David Cyrelson

Most American restaurants are managed by chefs and cooks who have never worked in a 3 star place and never will. But all, with rare exception, view themselves as culinary stars and GR's equal. Therefore, they see his behavior as reinforcement of their own bad management techniques and even a source of new forms of abuse. On behalf of my fellow servers, I cringe at what this show is teaching our bosses.

When it's good, everyone wants a piece of the pie. But when it's bad ... As a veteran server, and currently a w/w trainer, I can tell you servers across America are pissed at the number of nights they go home with next to nothing because management has done or is doing a less than stellar job promoting the restaurant. But servers accept no money shifts as part of the risk. In most job types, the ones taking the risks are the ones with the greatest chance of making big money. If cooks (not chef/owners since they obviously have a different financial relationship with the restaurant) want to give up their guaranteed weekly paycheck and gamble with the servers on the restaurant's success, then maybe they too will make more. In addition, servers across America all have stories of times the kitchen has messed up an order (bad timing, wrong food, etc.) and the server's tip suffered. Never once has a server ended his or her story with, "But the cook gave me some money from his pocket to make up for the tip revenue his team's error had lost me." As to rewarding cooks and chefs, there have been times (admittedly too few) when I have asked the waiter to ask the chef to stop by and when he (and in one case she) came to our table, we applauded. All 4 times I did this, most of the other customers in the restaurant joined in. It seemed to make the chef very pleased. David Cyrelson www.greattips.net The ultimate "how to" manual by servers for servers.

I am new to this forum and trying to catch up with existing threads so I was really glad to read the first 12 entires of this discussion and see that "service animals" was not about waiters and waitresses. (I have had too many conversations with restaurant chefs, owners, and managers who would feel that phrase accurately describes servers.) David Cyrelson www.greattips.net The ultimate "how to" manual by servers for servers.