Restaurant Life Archives | Page 47 of 54 | The Restaurant Manifesto

Trusting Your Inner Yelp

It isn’t easy to get people’s attention in restaurants these days. The waiter will approach the table to offer his expertise on the menu only to find everyone vacantly staring into the screens of their mobile phones. Are they texting someone? No. Are they “checking in” to make their friends jealous on social media? No. They are on restaurant review apps searching fan favorites and thumbing through pictures of menu items from the very restaurant in which they are currently seated.

The waiter asks if he can answer any questions. No, they say. They are ready to order. Like hordes who approach dining out the same these days, they have chosen to experience only the most popular dishes from the menu relying on groupthink rather than their own intuition. The modern diner considers preparation as integral to the act of dining out as eating. As menu prices rise, so does the price of bad choices. Restaurant guests now feel pressure to research in advance of their reservation, scouring the internet for Instagram pics and Yelp write-ups to avoid pitfalls and unearth signature dishes.

But is technology really helping us order more efficiently or is it reducing the act of personal choice to a Google-eyed algorithm? Mobile technology has disrupted the relationship that restaurant guests have with waitstaff. People trust their phones more than they do their waiters. How did we get here? The trend toward automation is not a new phenomenon. Technology has always invaded the way we consume things. The soda jerk was replaced by the vending machine. The bank teller became the ATM. It’s increasingly clear that the job of the waiter may go the way of the iPad. The less people value human service, the more hospitality jobs are in jeopardy.

At its core, dining out should be a spontaneous act. That’s what makes going out for dinner so unique from dining at home. At home, you control the elements—lighting, music, company. At a restaurant, the environment is unpredictable. No two dining experiences should ever be the same. Storyboarding your meals in advance limits the element of surprise. Ordering only popular dishes is like listening to only the greatest hits of your favorite rock band. It’s a safe choice. You know you love those old familiar songs. But, like audiophiles, diners must learn to appreciate the “deep cuts” if they want to really get into the music. Lucky for you, we provide the DJ.

Industry Comes First

There’s a soldierly code of honor in restaurants. We take care of each other. The restaurant business is built on manufacturing pleasure for strangers, so we cherish the opportunity to extend hospitality to our industry brethren. Bearing ourselves naked for nameless faces every night can be exhausting. So when our friends come visit us at our restaurant jobs, we feel like human beings again.

Even if you work in the business and we don’t know you personally, it’s our responsibility to make sure you leave drunk, full and happy. We know you’d do the same for us. A restaurant’s reputation among insiders is vital to its success and pampering industry friends pays it forward. You have to be at the top of your game. When restaurant people are impressed, they become evangelists and will spread your gospel to a captive audience that can singlehandedly butter your bread. Word of an ungracious experience travels fast.

In the service industry, we take a lot of pride in what we do and love to show it off. Who better to share all of this with than people who understand what it takes to produce beautiful food and serve it with style? Restaurant schedules are often so rigorous that the only chance you have of seeing a friend who works in the business is to visit them at work. So, we do.

These experiences all begin the same way: “I just came by to see if you were working.”

Even the most innocent visit will end up in your consuming three to four more times the amount of booze and food than you had intended. Your waiter friend will start by asking you: “Is there anything you don’t eat?” The question tells you all you need to know about our mentality. If you don’t tell us what to eliminate, we’re considering sending you everything. Once you get on the train, there’s no way of stopping it.

The meal starts and complimentary things begin materializing unexpectedly. The kitchen sends an extra appetizer—the one you discussed at length with your friend but didn’t order. Your steak comes and they bring a side of potato gratin. You finish your glass of red, turn away for a split second, and it’s automatically refilled like magic. You’re so full at this point that dessert is out of the question, so you decline. But it comes anyway. And, eventually, so will the check. Items you ordered will be suspiciously missing. You leave a huge tip to say thanks, but you know they didn’t do it for the extra gratuity. They did it because they know how hard you work and how much you deserve to be on the receiving end for once.

You leave feeling fat and tipsy; you wake up the next day lazy and hungover. It’s a tragic and beautiful cycle of enabling codependency. Sure, there are consequences. But if we cared about consequences, would we be working in restaurants in the first place? Hell, no.