When Plates are Stacked Against You - What Can I Get You Folks?

4-20-2010 @5:11PM Robyn said... Please these comments are so ignorant. Let me explain, read the article again. Ignorance is bliss 20 + years in Restaurant business, College Education, and Entrepeneur Global. It just shows people read in between the lines. While a waitress is clearing a table it is ok to pass as in assistance but do not stack if you have not been in the food service industry. The time it takes is all footwork people. In addition, tips do not matter when you are a superb waitress, never count on a tip, although grately appreciated and well deserved the great considerate tippers make up for the ignoramous customers. P.S. When in a restaurant turn your cell phones off. No one is that important while your order is being taken. People are just plain rude and self centered today and deegrade waitresses that's what it is all about. It is easier to hit a baseball and get payed a million dollars.

4-13-2010 @6:20PM CraL!NN said... I was a server many years...I always loved it when my guests stacked their plates...

4-13-2010 @6:02PM Jon Davies said... I'm in the service industry, and Ms. Raskin is correct! The sentiment behind the plate stacking always hits the server with a duality of emotions. First, we think it's sweet that you tried. But second, you've made our job harder (often)... and then frustration builds as we try and maneuver your leaning tower of dishes. It's a wonder shattering plates aren't an hourly staple at any given restaurant.

I think it wise to direct you to my favorite video blog right now - a waiter on YouTube who says what so many of us in the industry think and feel.

http://www.youtube.com/user/YourDailyTip

This YouTube waiter teaches people how to be better customers, and what to look out for when they are dining. He's funny, nice, angry, cute, bitter, and charming! Many of you, I suppose, will find him mean, but if you actually listen... there is truth in his words.

I've seen his channel grow in a year from 20 subscribers to over 1,000... but I would like to see it grow even more. He deserves it, I think!

4-13-2010 @6:04PM monica said... I would prefer not to help stack plates either, BUT if we are finished, and sitting in front of them for 20 minutes while relaxing and having conversstion, i will move them, stack tem whatever... I have been to 5 star restauratnts with fabulous food and sat in front of dirty dishes for a very long time...I have even had server bring the check without clearing the table of the dinner plates OR brng the dinners without removeing appy plates...

4-13-2010 @8:27PM been there, done that said... What restaurant did you go to where your server disappeared for 20 minutes?? I would never go there again. I worked as a server, bartender, and front of the house manager for 15+ years, and I would never leave my station for more than a minute or two. One thing to consider -- in fine dining, it is improper to clear any plates until everyone at the table is finished eating, so if you Monica are in a fine dining establishment, the server will not clear until all are finished. Otherwise, those still eating feel compelled to either scarf down their food too quickly or let the server take it before they are truly finished. I miss that job! It's nice working at a place where people are happy to see you b/c you're bringing them great food and wine. Now I teach; my "customers" aren't nearly as happy to see me. Plus, I was a great server, so I made BANK every night.

4-13-2010 @7:52PM Holly said... To begin, I should not have to stack plates in a restaurant if the waiter is doing his job. When I am finished with a plate I move it to the outside, meaning I'm done with this plate so please take it off my table. This is one of my pet peeves and will affect a waiter's tip. I do not want to stare at dirty dishes. However, I will stack plates in a proper manner if they haven't been taken away and put them in the center of the table so I have a clean space in front of me to relax after my meal while finishing whatever I am drinking.
Any decent waiter won't have a large stack, if the take away the salad plates or soup bowls prior to serving the entree and the entree plates prior to serving dessert and the dessert plates when their patrons have finished with them.

4-14-2010 @12:32AM Voice O' Reason! said... Wow! She must have had writer's block or something to have settled on something so petty and trite as plate stacking as her topic! She is really single-handedly giving the restaurant industry a bad reputation as a bunch of Prima Donnas! I feel if the guests are stacking their own plates, chances are, the server is not properly PRE-BUSSING!! Thank God for guests that actually try to HELP!

4-13-2010 @8:48PM Rayleen said... Every time a server goes to the table (7-9) in the course of a meal, unused dishes should be removed. As a server I recommend full hands in and full hands out, even if it is another servers table, when you are busy team work is a must, and guess what they may be your table next time. If you a guest, please do not reach for a glass or any other item on my tray.

If you are a server, waiting on me.......you better do it right! Servers are the most difficult guests of all. I have been both for 40 years now.

After you have checked out and handed me my tip, if you will leave me a single penny under a glass that is the compliment, I did a good job.

4-13-2010 @11:43AM jcurtis said... I have cut and pasted your previous article. It is like a horror story I can stop reading... It is almost lunch time and I have lost my appetite. Then Crab dip comment still kills me... you eat half eaten crab cakes??? WTF? These are your words.. your haunting words that cause me to lose sleep at night...

When I was a senior in high school, I participated in the first-ever Take Your Daughter to Work Day. Since confidentiality laws prevented me from accompanying my psychotherapist parents' to their sessions, I ended up trailing a server at an upscale restaurant – an assignment that probably would have made Gloria Steinem shudder.

I'd never been in a restaurant kitchen until I cleared tables at The Lord Fox, a fabulously patrician eatery that still serves beef Wellington and crab-stuffed avocados. I recall having two concurrent revelations that day: Servers don't get a lunch break, and most diners leave food on their plates. To the disgust of my schoolmates who'd also landed the restaurant work gig, I nibbled on leftover steak sandwiches, ate the bacon out of BLTs and finished off any remaining French fries before rinsing the dishes.

Now that I'm a server, I still eat off cleared plates – and so do all of my coworkers. I'm not sure diners realize the dishrooms of many restaurants look like buffets by the end of service: We loathe to waste food, especially the fancy stuff.

There's a pretty precise code that governs whether your food ends up in the trash or your server's belly. We won't touch anything from a table where someone was sneezing, coughing or just generally odd: Who knows what sort of germs someone with crumbs in his moustache or an offensive slogan on his t-shirt is carrying? And, in another nod to hygiene, menu items in which a diner stabbed his fork repeatedly – such as creamy pastas or mounds of mashed potatoes – are probably headed straight to the scrape bin. (That said, some of my more voracious colleagues make a blanket exception for hot crab dip.)

But leftover mussels still in their protective casing? Absolutely. The untouched end of a filet? Sure. The better part of a crab cake? Heck, yes.

As servers, we can't often afford to feast on the steak and lobster our customers enjoy. But the leftovers are all ours.

4-13-2010 @2:34PM Britt said... Are you for real? Why are you calling her an "ingrate"? Perhaps, "I disagree with what you are saying" might have been more appropriate. I mean honestly, you have never met the woman and know nothing about her. Do you even know the definition of an ingrate?

That being said, I'm sorry Hannah but this time I can't agree with you. I always stack my plates for the server. Personally, I find it obtrusive to have a server's arms reaching across the table to grab all of the plates that are sitting all over the place. If I'm moving them closer to the edge, they are getting stacked.

4-13-2010 @2:43PM jcurtis said... I know what "ingrate" means. I was just refering back to her article when she said, "Before you fire up your electronic thesaurus to uncover stinging synonyms for "ingrate," consider which other workers you typically offer to assist." That is where I am coming from. With that said, it is not her general lack of gratitude to which I take exception. That is way I didn't expound on that particular subject.

4-13-2010 @2:56PM Angb said... Seriously, dude, you need to get over yourself. She didn't ask you to eat off of someone else's plate, so what the hell difference does it make to you?

4-13-2010 @4:38PM Meg said... I totally agree with you! Plus, I'm a big believer that everyone should work at a restaurant, and in retail at least once in their lives, perhaps even at a movie theater. I think when people have worked those types of jobs they are more sensitive to the people waiting on them, and if that means hanging clothes or stacking plates then do it! Having worked both food service and retail I have a better grasp on how they like the job done, stacking same size plates, taking misc. silverware and placing it securly on top, appropriately hanging clothes before I take them to the person stationed outside the dressing room... Is there a way that those folks prefer that their job was done, of course, but that's not to say that I haven't had the experience to help them to make their lives just a bit more hassle free. Plus, as a former busser of tables, I can tell you, I alway appreciated folks who took the time to help me out by stacking after they finished. Did I sometimes have to rearrange, sure, but hey they made the effort to show that they know the job is hard!

4-13-2010 @5:46PM Pamela J said... Actually, rehanging your clothes, returning items to the correct place, refraining from ripping open packages (Just how many times do you need to look at tube socks? They are a TOOOOOOOB!), grab a cart from the parking lot, return the cart to the correct place (not somebody's front bumper), realize that the toy department is not the same thing as Disneyland and store employees, even security are NOT there to make sure your kid is secure. That's YOUR job, keep them in your eyesight at all times. Security is there to protect the store from shoplifters NOT secure the customers. That's why most are called Loss Prevention instead of security. And stop throwing 50 pairs of shoes on the floor. You are being a rude pig, even though stores don't have the guts to tell you so. Your mama should have taught you to pick up after yourself. Stores have all gone to the self-service concept. Full service meant that all merchandise was behind a counter and you got to look at one item at a time, just like high-end cosmetic and jewelry counters are run. Self-service means just that---be an adult and serve yourself but be respectful to others. You have no idea how overworked sales people are. When times are tough, the easiest area to cut costs is employee pay. Many stores don't even keep long timers because it's cheaper to find some phony reason to let them go and hire a newby for minimum wage, and they are still expected to do the jobs 4 or 5 people used to perform. And YES I worked at a variety of stores and I haven't even begun to tell you horror stories. (Customers taking a dump in the fitting room trash basket---does anyone pay enough to cover that?) I realize there are dangerous and harder working jobs out there but stores often are the only place a single mom with no job skills will be hired. It's a sucky job, no matter how many hokey pep rallies WalMart stages.