Those of you who have ever gone out to eat with me have likely heard me complain about how idiotic and dumb restaurant hostesses are. In my entire life, I have yet to witness a smart hostess (Note: The hostess may indeed be smart, but not smart about being a hostess).
I took note of this phenomenon as a youngster while working at Chi-Chi's in high school. As a bus-boy, my main job was to clear the tables, then bring the new guests chips and salsa within 60 seconds of sitting down.
Early on in my bussing career, I began to wonder why there would be a one-hour wait (who the hell would want to wait an hour to eat at The Chi?) when I had cleaned off several tables several minutes ago (I was a damn good busser) which were sitting unused? Didn't the stupid hostess know the table was open? If they knew, why wouldn't they fill the table? I mean, they have a whole freaking team of hostesses: one to greet you as you walk in, one to take your name and manage the waitlist, one to take you to your table, and one to be in charge and tell all of the others what to do.
This began to really irritate me because as long as there was a wait, I wasn't going home anytime soon. My goal was to get the hell out of there, so I took it upon myself to begin telling the hostess team when there were open tables. They would look at me like, "yeah, we know" and I would be like, "ok, then seat the damn table!!!!!" I will never know what they are waiting for.
In my life since leaving the Chi, I have observed the exact same phenomenon at EVERY other restaurant I have ever eaten at. We will walk into a place for dinner, and they tell you there is a 15 minute wait. But when I look around the place, I see 5 open tables. WHY. Next time you're out to eat and they tell you there is a wait, I guarantee there are at least 5 open tables. Now you can feel my pain.
Hostesses are UNIVERSALLY DUMB.
I can't speak for the restaurants that you've personally worked at, but maybe you should take into consideration that most managment tell the hostesses not to seat a certain section if the server looks overwhelmed. So when you go out to eat and they tell you it will be a fifteen minute wait and there are open tables this may be the reason. Or maybe there is no server for a specific section so that is why they are not seating it. There is usually a reason people do things a certain way, and just because you don't understand what that reason is, doesn't make them universally dumb.
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ReplyDeleteYou're making yourself look a little stupid here. You aren't supposed to fill all of the tables or else the kitchen will get backed up and people will be even more pissed off because they're food is taking a while to get to them. Like the comment before, servers cannot be double or triple seated or else they will be very overwhelmed. I am a hostess so I find it a little offensive when you say that all hostesses are universally dumb. Maybe you should've asked someone why they keep a few tables open at once before you started working at this resturaunt.
ReplyDeleteFor someone who has worked in a restaurant, you don't really seem to get how they work do you? Just like the previous two comments state, just because a table in their section is open doesn't mean the server is ready for another table. Double or triple seating can throw off a server or crash the kitchen. I think a ten minute wait is preferable to many people rather than having a harrassed server and a 30 minute wait for food.
ReplyDeleteexcuses, excuses. The hostess did not seat the tables because they are dumb, not because they were trying to avoid the double or triple seating of one server. Besides, if the server wasn't smoking in the back room half the time they wouldn't be in the weeds anyway.
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