zenial

Here's what I believed happened NBC got a buch of "their personalities" together. We were then shoveled into to Rocco, out of all those characters Rocco picked the ones with restaurant knowledge and expirence (I personally had to role play as a waiter him as the guest, but they didn't show that). Almost all of us had both expirence and interestingness it's just that for now they are only showing you the later. What bothers me is that all the people know what editing can do but will still complain about the incompetant staff.

Also the people that were fired were not necessarily fired because they were not able/expirenced. The fact is many nicer restaurants do not want personality AT ALL you don't actually get to talk to the costomers, you are essentially an order taker, which is what the staff at Rocco's has become. Some of the people that were fired simply did not "fit the mold" how ever good they were at doing their jobs. It is one thing to say they are quirky or to call them "wanna-be" actors whatever that is (if you act your an actor), but to call into question their serving ability when you clearly do not see the whole picture is just foolish. Later, FOH/BOH at heart

"if you can believe the editing" is right. I'll mention this again all the servers with the exeption of a couple had lot of waiting expirence. Most of you say how fake the show is yet you believe it when it comes to the portrayl of the waitstaff being un-expirenced. You are watching snippets of the whole interviews, come on.

Yea, not at all gideon gideon definately ruined his arm he had to have surgury to fix it.

It is one thing to want wine with dinner. It is another to demand that the server take tour credit card and go out and buy a few bottles. It is another thing on top of that when your food is FREE. demand? that seems like a strong word. but you must be right about the "rich" part. afterall, it was a gold amex. True

But Gideon says you had training. From his blog: "First of all, that 1st episode covered about 3 weeks worth of shooting. It's amazing what editing can do. They bunched all of the training to appear as though it was the same day…but look closely…we are all wearing different outfits in each shot. We went out practically every night after training and the only partying you see is actually the first day all of us met." Sounds like there might have been several training sessions? Not that his word has more weight than that of anyone else, but...I smell hyperbole.... Also anyone at the "training" would tell you it was pretty useless. it was Fred telling us where certain wines came from and so on, nice info to be sure, but nobody knew how we would work the actual waiting/captain thing. And anybody who has waited tables knows a big key to good service is knowing the space well. We did not know it at all.

But Gideon says you had training. From his blog: "First of all, that 1st episode covered about 3 weeks worth of shooting. It's amazing what editing can do. They bunched all of the training to appear as though it was the same day…but look closely…we are all wearing different outfits in each shot. We went out practically every night after training and the only partying you see is actually the first day all of us met." Sounds like there might have been several training sessions? Not that his word has more weight than that of anyone else, but...I smell hyperbole.... It wasn't training in the normal sense of the word. It was rocco talking about what he expected from us, also it was all about wine we tasted a couple, also about how to pour blah blah. Also we did have a cpu training class.

OK. Just to defend my fellow waiters ALL of us with the exception of a couple have MANY years of expirence. So many of you agree that they craftfully edit but automatically assume their porteayl of the "dim-witted servers" is spot on. There are a few things you need to know. 1. Those two nights were the first time we stepped foot in the dining room to serve. 2. We recieved the menu descriptions the night before, which were not accurate, and menu intems were changed each day before the shift. The BOH had been cooking the items and working in their space for a few days bafore hand. 3.Along with memorizing the menu we also recieved a half-assed winr list to memorize aswell 4.We had NO training granted we all had expirence but if you have 20 people working in in a place that they have barely seen who have never worked togeher and who have also never been trained at the restaurant the shiot will hit the fan at an alarming rate. The fact that no one committed suicide is amazing. The fact that anyone got their food at all is amazing. 5. Because people knew the food was free there was no "standerd ordering procedure" gests would order appitizers then appitizers then main then salad the dessert. then appitizers. Just taking the orders was hell. 6.Because it was very different everbody every guest wanted your undivided attention, which is nothing new but it was EVERY guest. 7. Becasue it was on T.V we had less than cooth patrons. People needed detailed explnations of some of the most basic menu items. Which is normally not a problem but is was ever other table. And it wasn't the normal "is this good is that good" people wanted in depth description on every item, which again would be fine but it was every table. What is crudo, What is in the Chicken parm come on. 8. As far as calling us whiney mabye that is the case but we did it very very very seldom but the cameras were always there and that is what they chose to display. And even if we were what if you showed up to work and nobody was really sure what wines you would be serving, or you hadn't been paid in three weeks, or you had not been trained AT ALL. Or let's say that because the food was FREE not everbody deemed it nessecary tip. Almost every server i know would bitch if they had to stay later than expected. We put up with a lot more than that. 9.There are a lot more reasons than this but i'll save those up for epsiode three. Also i do not mean to say that the cooks had a walk in the park because they all BUSTED THEIR ASSES, with ROCCO screaming at them (only in front of the cameras by the way, he wasn't down there otherwise not to say that I expected him to be) Everone had it rough to call us whiney mabye but unexpirence not in the least. And we ahd every right to be whiney.

why do you say he was a "rich arrogant ass"? the guy wanted wine with dinner. It is one thing to want wine with dinner. It is another to demand that the server take tour credit card and go out and buy a few bottles. It is another thing on top of that when your food is FREE.

The problem is that we didn't know we even had dinner forks. The silverware was still being unpacked. And yes there were TWO people that would not know the difference anyway. And 95% of the staff knew proper wine pour already.

spaghettini al olio If you work in an Italien restaurant, you should at the very least be able to make a good guess at that one. I'm glad this came back up because I've been wondering about it. (And haven't seen the show.) In NYC, or really anywhere, are experienced waitstaff expected to have a general knowledge of classic dishes? Standard Italian, French, Chinese, Mexican, etc? An extensive knowledge? Or is there too much variety of cuisines for an employer to expect that? Or is there so much going on with chefs making personal variations that to assume that the name means what it sounds like is too dangerous? Excellent point. It could range from just pasta, olive oil, and garilc to god knows what.

The a/c wasn't working and we did make almost nothing. Also the cooks always left before FOH, although they did come in much earlier than we did.

spaghettini al olio If you work in an Italien restaurant, you should at the very least be able to make a good guess at that one. You want more examples of the lack of professionalism? Arguing with a customer? "I don't know what happened with the order."? Complaining about your tips on the second night (first paying night) of business? And, of course, the hot plate. That's pretty telling as there are few FOH staff with any real experience who would grab a plate bare-handed like that. It's something you only do once. If someone hands you a plate bare-handed you take it bare-handed

He didn't open a restaurant. He stared on a "reality TV" show. The restaurant was a by product of the show. The dog wagged the tail. The restaurant was going to open reguardless of the show. The insane timeline was a by-product of the show. Do you think they went to Jeffey and said we would like to do a show can you give us 4 million, well mabye but doubtful.

Yea um... your wrong. The "wine purchasing" as it is now know was not prescripted. The guy was just some rich arrogant ass. And even though you were probably kidding the fire was very hot and very real.

O.K. As far as the staff not knowing the menu we got the menu description two nights before worked until 2am and had to be back at 10. Not to mention the descriptions were wrong. Also gideon really did fall and had to have surgery. The guy that asked Pete to go out and get the wine was an arrogant ass I don't think it was scripted at least we didn't know that it was. I have to stick up for the foh because,yes there are a couple that shoulcn't be there but almost all the staff has had years of experence. Our menu and actual training in the restaurant was NON-EXSISTANT. Before opening night we had barely step foot in the dining area let alone servrd in it.

Come to think of it, I have a couple of hours to fill/bill. Let's see, where did I put those blank subpoena forms? Just kidding. LOL

Wow first off this guy is just wrong. I myself have about 5 years experence which is not as much as a lot of the other waitstaff. True there were some that did not, but that was a small selection probably 4 waiters. Also, not that you would know but we also did not recieve a paycheck for three weeks and when we did it was to the tune of about 200+ bucks. You would complain too if you made 50 bucks a day, and was there until 2am everyday. As far as the fact we didn't know what we were serving, we got menu descriptions two days before opening, menu desciption that were WRONG. Along with recieving the wine list two days before (not the entire list we had to get it all down the night of). Also how the food was prepared changed every night, and a lot of the menu items changed slightly every night. Not that that is extremly unusual, but added to everything elese it kind of screwed us. That being said the BOH did get f'ed you guys had to be there early had to leave late and aren't being paid neraly enough, but to comment on the servers experence without serving yourself thats just not cool. Oh yea 25 minutes for zepoli 30 minutes for calamari you can't say that the kitchen was dead on balls either, it's not you fault it is the systems, but the same can be said for the problems in the foh. Later

We did have to sign a non-discloser agreement, but I find it hard to believe they care enough to find out who zenial is

That's a little like saying it didn't have that much rat in it. Cheers. True...true. As far as the liquor license goes they didn't get one in six weeks. They obtained a temporary catering permit which allowed them to serve beer, wine ect.

The amount of work from the day before to the day of opening was amazing. Everything was inspected properly, it all just happened so fast that there was not enough footage of the whole process. As far as hiring actors as staff that is somewhat the case. I was one of the actor/waiters that was hired, however I along with 95% of the rest of the staff is very expirenced. They did hire a few ditz's to spice but most of us have been waiting for years inculding Gideon who yes is the quy that drank the spit bucket. But it wasn't a spit bucket there was a seprate bucket for spit he drank the pither of wine that was not tasted which probably didn't have taht much spit in it, but it was a shit load of wine. Later