Work yesterday and today
Jan. 23rd, 2004 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasIt was Luis's (the regular Grill Bar night bartender's) birthday, so I filled in for him. It was surprisingly busy for a Thursday night.
They just changed the menu for the Grill Bar, like, two days previously, so there were lots of new things on it -- which is not necessarily a great thing for a restaurant in a private club where you've got lots of regulars who always order the same thing, because they like the security of ritual . . .
I discovered, once again, that I banter pretty well. Which is useful in a service industry. Especially when you have fun people to banter with. A gentleman asked me how the rosemary chicken was. I told him it was new, I'd never had it, nor had I seen anyone who had had it. He asked if anyone had been dragged out to the hospital from it. I said, not to my knowlege, but it was only seven o'clock, so there was still plenty of time. He thought this was a good point, and ordered it, mentioning that he prefered the emergency room at Mass General to the one at Brigham and Women's, just in case it became relevant.
One woman asked how the calamari was; I said I had absolutely no idea, but, if she ordered it, she could tell me. She did, and she mostly enjoyed it, but she said that she didn't think that many people who were born in the United States would be able to eat it. Her suggestion was either cut down the spice a LOT, or put it on the menu as "Chili peppers with a little squid in it somewhere."
The kitchen was being slow, and the gentleman with the rosemary chicken (who was in no rush, and was really just hanging out with his friends) asked me to check on his meal, so I did. I came back out and told him that his meal would be ready Tuesday. He thought this sounded reasonable.
A few people asked me where Luis was, and I told them he had the night off because it was his birthday. I told a few people that they should sing happy birthday to him when he got back, and that they should NOT tell him I said so, because he'd kill me.
Someone asked me how old he was; I said he had just turned eight. People didn't seem to believe me, so I said that he was twenty nine. Again. (Actually, I don't know how old he is, but I think he's somewhere in the 45-50 range, maybe.)
In general, the menu may still need some tweaking. The OLD menu had a plain schrod dish . . . um, for non-New Englanders, "schrod" is a fillet of any reasonably firm reasonably plain whitefish, usually cod or haddock, broiled, maybe with a little butter, maybe a little lemon, maybe, if you're feeling adventurous, a few breadcrums. It's not what you'd call a real fancy dish. But it's good. I mean, if you've got good whitefish, what else do you need? The old menu basically had a piece of schrod, with some rice, and a some asparagus on the side. Not a terribly complicated dish, but pretty good.
The new menu went for something more adventurous -- schrod wrapped in proscuitto, with a wine/butter reduction sauce.
According to the rest of the staff, EVERY SINGLE PERSON who ordered this so far has ordered it, "hold the ham, no sauce, oh, and could you put some rice with it, and maybe some asparagus?"
A couple people wanted to watch the beginning of the six-o'clock news; they wanted to see if they could see themselves on the podium behind Howard Dean.
I left at midnight; things slowed down after dinner, as they are SUPPOSED to, so I did get a chance to do all the little fiddly chores like polishing all the brass.
Today, I was called for 10:30 AM start time.
The way it goes is, if you've got a function at X:XX, the bartender brings up the stuff for the bar at X:XX - 30 min, and sets up the bar. Which doesn't take anywhere NEAR half an hour -- more like ten minutes -- but that gives margin for 1) if people start showing up early and 2) if things just plain go wrong because Murphy is on call.
But the bartender shows up for work at X:XX - 60 min, to put together all the stuff that he or she will be bringing up at X:XX - 30 min.
So, the function I was going to work at started at 11:45. Meaning I needed to be up at 11:15, and would have from 11:15 to 11:45 to set up my bar. But I would have had to show up at 10:45 and would have from 10:45 to 11:45 to to get changed, and set up my bar cart (which is the cart on which one brings up the liquor, beer, wine, bar tools, ice, soda, juice, fruit tray, &ct that one will need at one's bar.) But John doesn't like starting people on the quarter hour, so he called me for 10:30.
As it turned out, I got on the wrong bus, and showed up like five or ten minutes late. Which, since John had called me fifteen minutes early, caused exactly zero problems.
Now, it does not take anything remotely LIKE an hour to get everything done that one needs to get done. Normally. But there are some days where you're just really glad you've got that kind of time.
They're re-doing the second floor of the club, and there are some events that would just fit nicely in the rooms on the second floor. But since those rooms are being remodeled, they've been squishing the events into rooms that are maybe a little too small for them. . .
We realized that there was absolutely no room to put a bar where we originally planned to, so we completely re-planned how the room was to be set up, moved a bunch of furniture, and completely set up an all new bar somewhere else that would work better.
THAT'S why we have an hour between call and event start. Not like we needed anywhere as much time as we had. We were running around like very skilled chickens with their heads cut off who knew exactly where they were going, and what they were doing, and the most efficient way to do it, and who were competently and quickly accomplishing what they were setting out to do. It took maybe five minutes to completely rethink and move around where the bar would be.
Anyway, I was chatting with one of the other beverage people, and it came out that we both knew someone who'd managed mutual funds who also competed in bare knuckles martial arts events.
And it WASN'T THE SAME GUY!
They just changed the menu for the Grill Bar, like, two days previously, so there were lots of new things on it -- which is not necessarily a great thing for a restaurant in a private club where you've got lots of regulars who always order the same thing, because they like the security of ritual . . .
I discovered, once again, that I banter pretty well. Which is useful in a service industry. Especially when you have fun people to banter with. A gentleman asked me how the rosemary chicken was. I told him it was new, I'd never had it, nor had I seen anyone who had had it. He asked if anyone had been dragged out to the hospital from it. I said, not to my knowlege, but it was only seven o'clock, so there was still plenty of time. He thought this was a good point, and ordered it, mentioning that he prefered the emergency room at Mass General to the one at Brigham and Women's, just in case it became relevant.
One woman asked how the calamari was; I said I had absolutely no idea, but, if she ordered it, she could tell me. She did, and she mostly enjoyed it, but she said that she didn't think that many people who were born in the United States would be able to eat it. Her suggestion was either cut down the spice a LOT, or put it on the menu as "Chili peppers with a little squid in it somewhere."
The kitchen was being slow, and the gentleman with the rosemary chicken (who was in no rush, and was really just hanging out with his friends) asked me to check on his meal, so I did. I came back out and told him that his meal would be ready Tuesday. He thought this sounded reasonable.
A few people asked me where Luis was, and I told them he had the night off because it was his birthday. I told a few people that they should sing happy birthday to him when he got back, and that they should NOT tell him I said so, because he'd kill me.
Someone asked me how old he was; I said he had just turned eight. People didn't seem to believe me, so I said that he was twenty nine. Again. (Actually, I don't know how old he is, but I think he's somewhere in the 45-50 range, maybe.)
In general, the menu may still need some tweaking. The OLD menu had a plain schrod dish . . . um, for non-New Englanders, "schrod" is a fillet of any reasonably firm reasonably plain whitefish, usually cod or haddock, broiled, maybe with a little butter, maybe a little lemon, maybe, if you're feeling adventurous, a few breadcrums. It's not what you'd call a real fancy dish. But it's good. I mean, if you've got good whitefish, what else do you need? The old menu basically had a piece of schrod, with some rice, and a some asparagus on the side. Not a terribly complicated dish, but pretty good.
The new menu went for something more adventurous -- schrod wrapped in proscuitto, with a wine/butter reduction sauce.
According to the rest of the staff, EVERY SINGLE PERSON who ordered this so far has ordered it, "hold the ham, no sauce, oh, and could you put some rice with it, and maybe some asparagus?"
A couple people wanted to watch the beginning of the six-o'clock news; they wanted to see if they could see themselves on the podium behind Howard Dean.
I left at midnight; things slowed down after dinner, as they are SUPPOSED to, so I did get a chance to do all the little fiddly chores like polishing all the brass.
Today, I was called for 10:30 AM start time.
The way it goes is, if you've got a function at X:XX, the bartender brings up the stuff for the bar at X:XX - 30 min, and sets up the bar. Which doesn't take anywhere NEAR half an hour -- more like ten minutes -- but that gives margin for 1) if people start showing up early and 2) if things just plain go wrong because Murphy is on call.
But the bartender shows up for work at X:XX - 60 min, to put together all the stuff that he or she will be bringing up at X:XX - 30 min.
So, the function I was going to work at started at 11:45. Meaning I needed to be up at 11:15, and would have from 11:15 to 11:45 to set up my bar. But I would have had to show up at 10:45 and would have from 10:45 to 11:45 to to get changed, and set up my bar cart (which is the cart on which one brings up the liquor, beer, wine, bar tools, ice, soda, juice, fruit tray, &ct that one will need at one's bar.) But John doesn't like starting people on the quarter hour, so he called me for 10:30.
As it turned out, I got on the wrong bus, and showed up like five or ten minutes late. Which, since John had called me fifteen minutes early, caused exactly zero problems.
Now, it does not take anything remotely LIKE an hour to get everything done that one needs to get done. Normally. But there are some days where you're just really glad you've got that kind of time.
They're re-doing the second floor of the club, and there are some events that would just fit nicely in the rooms on the second floor. But since those rooms are being remodeled, they've been squishing the events into rooms that are maybe a little too small for them. . .
We realized that there was absolutely no room to put a bar where we originally planned to, so we completely re-planned how the room was to be set up, moved a bunch of furniture, and completely set up an all new bar somewhere else that would work better.
THAT'S why we have an hour between call and event start. Not like we needed anywhere as much time as we had. We were running around like very skilled chickens with their heads cut off who knew exactly where they were going, and what they were doing, and the most efficient way to do it, and who were competently and quickly accomplishing what they were setting out to do. It took maybe five minutes to completely rethink and move around where the bar would be.
Anyway, I was chatting with one of the other beverage people, and it came out that we both knew someone who'd managed mutual funds who also competed in bare knuckles martial arts events.
And it WASN'T THE SAME GUY!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-24 07:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-25 11:11 am (UTC)About work...
Date: 2004-02-02 01:34 pm (UTC)Re: About work...
Date: 2004-02-02 02:27 pm (UTC)Re: About work...
Date: 2004-02-02 02:46 pm (UTC)Now that I see the dance is on a Friday, I don't think I'll even be able to go anyway. Foo. So never mind. >:)