Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2005
Post-Valentines explosion, posted at 11:59 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com It was incredibly busy at the restaurant tonight, a complete shock to the manager and I. The dollar signs were in my eyes as the entire first floor filled up and I was on a roll, charming and able to work in teaching stories with ease.How do I do this? Shamelessly. It's sort of like working in that my father is a cop when I get pulled over. (To be fair, I've been pulled over exactly three times in eleven years of driving.)
Here's a typical conversation:
"It's really busy in here for a Tuesday night, huh?"
"Yeah, it is. You know, I was here last on Valentine's Day, and we all thought it would be slow today, and I kept wondering at school - I'm a teacher - what today would be like. I even brought papers to grade. Believe me, I'd much rather have a lot of folks to talk with tonight, though. This place is a lot of fun when it's busy."
"Oh, what do you teach?"
"High school English."
"Really, that's wonderful. You're a teacher working two jobs because you aren't paid fairly. Maybe you have student loans to pay off. I'm going to leave you a huge tip."
The last line is fictional, but that's what I imagine is going through the mind. If they seem interested, I'll continue to talk with them about it.
All was going well, until the kitchen got backed up. We're a small restaurant, and on weekdays there is only one waiter and one cook. Tonight, the newish, slow cook was working. The kitchen fell behind to the point where one table came in at 7:25, ordered their appetizer at 7:35, were served their appetizer at 8:00, had their main course fire at 8:20, and still were waiting at 9:40 for their main course. We ended up making all their food half off and comping their drinks, and the bill that would have been over $120 was just $44. Luckily for me, they were intelligent and realized it wasn't my fault, and still tipped me off the amount that the check would have been.
Another table just flat walked out because they waited too long. Didn't pay or anything. That's never happened to me before, and I couldn't convince them to stay. It sucked, but what jerks. As far as I'm concerned, they stole the appetizers and drinks that they had already consumed.
I had one really nice table of two middle-aged women who polished off two $72 bottles of wine together. One told me that it's customary at fine restaurants in NYC to offer a taste of wine to the server so the next time a guest orders it, he can describe it. She grabbed a glass from the other table, poured her wine into it, and insisted that I go back in the kitchen to try it. It was unbelievable - both what she did and the taste.
Right now, though, I'm exhausted and need to get some sleep. Thank god I don't work again until Saturday night over there. So far in 2005, I have fulfilled one of my New Years Resolutions by not working too much, but this 4-days-out-of-last-5 there is pushing it a bit. It's because of Valentine's Day, though, and I know that starting March 1, I'll be able to be there just once a weekend, if I decide to stay while coaching baseball.
Less restaurant stories the rest of the week, I promise. School is going very well this week, and last... weird things abound in my department now that the news has spread that we're going to need a new department head. I don't quite know how I feel about any of it, just that I feel sad, but my classes seem to be really gelling right now in almost every day.