“Both, I guess.”
She grins, standing back up from beside me. “All right, you ready to get this show on the road?”
Nervousness fills me once again, but this time, it’s tinged with excited energy. “Let’s do this,” I reply, standing up from the seat and following her out of the office and back out into the restaurant.
Steph reaches under the bar and pulls out a black apron, handing it to me to wrap around my hips. She grabs a pad and a pen and stuffs them in the front pocket, and tells me, “Before the shift starts, I’ll take you in the back and show you where all the boxes of pens are stocked. They’re customized with our logo and phone number for customers to take home with them. It’s great marketing and has gotten us tons of takeout orders called in than we used to before. It’s smart to just keep a handful of them in your apron so you don’t have to waste time going back to grab one each time you get a new table.”
“Noted,” I reply, pulling the lone pen out that she’d given me and taking peek at it before putting it back.
“So first, you’ll get your table’s drink order, come back here behind the bar, and fix those yourself if they’re nonalcoholic. Once you take them their drink, you’ll come to the register and start their tab. We do it in this order so they’re not just sitting there without a drink and can have time with the menu if they need it. If they do want an alcoholic beverage, you give the order to the bartender, usually our boss, Winston. During the day, it’s usually me,” she says, and I nod.
“Will I ever need to make an alcoholic drink?” I ask.
“Not unless you want to be trained as a bartender. It’s a lot to learn,” she warns.
“I think I’ll stick with just waitressing for now, thanks.” I grimace.
She grins. “I promise everything will become second nature and you won’t even have to think before you act once you get the hang of it,” she assures. “Okay, then what you’ll do is get your table’s order and come back here to the register. You’ll choose the items they ordered, making note of any allergies and special requests, and it’ll pop up on the screen in the kitchen for the cooks to make. Then when it’s ready, you’ll take your tray, load it up, and take it out to them.”
“Question. How do we know how often to go out and ask if they need anything? I’ve had waitresses who just disappear once the food comes, and I’ve also had some who come like every other mouthful, it seems.”
“I always say just watch their glasses. Once anyone at the table looks like their glass is two-thirds of the way gone, go ask if they need anything. Some people like it if you go ahead and bring them a refill once you see their drink getting low, but a lot of the time, it’s just a waste of soda and they leave with a full drink still sitting on the table. You’ll get a feel for it and can decide your own style of waitressing,” Steph tells me, and I nod, deciding I’ll be the type of server I always hoped to have whenever I went out to eat. Treat people the way I want to be treated is a rule that applies in a lot of different scenarios.
We go through several more items on the to-do list that are easy enough. I just hope I can remember to do them all by the end of my shift. I think a lot of it will click into place just by actually practicing them, and since I’ll be following Stephanie around this evening, at least I’ll have time to learn everything by watching and experiencing it with her instead of just being thrown to the wolves by myself.
“Well, we’ve got about fifteen minutes before the dinner rush usually begins. The boss man wanted to meet you before the evening got started and he gets busy cooking and bartending, so let’s go introduce you to him really quick. He’s usually prepping in the kitchen about now,” she says, glancing at her watch, and we head to the back from where we were standing at the hostess stand, where she was showing me the restaurant’s layout and where the tables and their corresponding number were located on the laminated diagram there. That was the most confusing part so far, but she promised it’s not so bad once I get it memorized. For tonight, we’re sticking to the booths on the right side of the restaurant when facing the bar. They’re tables 14 through 18. Five tables to keep happy all at once. I think I can handle that.