked at the table in question, expecting to see some 1-top old woman with arthritis, and instead saw an able bodied group of 20 somethings drinking mimosas. Obviously.

Oh and then I also waited on a pair of women who ordered some coffee and tea, and THIS bullshit conversation happened:

Tea Drinker: I need milk
Coffee Drinker: Oh, you can have mine! I drink coffee black, so I won't use this at all.
Tea Drinker: No, I can't use that. I need my own.

I actually don't understand what you mean..

See this is the kind of shit that gets me in trouble because I actually get really confused by nonsensical requests and kind of stand there with this "wait....what did you just say?" look on my face. Because...I can't believe separate milk creamers actually matter. Seriously. Somebody please explain to me why that matters. I'll give you five dollars if you can give me a good reason.  Keep in mind that the milk pitcher that the first lady offered to the second lady was completely untouched and had just been placed on the table. I just....can't with that bullshit.

Of course, none of this previous nonsense mattered by Thursday when this showed up outside work:

 Yup kids. It's the weed mobile. Selling supposedly weed infused lollipops.

Delicious candies.

So of course our morning shift was derailed by sending the hostess out to acquire weed lollipops. Who the fuck knows if they're legit or not. One of my co-workers ate one and said they were fine, but not very strong.  I have a couple but haven't tried them yet.  That would be a fucking brilliant scam though. Buy a truck, pimp it out with artwork, and sell generic drug store suckers for five bucks a pop. I mean, hell that thing would pay for itself in a day.  I shall keep you posted on the effects or non-effects of said weed lollipops.  For science purposes obviously.

Freaky Friday.

    Can we just take a minute to talk about how weird yesterday was? Yesterday was fucking weird, man. And I totally got home and was all set to write about everything, and then I went to bed at 7 o clock. Because I'm cool like that.

Anyway, yesterday my day started out with a table that was having some sort of toilet brush based focus group/sales meeting/sales pitch thing going on.

Toilet brush. It's what's for breakfast.

Anyway, it was a group of four and I guess the head toilet brush guy was demonstrating this new moving squeeze handle thing on the handle part of the brush and showing it to his companions- not to worry, he brought along toilet brushes for them as well. So 8AM yesterday my day started with four weirdos waving toilet brushes in the air.  That was fun.

Shortly after that I progressed to waiting on yet another OldMan McRichpants, big fucking surprise. He was nice enough to me, in a condescending old white man sort of way, and even complimented me on my service.  However, on one of my trips to refill his coffee I heard him tell his breakfast companion that he "just isn't making enough to get by anymore."

Sir, your Fancy Pants Rich Guy Suit begs to differ. I seriously want to know what "not enough" is to this guy. Will he have to sell his vacation home? Shop at Trader Joes instead of Zabars? Move to a smaller apartment? Even....*GASP*....start taking the subway?!?!

Oh, sweet Suit Man. My heart aches for you. Truly.

On the other end of the spectrum, about an hour after that some homeless guy came in and proceeded to bathe his entire body in the restroom and then it stank all day. Actually I still haven't gone into that restroom because I'm scared of cooties, although god knows that's far from the worst thing anybody has ever done in the bathroom. (See leg juice)

Later that afternoon a guy came in and dropped his car keys off with us and told us we had to hold them and his daughter would be by to pick them up later. Because we're a goddamn valet service

Oh and then a man I'd never seen before came in and wanted to know when we "stopped serving garlic bread" because he used to have it here "ALL THE TIME"

Today was pretty normal aside from some old man puking all over table 13. Ironically, this was the same table that had been hosting the toilet brush party yesterday. Too bad they weren't here today.  Fun thing about the puking guy.  He was in a wheelchair, so he may indeed have had trouble getting to the bathroom in a timely manner on his own, but he was accompanied by four other people, he told them he was  going to be sick, and rather than one of them helping him to the bathroom they just let him puke all over the table.  Because reasons.

So, to wrap up:

We are here to:

Host your toilet brush meetings

Provide public showers

Provide valet service

Do banking (ie make change even if you aren't a customer)

Let your goddamn puke fly all over the place.

The Madcap Adventures of Turtle Man and Raccoon Lady

The other day two of our most notorious "animal" guests where in at the same time, and I almost felt like I was in some sort of low rent zoo. To be fair, most days at work I feel like I'm in a low rent zoo, but that's kind of to be expected.

There's a man who comes in that everybody calls "Turtle Man," because he looks like a fucking creepy ass turtle.  He's probably in his 60s, he walks hunched over with a cane, and he has giant glasses. He also usually wears a bucket hat.  And I should mention the reason that he walks hunched over is that he has some kind of back brace equipment strapped to him, and normally I'd never make fun of somebody with a genuine medical condition, but he's so damn weird and annoying that he's exempt from any exemptions of mockery.

He actually looks a little like this:

except older and more hunched over and not wearing a big green suit...and okay maybe only vaguely like this

Turtle Man requires a full glass of ice on the side for his glass of tap water, extra napkins, and no matter what he orders he asks for a soup spoon. He has never actually ordered soup.   He usually orders a steak and eggs or a roast chicken, and woe to those who don't bring him a soup spoon ahead of time. He will get up and start waving.  It happens.  I'm not sure what he does with the soup spoon, since I've never actually watched him eat. I just know what when he's finished his plate is a mess and he only ever tips two dollars no matter how much his bill is.

The Raccoon is a whole different breed of crazy.  She has crazy dark brown hair that seems to be a cross between an 80s perm and a mullet,  but more importantly she has her entire eye area covered in black makeup.  All around the eye. Big black circles. We've actually debated whether or not this make up is tattooed on or if she actually just smears big sticks of charcoal around her eyes every morning. The Raccoon comes in with her comparatively normal looking husband/boyfriend/whatever and they always get one cup of coffee and one order of scrambled eggs.  If the eggs are too well scrambled they will send them back. They also request a bread basket, but only the brown bread, not the white bread, and for the love of god don't forget to give them jelly.

I long for the day when I can tell Turtle Man we are out of soup spoons, and Raccoon Lady that there's a shortage of brown bread. I doubt it'll ever happen, but it's good to have dreams.

In other news, all that ever plays on our radio any more is six different versions of  "Girl From Ipanema" and now the slightest mention of that song makes me want to punch somebody.

Love to say "you've gotta be fuckin kidding me"

Hello internet!  I've been a bit MIA the past couple weeks due to working every day until going out of town, and then you know....actually going out of town.  And, well I love writing this shit but I'm sure as hell not going to update my blog via smartphone.  Way too much work, too much potential for typos, and anyway I was too busy living it up in my hometown, The Rubber City (that's rubber as in tires btw, though rubber as in condoms would be way sexier.)

I have to say, going back to my hometown and seeing how other restaurants are run, and speaking to Akron waiter friends, it once again occurred to me how goddamn weird my job is.  Not to say that it was always easy working at the chain restaurant but problems were pretty "normal" as far as problems go.....shitty tippers, unruly prom kids, drunks at the bar, Lebron being a non-tipping classless asswipe.  The rest of the time it could be a hell of a lot of fun.

I do love my job at the Cafe despite all the weirdness, but it really is filled to the brim with insanity.  Anyway.  We have a policy at work called "Love to say Yes." It's a pretty straightforward spin on "the customer is always right."  Basically, do whatever you can to accommodate. And, in the most basic sense, I do support this.  My job is to make sure that my guests have a good experience. It actually benefits me for my guests to have a good experience. If my guests have a good experience they will tip well, come back, and maybe even compliment me to my boss.  If my guests have a shitty experience, they won't tip, they'll demand free shit, they'll complain and they might yelp me.  I have never actually tried to make somebody have a bad experience.  Yet the entitlement in the neighborhood is off the charts, and often "love to say yes" just turns into "bend over and take it."

Way back when we first instituted "Love to Say Yes" as a rule back in January 2012, a co-worker of mine drew up this response in the notebook.

And honestly it's not too far from the truth. Everybody has gotten so chicken shit and paranoid about what crazy bullshit these nut bags may post on yelp, that they've taken to bending over backwards to please these people.

Here are some things people have asked me over the years:

Can you butter my toast in the kitchen?

Can you cut my food up in little pieces?

Can I have hummus instead of salad dressing?

Can I have pancakes instead of toast?

The list goes on and on. One time I had a woman who wasn't even my table flag me down and demand that I open her butter packets for her.

Which....just. How helpless are you? There's actually a guy who comes in who either has an artificial arm, or just a non-functioning arm, and he somehow manages to cut his own food and spread butter on his toast. If he can do it, so can you.

One time I had a guy demand that I have the kitchen hand make a custom sauce from scratch for his mussels, because he didn't like the sauce we offered. I made the mistake of saying no and he complained to the manager about what a horrible rude excuse for a human being I am. And honestly, I kind of am a horrible excuse for a human being, but not because of refusal to hand make mussels sauces.

The problem is that these people are so used to having everything exactly as they ask for it, that they actually don't know how to respond when any minor conflict may arise. Last week we had a woman come in who asked about a cocktail we featured last summer.  I recognized the name of the cocktail but couldn't recall the ingredients off of the top of my head.  I told the woman this and she started to tear up. Actual tears were dripping down her face.  And I kept telling her that if she could tell me the ingredients, we'd probably be able to make it for her. But the level of distress was unreal.

My former co-worker once told me he had a theory about Upper West Siders:

You could take them out of the neighborhood, drop them anywhere on earth, and they'd all look around horrified and say "What?! I have to wipe my own ass?!"

Yep. That pretty much sums it up.

Flashback Friday, etc.

     Before I get into the whole Flashback Friday thing, I just want to take a moment and jot down a couple weird things my co-workers said yesterday.  A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about our busboy Fonzie, and his weird love of Saved by the Bell, among other thing. Anyway yesterday he just came up to me, said "Star Wars" and walked away. Not like, "Yeah, I love Star Wars!" or "Hey, I just watched Star Wars!" just...moderate, calm voice..."star wars" and continued on his merry way. I really have no idea what the fuck that was about but....hey....Star Wars everybody.

Oh and then I had the following conversation with my little Ukrainian co-worker.

He: I am so stupid!

Me: You're not stupid, you're just from Ukraine.

He: What does this mean?

Me: It doesn't mean anything. It's just me teasing you about where you're from. You know, like when you say somebody isn't stupid, they're just from Florida.
He: Oh! Well people from Florida, they are like villagers! Everybody knows this.

Anyway, now I want a t-shirt that says "People from from Florida, they are like villagers."  I would totally wear the shit out of that shirt.

And now, let's wrap up the week with a few tales of Roastings Past.

Dec 16, 2011
Lady was here for about 3 hours, then asked to see the manager. Told Gus she didn't have any money because she's "dealing with settlements" but would pay us by January 2nd.

Okay, I totally remember this lady.  I guess I could have put this in the Funny Money blog from earlier this week, but I forgot about it til now.  Anyway. I remember this pretty distinctly because it was the first person I dealt with that morning.  This customer was a transfer to me from the overnight waiter, and I'd guess she'd been there a while.  So she finishes eating, then asks to see the manager. Then she explains to him that she doesn't have any money, but that the police are "aware of the situation" And then she wrote us this weird IOU on the back of some prescription for rash cream.

Who the fuck goes out to a restaurant with no money??? Who does that?!  I mean luckily it was like a 15 dollar check, and we just voided it but...what? What the fuck is that? And I wondered at the time if she had tried it before. Like....just spend a small amount of money at every restaurant in the city, and then explain that you have nothing because you're "dealing with settlements" but it's okay because "the police are aware of it."

And no, she did NOT come back by January 2nd. 

This also kind of reminds me of the time that my co-worker Cris had a table who only paid half their bill, and then they left her a note with an address where she could pick up the rest of the money.

Seems legit.