Posts Tagged ‘restaurant manager’

Review Evolution

May 17, 2016

There is a four letter website out there that stands for everything that is wrong with social media. This website allows any asshole with a cell phone to spew hate filled reviews attacking people in the service industry because they are upset that there is no Amber Ale on tap. They seem to have no control over what slanderous rhetoric its users post. Anyone who has ever waited or bussed a table, tended bar, been a floor or general manager or worked the door as a security guard will tell you that 90% of what you read on this website is bullshit usually made up by a user under the influence of alcohol. I understand that speech is free in this country but personally attacking an employee of an establishment you patronize, while drunk and recently ejected, does not equate to freedom of speech in my mind.

I have so many negative reviews about me that it is impossible to count. I have been called both racist and sexist on this site. I have been accused of being a pathetic little man drunk with the power of running a restaurant on this site. I have been referred to as a shameless prick who inexcusably backs his staff on this site. One time some schmuck actually posted a picture of a dog taking a shit and had the nerve to compare me to the pile of dung on this site.

Mind you these nasty things have been written about me because I was just trying to do my job. When was the last time something that happened at your job got blasted out on the internet with the express purpose of making you look like a jackass? Think hard. For me it’s much easier to recall because it happens every several months. If you want to pull me aside and say these awful things to my face that’s fine. It most likely won’t end well but one way or another it will end. Don’t be a coward and run to your laptop or tablet and blatantly make shit up that threatens my livelihood. Once it goes up on this site it is there for the public to read and now not just one person thinks I am all these awful things but the entire world is encouraged to make the same rash judgement.

So, you say to me, “It’s just a silly little website. Nobody cares that much about what is written there. Readers are smart enough to decipher the legitimate reviews versus the bullshit ones.”  First of all, the people who use this site are not that smart. Trust me I deal with them on a daily basis. If they were in a spelling bee versus a stack of bricks I’m taking the bricks, big time. Second of all people do care. I have seen people cry after reading a nasty review that was written about them. I’ve met people in this industry who have lost their job because they got too many bad reviews most of which were bullshit. If people didn’t care what was written on this shitbag site then certain restaurants wouldn’t discount customers who write five star reviews about them.

I have been in or around the restaurant business for 20 plus years and have been in the craft beer industry the last ten and what I have found is that people in this industry care about what they do, a lot. This is a career not some summer job motherfucker and every day I go to work I try to be better than I was the day before. When things don’t go well I lose sleep or drink to excess usually both. When my teammates have a bad day I feel it, because I care about them too. We work long hours on our feet trying extremely hard to provide our patrons with stellar product and service.

To do all that and then have some punk ass permanently stoned college hipster or some Quaalude popping soccer mom who have never waited a table in their life tell the internet that I suck at my job is something I am no longer able to just sit here and take. In fact, a very good friend of mine and I are going to open a restaurant for all these expert reviewers of a business they have never been employed in and it’s going to be called “Go Fuck Yourself” (patent pending). That way when they don’t like how things go down in our house they can reference the sign on the front door.

Service industry people unite. They want to write about us then let’s write about them. There is a website called GULPU.com™ coming to you soon. It’s our site to talk about how awful they are. For now, get stress off your chest with us at https://www.facebook.com/GULPU/

That way the next time some redneck with dip spit dribbling down his chin tries to fight you because you wouldn’t serve his pregnant girlfriend alcohol the real story will be heard too. Oh yeah, I almost forgot “Fuck Yelp”.

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Posted in Bar Etiquette, GULPU, Miscellaneous Rants, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Holiday Winter Storm

January 16, 2014

Every year a certain local restaurant has their annual holiday party, and every year they end up at the pub, and every year they treat our staff, our customers and the pub itself with zero respect. It is like feeding time at the raptor cage from the moment they stumble up until the moment they get thrown out. This restaurant shall remain nameless due to the fact that I have the utmost respect for seventy-five percent of their staff who are all important members of the craft beer community. It was that fact that made me hesitate even writing this but the level of douchebaggery the other twenty-five percent displayed this year was far too egregious for me to stay silent.

It’s 4 pm on a Monday afternoon. Our happy hour regulars are settling in to their stools discussing the day’s events over a nice frosty pint of ale. The door opens and in walks a guy with a hat representing the restaurant he works at. He walks to the far side of the bar and sits down. The bartender approaches him to offer him a beer. He mentions where he works and says that he is meeting a party in upwards of 50 people here to celebrate their holiday party.

I know what you are thinking, 50 people on a quiet Monday afternoon that will be a great boon for business, and you’re right. However, most people who are part of a party of 50 have enough brain power to call ahead days in advance and I would be happy with even an hour’s heads up. Then you think about this particular group and realize that they work at a restaurant, allegedly. Here’s an idea, pull your fancy diamond bedazzled smart phone out of your ass and apply it to your ear so whatever restaurant you plan on destroying has a chance to make sure the level of ass kicking is a manageable one.

If I’d known that a bunch of drunk restaurant employees were approaching my bar I would have had a dark corner prepared to herd them into so my regular customers wouldn’t have to be bothered with their idiocy. I would have gladly set up a cage on the far side of our patio where they could yell and punch each other in the balls all to their hearts’ desire. When you add in that these people have been at their work drinking free high in alcohol beers all afternoon you understand how potentially damaging this group could be. Who ends a holiday party at 4 in the afternoon on a Monday and releases their shit faced employees like a roving Jager-stinking fifty person zombie apocalypse upon the local community? That doesn’t sound like responsible serving to me.

The regulars were shocked by the sudden influx of younger people. They were intrigued for less than a minute and all motioned to close their tabs out immediately. I would have done the same as I wouldn’t want to get bumped by drunken 22 year olds who are fighting each other to get a drink faster. We went four deep at the bar which is fun but getting string ordered by people who work in the bar industry is frustrating and annoying.

Once the initial rush mellowed we were able to start letting this screaming band of bar amateurs know that they needed to chill the fuck out and start treating this place with a sense of respect. They would listen for a few minutes and then start freaking out uncontrollably again. Things really started going downhill when I found a bottle of spiced Jager sitting over by the pool table. First of all if you are going to sneak liquor into a bar make it some real shit not some water downed bitchafied version of Jager.

Second of all, now people are going to start getting kicked out. I found the first one lying on the ground in front of the pub. This was at about 630. I kicked him in his ribs and he shook to life. He claimed he was waiting on a ride. I told him to leave the property. When he argued I asked him if people were allowed to lie on the ground in front of his restaurant. He shook his head no and stumbled his way down towards Denny’s. An hour and a half later a girl showed up with a baby looking for him.

The second one was already on watch for puffing on her e-cigarette inside even after being warned twice not to do so. As she took a seat at the bar she saw a plate of food. After blurting out that while she didn’t know whose food it was she was going to eat it anyway, she  proceeded to eat it anyway. When I pulled her out she was in tears saying how embarrassed she was and rightly so. I asked her to leave and when she argued I asked her if at her restaurant they allowed customers to randomly eat off other customers’ plates. She looked at me and stuttered out a tear and snot soaked yes.

The third one was most likely the oldest member of the staff left and seemed to be in some sort of management role with the restaurant. When I had first discovered the Jager bottle he had assumed the responsibility of gaining control of the crowd and helping us make sure his people didn’t do anything else stupid. That plan was a bust due to the fact that he might have been one of the more intoxicated people there more so than most of the kids who were ten years younger than him.

He had mentioned something about getting everyone to move to the bowling alley since my staff and I made it clear that is was in everyone’s best interest that they move along. An hour later he said they were going to go bowling. When I looked around and saw that was not the case I referenced about how lucky the bowling alley staff would be to get to serve him and his staff. He then told me to “not be an asshole” and that was the end of his evening and any evenings he ever thought he would be welcome back because he is most certainly not welcome.

At the end of this month it will be our Holiday party and the entire staff including myself will be letting loose and having a hot God damn good time. There will be crying, vomiting and spousal abandonment.  Our debauchery will be behind closed doors where the only people getting offended will be ourselves. One word of advice to any bar or restaurant who is planning a holiday party sometime in the near to distant future and that is open bar at your place and make sure there is no way to get out so that any staff- wide insanity does nothing to bother the rest of humanity.

BUY MY BOOK LOVE LIFE BY CLICKING ON THE LOVE LIFE LINK UP AND TO THE RIGHT FROM HERE!

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Posted in Bar Etiquette, Miscellaneous Rants | 1 Comment »

That’s A Record

March 29, 2013

I recently received a letter from a certain four letter website that legally I am not allowed to name in this blog. I assumed it was another restraining order against me which would put my grand total up to seventeen. Upon opening it I was shocked to find out that it had nothing to do with legal rights at all. Instead it was a letter congratulating me on breaking the website’s all time record for most one star reviews in a six hour period.

At first I was highly offended and began to draw up a plan for revenge against each person who dared to say I was bad at my job. Sanity settled in shortly thereafter as I realized that the average IQ of people who write negative reviews on that slanderous four letter website is lower than that of a bag of dirt.

I received three prizes for my record setting performance. One was a free lifetime subscription to the four letter site I shall not name legally. Unfortunately since I would never set foot on such an asinine website I elected to donate that portion of my prize to the charity of my choice, “The Old Broken Down Stripper Home” located in Las Vegas, NV.

My second prize was a plaque with each review written in the blood of the human of my choice. Third was an audio version of each review read aloud by none other the President of the United States, Barack Obama. I know what you’re thinking how on earth could that be possible? Four negative reviews in 360 minutes, this guy must be the biggest schmuck in the world?

Anyone ignorant enough to say such a thing about such a fine author has obviously never experienced a Sunday Wing Night at the fine restaurant I work at. From 4pm to 10 pm I witness human beings who act like a pack of zombies who have stumbled across an elementary school at recess. Wing sauce and ranch dressing is splayed across the walls like blood from a gruesome murder scene.

Not everyone who comes through the door on a wing night is an animal. Only about thirty-four percent are. Of course that thirty-four percent is enough to drive a normally calm and quiet lad to the brink of murderous rage. They are entitled, rude, and disrespectful and swear that people who work at restaurants are complete morons.  What they don’t realize is that they are actually morons and if their own parents saw how they acted in public on wing night they would most likely commit suicide.

These four particular morons whose ridiculous personal attacks on me on social media will soon be displayed in one of their blood (guess which one) happened to all agree that I am unfit to perform my job. While obviously I dispute this ridiculous claim I will allow you, the general drunken public, to decide for yourselves.

The following is a timeline obtained from the Encinitas Police Department who were tailing me for an unrelated disturbance. These notes are from the afternoon of Sunday, March 10 2013 from the hours of 4pm (when wing night begins) and 10 pm (when wing night ends). The officer on duty gladly offered up his retelling of my interaction with all four of the swine who felt the need to shit talk me in a public forum:

4:01 PM: The restaurant manager approaches a young punk by the first fire pit. Apparently the punk has ordered a plate of wings and without eating even one asked for a to-go box. The restaurant manager explains that due to the ridiculously cheap price for wings that the special applies to dine-in customers only.

The young punk throws a fit claiming he ordered them with the intention of eating them there but he had suddenly and mysteriously lost his appetite. The restaurant manager laughs in his face, grabs him a box and tells him next week this won’t be allowed.

5:57 PM: The restaurant manager approaches a couple sat at a table by the front window. The girl who has just turned twenty-one claims there is no vodka in her vodka cranberry. The manager explains all his bartenders pour at least a shot and a half in all their mixed drinks. She argues. He offers her a free shot. She declines.

The restaurant manager brings her a free shot anyways. She begins to cry. The couple gets up to leave and despite consuming food and their drinks have done so without paying. In the middle of an extremely busy restaurant the restaurant manager has to chase the couple down in the parking lot to get payment all the while being belligerently belittled by this hysterically crying skank.

7:10 PM: The restaurant manager approaches a table of twenty-two year old stoners who are so high they can barely even complete a sentence. There are five empty plates of wings in front of the four of them. They claim that they only ordered four plates of wings yet are being charged for five. The restaurant manager points out that they ate all the wings.

The stoners refuse to pay for the wings they claim they didn’t order. There is a standoff. The restaurant manager begins to reach for his stainless steel bottle opener referred to by most as Excalibur, which it is assumed he plans to use to beat these dickbags about the head with. He thinks better of it and begrudgingly takes the wings off the bill. As they leave he informs them that he knows they ordered all five plates and that they were never welcome back.

9:35 PM: The restaurant manager approaches a table of college kids. He has been waved over by a twenty-three old blonde girl dressed like a whore. She doesn’t like her beer she ordered and wants to exchange it for something different. The restaurant manager points to the beer menu where it clearly states there are no refunds on beer and that he can get her something else but that she will be charged for both. She gasps. He asks if she would like another drink. She shakes her head no disgustedly and dismissively waves him off.

Twenty four minutes later the same future common street walker who didn’t like her beer approaches the restaurant manager as he is helping to break down the host stand. She tells him that he was rude and the way he treated her had ruined her night. She was embarrassed by their interaction and didn’t think he was equipped to handle a customer service position. She recommended he let the rest of the staff handle customers since he was such an asshole and that she would never be back. The restaurant manager gladly thanked her for that last fact.

I would like to personally thank Officer Jon Domino of the Encinitas PD for donating his notes so I could show you, the general drunken public, the kind of butt fuckery my staff and I have to deal with on a weekly basis. What I found shocking upon reflecting on my interactions with the angry reviewers who put my name in the record books was that any one of them knew how to read or write. It just goes to show what kind of low class element this wreck less four letter website that I legally can’t name empowers to be dicks.

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Posted in Bar Etiquette, Miscellaneous Rants, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

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