r/restaurant

So I work at First Watch, a corporate breakfast restaurant. Over the last couple months I noticed that my general manager will try to be up front taking cash payments as much as possible, whenever he is working he just hogs the register so other servers can't help customers. Anyways, I've noticed that he has been waiting for customers to pay cash then deleting a couple items off the checks and then putting the extra money in the register?? He does this often and I have to wonder if this is normal for the First Watch company or he is stealing money? My coworkers and I have noticed that on our checkout-slips there is a high amount of voids when we have made no voids that day. Also what do you guys think I should do, do I just mind my business or say something?

I’m management (shift lead) so I’m technically MOD since I open the store by myself. My coworker is not. He’s a driver. He basically minimizes and mocks everything I say. I try to not be a “bossy” manager but I just want to get our stuff done. Sometimes he just dilly dallys and either me ( an insider/driver) or an overnight driver has to finish his sauce prep. He just stands and talks all day basically.

The other weekend it was slow for drivers but not for insiders as we were not caught up on our prep and were having to make orders. There were 2 drivers that day and since it was slow he came up to me and asked if he could leave for two hours and come back. i said no since there was still prep to be done and he laughed at me and walked away. So after that I just don’t talk to him unless he initiates a conversation. He only talks about himself though and how much he lifts and blah blah blah, so it’s just annoying conversation that I cant respond to cause he just talks about himself.

Just like 10 seconds ago (im hiding in the bathroom rn) he said “should i put an extra bottle in the fridge” and i replied, “i would just follow what the prep sheet says” and he snickered like im fucking stupid and dont know what im talking about and said “that wasnt my question im just going to do blah blah blah”

It’s constant stuff like this where he just argues with everything I say. I’ve already talked to higher up management and theyre not doing anything about it. what should i say/do?
like idk if its cause im a woman or were the same age but im still your MOD.

Maybe its just because i am a waitress that i actually clean up after myself at a restaurant but can parents not teach their kids to not be messy or just clean up after them??

Youll have crumbs absolutely everywhere, ketchup packets, suger packets, napkins scattered all over the fucking table, spilled liquid everything!!! I get overwhelmed by just looking at it and what, these people just think its fine to leave it there because theyre paying for the food? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Would you go into someone elses house and throw loads of shit around and just leave? NO, so why would you do that in a public setting???

even worse when the kids are running around, screaming or even on their gammy Ipads. Tell them to stare at the fucking wall and use their imagination atp.

I cant deal i cant deal.

Also why the fuck do kids take a millennium to eat their food jesus.

Basically what the title says. I hate asking my tables for reviews but it’s hurting my shifts because I’m not getting enough. Any crazy ways to get google reviews besides making a million accounts.

Every restaurant seems to have one dish that sells well but creates problems behind the scenes.

Maybe it takes too long to prepare, has a terrible profit margin, wastes ingredients, causes constant modifications, or regularly gets sent back.

What is that dish at your restaurant, and why is it such a headache? You don’t have to name the restaurant.

I work at a sit down breakfast place as a waitress and multiple times per week we will have people walk in with drinks (mostly coffees) from other businesses nearby and try to eat at our restaurant. I feel like our policy is pretty nice cause what we do is tell them « please don’t bring outside food or drinks, we can make an exception for this time but please don’t do it again ». I think a lot of places would just tell them to throw it away. But I don’t understand why you would think to come in with outside drinks ?? Except maybe bottled water but even then… Is there other restaurants that accept this ? I feel like it’s pretty obvious that you shouldn’t do it just like you wouldn’t walk into a movie theater with your own popcorn

So I work at this restaurant as server and they want to promote me to bartender, but still keep me as a server as well. So my question is, are my serving tips able to be used to cover my hourly bartending? They are deemed separate positions in this restaurant. Any help would be appreciated!!

we had a nice reservation at a sit down restaurant and a couple with two young kids were seated next to us. Once they got setttled the ipads came out and we had to listen to ms. rachel at full volume.

I told our waiter who said 'we would like to avoid confrontation when possible'

how is this fair to everyone else around them, that we all are subjected to their kids loud ipads?

also, as a parent you honestly can't keep your keep entertained for an hour instead of having them stare at a screen?

honestly, stay home next time.

I’ll go first! The Dog Whisperer :)

I went out to eat at a restaurant with my friends just now, we ended up going to a bar down the block to get some drinks. 20 mins in I get a notification that my checking account was below a certain amount and immediately checked my transaction history and saw that on top of the amount I was charged for my tab, the restaurant charged my debit card an additional $120 for something else? I went back to see what happened, the server showed me all of her closed tabs and sure enough not a single tab showed a tab that was even remotely the amount I was charged? The payment is still being processed on my end but I’m so confused how could this happen? Is it a withholding period of some sort? I was the only one with this unauthorized amount on their account out of the 5 girls I was at (nobody’s tab was even close to the $120).

It’s frustrating because I’m already dealing with a dispute on a scam through PayPal.

What should I do? Wait until the order goes through? Should I still take it to my company’s card even if I’m still battling another dispute with a whole other company? 

i got hired at a restaurant as a server in june. emphasis on as a server. as in i recieved my apron and little folder for checks. when i was completing training though, the documents said "host training" which i pointed out, and they said its fine as they use the same training modules. when it came time to begin training, they said that i would train as a host first (cross training) so that i could learn the section rotations and menu and whatnot. so im two training shifts in, still hosting, and a manager comes up to me and says "weren't you hired as a server?" i said yes, i was and i thought that all servers had to do this. he shook his head and said that they would train me as a server soon.

another week had passed. i brought up server training again, and the manager told me now that they were tight for hosts and had enough servers, and that once they got a new host, i would be moved up. job market is tight now so i take it and stay because getting this job in the first place took me weeks.

they've moved around 3 people up to server (from to-go mind you, which is the step above hosting that i haven't even been trained for), and hired one server with no previous restaurant experience. i am still hosting months later. i'm a pretty good host, as im typing this i have a shift in 20 minutes as the only host until closing in a high volume restaurant, so im pretty sure they just want to keep me where they know im good.

is this common for restaurant management to do to people, and i should keep waiting it out, or is it a sign that this place is shady and i should get out and look elsewhere?

Hello everyone,
I’m 16 years old and I have been searching for a job all summer. I finally got accepted at a restaurant where my position is a Hostess. I do get training but I can’t afford to lose this job as I need to save for a car.
I’m already pretty sociable and easily talk to people on my own so I feel like some parts will be easier than others. With that I know parts will be harder than others. If anyone has some key pointers and tips to succeed and keep this job please let me know.

Everyone seems to have one menu item that sounds great but is usually disappointing. Which dish is that for you, and what usually goes wrong with it?

Hey everyone, I recently came across a company selling dehydrated sauces/pastes specifically for restaurants. They claim the product is preservative-free and FSSAI-approved.

The concept is basically: add water, blend/grind it in a mixer, and you have the sauce/paste ready to use — so there’s no need to cut and process onions, tomatoes, garlic, etc. This could potentially save a lot of prep time, labour, and wastage.

I’m considering trying it for my restaurant, but I’d love to hear from people who have actually used similar products.

• How does the taste compare with freshly prepared sauces?
• Is the consistency good enough for regular restaurant use?
• Does it actually save money after rehydration?
• Any issues with shelf life or storage?
• And most importantly, are these products genuinely preservative-free as claimed?

Would love to hear your experiences or recommendations before I try it.

I am a 19 year old girl and I work at a small(ish) chain restaurant/bar in the PNW. It’s not super popular but if you’re from Oregon or Washington I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Either way it’s pretty much the biggest restaurant in the town I’m from, so if anything is going on in town we get insanely busy. This last weekend has been a sht show. We are constantly understaffed, I am either underwhelmed and getting sent home early from my shift with 15$ in my pocket or I’m freaking out, extremely stressed with no support and still leaving with less than what I feel like I should be making. I hear stories of people making up to 600-800 dollars on a busy night in certain restaurants and the most I’ve made is $350 on an insane night. Anyway all of the context aside, every shift I have I pretty much walk in and I’m in an ok mood but I’ve been so irritable there recently. Like today for example, again we were super understaffed and in the middle of a rush, i was wearing a white shirt and a bottle of mustard exploded on me. I started laughing and then quickly it changed from laughing to crying and the thought came to my head that I had to leave. I had so much stress built up from the weekend. I want to quit so badly but it’s the only job I’ve ever worked, I love my coworkers, im good at the job, im afraid the money is the best I’ll get in town and so many other reasons. I don’t want to look for a new job, I never thought I hated where I worked but if every shift I get super irritable and it’s hard for me to interact with customers, is that not my body telling me something? I’m trying to save up to move across the country so I can’t afford to be unemployed on top of being a full time college student. I get so embarrassed when I show my irritability because I’m a people pleaser and I hate for others to know I’m irritated but I can’t control it. I’m not sure where it’s all coming from but I’m afraid I can’t handle it and I wanted to ask if this is a normal thing servers go through? Are you guys irritable at work as well? Am I crazy or over dramatic? I don’t know what to do. Am I getting the fact that I’m good at it confused with the fact that I’m comfortable doing it?
More context: I’ve worked at this place for 4 years, it’s the only and first job I’ve had, I’m extremely comfortable with the job and the people. I haven’t been irritable until recently probably the last 2-3 months has been when it’s getting bad.

I worked fast food and just got fired from my job which wasn't a big deal because I already expected it and had another job lined up where I'm making more anyways. But it was a fast food job where the lady's original crew all left and she needed another general manager to help her and she's been here for over a month still helping her. I noticed she is very aggressive and makes low stress situations where there really ain't a lot going on extremely high stress.

Smoking really doesn't help and it has gotten to the point everything I did was wrong even though it was perfectly fine. I didn't argue with her at all because I don't argue with my lessers. I just let her talk and did my job and eventually got fired after a couple of weeks. Once again not a big deal, but I'm curious if female leadership is just in general worse overall? At least in high sweat/stress situations.

I dine out a lot. For that reason, I come across some questionable policies in restaurants. I want to vent, but also would love to hear what people in the restaurant industry think.

Maybe 7 or 8 years ago, we were on vacation in New Orleans. Our flight was leaving on a Tuesday afternoon, and since we had gone to N.O. precisely to eat and drink, we decided to have one last good meal for lunch before heading to the airport. We went to a French-style restaurant -- James Beard-award winning, not one of the old-line Creole restaurants.... Okay, it was Compere Lapin.

The dining room was almost empty for Tuesday lunch. We went whole hog. They should have appreciated that. We had two cocktails each (they were very inventive). We had an appetizer, entrees, and desert. Ran up a big check for lunch, but overall enjoyed the experience.

Except. The appetizer was something I don't remember the name of. It was sort of like fondue. Some melted cheese thingy served with medallions of baguette. We were out of bread before we finished the appetizer (the bread had one of those ginormous air bubbles -- it was almost crust only). We only needed a couple more pieces to finish. I asked the server if she could bring us a bit more bread. She just fixed me with a dead stare and finally said, "You want to order a side order of bread?" I said no. I didn't want a side order, just a couple of pieces to finish the cheese. Once again, she asked if I was intending to order a side of bread. I threw my hands up and said "Vat the Hell! Why not? Bring us a side order of bread!" Which she did. It was maybe a whole baguette. We ate two pieces and left the rest. It was $8 or something.

I get it. Someone here is going to say "restaurants are not in business to give out free food." But come on. We spent a lot of money on a lunch and they can't give us two effing pieces of bread? They probably threw away garbage bags-full of bread at the end of the day.

At another restaurant closer to home, where we ate weekly for years, the server once told us that they had a new dipping sauce to serve with different items, usually beef. Did I want the new one or my usual order? I asked if I could try a sample of the new sauce. Once again, the same blank stare, followed by "You want to place an order for the new sauce?" Nope. I guess not.

What gives? Reminds me of that scene from Five Easy Pieces about the toast.

I can go on. Why is it so hard to change tables in an empty restaurant? (This was the Rick Bayless place at Disneyworld.) It was 4:30 pm and there were dozens and dozens of empty tables of all sizes. They stuck us at a table with an industrial-strength air vent blowing down on me. My teeth were literally chattering. They eventually moved us, after servers and managers had a summit conference, with lots of head-scratching and staring at what I guess was a chart of tables. I don't need to see their process. Just put me at a different gd table!!

I got more complaints. But enough for now.

Hello fellow sickos.
I have been tasked with creating a bunch of “micro learning” modules for foh to be able to better understand food and what not. Will probably make some for boh too at some point but so they can get some perspective on life of foh. Things like aoli vs. mayo, or why we probably can’t do a medium rare prime rib 30 minutes before close. But I’ve hit a massive wall in terms of things that would be both interesting and beneficial for them to understand. I need your help! Please help me with some ideas.