26 Degrees in the Shade . . .

Busy Times in our Spanish Restaurant

We were busy at lunchtime today and really busy in the evening. Graham’s Pizzeria Bar is open from 12:30pm – 11:30 pm. We normally have a steady trade in coffees and toasted sandwiches all day with two really busy periods. The first is lunchtime, 1:30-3:30 pm and the second is the evening session from 8:30-11:00 pm.

Yesterday was no exception and the evening session in particular was manic! Eli our waitress worked flat out controlling eleven outside tables, whilst Ines made the fresh pizza and worked the grill (plancha).

Eli and Ines have to work really closely as a team and there’s a fair amount of role crossover when things get manic. As it is quicker to serve tables than it is to cook, this means that Eli has to take over the grill (burgers, chops, kebabs etc).

We had to remind Eli last night, that when there are a lot of pizza orders backing up, it’s vital that she helps Ines by slowing down the flow of incoming orders. You may have noticed that sometimes when in a restaurant you try to order both your drinks and your food at the same time, the waiter just dashes away saying “un momento”. Well this is a vital part of controlling the flow of work going to the kitchen.

Basically when a restaurant is under pressure, a good waiter will smile whilst he takes your drinks order and take time bringing your drinks. This is all a part of the training. He will leave you waiting for as long as is necessary for the chef to clear the back-load of food orders.

Also each table must be served in the order that they sat down. I have to watch all my waitresses on this point, as some never grasp how annoying it is for clients to see a table who sat down after them, served before them. This is one of the biggest causes of arguments in restaurants and the best way to lose your customers.

Normally when we are really busy like last night, I’d call my son in to do the bar and washing up, but he was having a great post exam night out with his friends, so we decided to push on without him. In the end all went well. We managed to get closed up by 11:30 pm.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at 11:58 pm and is filed under Business. Find similar posts by selecting and of the following tags: bar, restaurant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.