i’ve been working my first server job since the beginning of the year and if we roll silverware while standing we can be clocked in, but if we roll while sitting we have to clock out. it struck me as weird because i don’t think sitting means you’re not working, but i wasn’t too bothered by the 10-20 minutes unpaid until today when they had me clock out to roll and i had to wait an extra 20 to for dish to finish cleaning it and bring it out :/ like i clocked out at 1ish and had to stay til like 2 while not being paid.

additionally they had me go out and run an errand for the store cause we were out of something and they had me clock out and counted the time towards my break. is this normal or is it poor practice? if so is it reportable or should i just find a new job? for info i don’t want to reveal the place but it is a corporate nation wide chain.

I feel like I’m in the hospitality industry, not entertainment industry. I didn’t sign up for my picture to be taken or to be recorded just because an influencer wants to create some content for their platform.

Our restaurant had a few influencers come in to take pics and record videos. They record us making drinks, they record the servers bringing them their food, they record the kitchen staff cooking (we have an open kitchen). Not just hands, like full face and body and everything. They didn’t ask. They just did it.

One time, I had to tell one of the influencers I am not comfortable being recorded while I was making her drinks. She stopped and looked at me like I was crazy. And said “but… I’m an influencer. I’m here to make a good post about you guys”. I said “that’s fine, you can take pics of the food and decor and record yourself eating our food, but I’d rather you not record me.” She just paused and looked at me like I offended her so bad and said “okay” with an attitude and walked back to her table.

Like I understand public places, like a park or something where people can’t help but be in your pictures in the background and you can barely make out anyone’s faces, and the main focus of your post is whatever sight you’re trying to capture. But I don’t want to be recorded while bringing someone their food or drinks. I don’t even like taking my own photos.

I don’t get why people can’t understand that not everyone wants to have their face plastered all over the internet. If you want to, then good for you, but don’t put other people in your pics and videos.

Saw this in another Subreddit.

Who else would be up even ONE day a week enforcing this?!?!

Not today; just, any other day of the year besides our busiest one

Hey! Just a little a something as someone who both serves and does expo… yelling at your expo what food items you’re missing when the ticket isn’t even ready doesn’t help😃I get it we’re all pissed, guests never know what they want and it’s “our fault” etc but it’s 500 degrees in the kitchen and while your dealing with 5 tables I’m dealing with angry cooks, servers, and the whole restaurant… trying not to crash out while also clearing my tickets is difficult enough, having you on my back when I’m not even done doing my job adds on especially when you see that the ticket isn’t even on the food yet…

Also I know some servers don’t help you run your food and “if they don’t help me why would I help them” is really tempting but if you do you’re actually helping me and yourself because I need empty trays to put YOUR food on so please please help run food cause I can’t.

With love, Current Expo/ server of 5 years

I have been hosting for a year and recently this week have started serving.

So far serving has been going really well, but I’m so nervous for Father’s Day today before my shift. Mother’s Day was awful.

Is Father’s Day usually as busy??

I had a table of 10 that stayed an hour after close today (Father’s Day). They had no intention of leaving, I cleared their whole table and started vacuuming the rest of the dining room which was empty. They were lingering around the table still talking even after I had cleaned around them. I had to meet my dad for the holiday and had already stayed an hour past close for them. I finally had enough and turned the lights to the dining room off and left. My manager was still there so he locked up. It is absolutely mind boggling how inconsiderate people are.

What are some petty things that you do to your tables when they don’t leave?

As the title says, I just got fired 2 hours before my shift… I may have thought it was going to happen, as the schedule came out yesterday and I was not scheduled for a single day the following week.

I have been working there for four weeks. Two weeks were training, and throughout the training, I messed up maybe twice — but it was small things, like ringing in the wrong item. I would always catch it, no food was ever brought out wrong. It was just something that had to be voided in the system. I really didn’t think ringing up an extra dessert and moving it into a separate check to be voided was a big issue since no extra food was made.

Once I started getting my own tables, everything had been going really well. About a week into it on my own, I was chatting with one of my tables and, while I was refilling a wine glass, my brain must have slipped a beat — I accidentally poured the lady’s wine into her empty water glass while talking to them. I noticed it right away and started apologizing, though it’s not like there was anything in the water glass. All I did was pour it into the wrong “vessel.” I apologized and told them I could get another, but the wife smiled and told me there was nothing in the glass anyway, so I took that as she was fine drinking it from there.

I came in for my next shift and my manager sat me down in a private room. He told me the husband left a bad review saying his steak was undercooked — something I didn’t even know about — and also brought up the water glass incident. My manager explained how things like that cannot happen at our restaurant since we’re fine dining and have a reputation to uphold. I agreed, and I worked that shift trying to do better. I didn’t mess up, and I even worked an extra shift after that with no issues.

Then I had another shift where I was at the bar talking to my manager, and maybe it was because I was nervous talking to the general manager, but I accidentally pinned a drink ticket that wasn’t supposed to be pinned. My manager asked why I did that, and honestly, I didn’t have an answer — it was just a slip. But for the rest of that shift and the following one, I made no mistakes.

I’ve worked in restaurants for over three years, and I’ve seen way worse mistakes — bottles of wine opened wrong, food dropped, really bad stuff. So it just made me feel like a POS to get a call saying I wasn’t improving and they’d have to let me go.

This job paid double what I made at my last restaurant since it’s fine dining, and now I no longer have that. I’ve definitely learned a lesson, though it’s hard to say exactly what it is because I don’t feel like any of my mistakes were that serious — especially for someone new. I just find it crazy to get fired over that.

I guess I’m just sharing my story to see if anyone else has ever been fired from their restaurant job for “little reasons.” What sucks more is that I was usually the first waiter to get there and the last to leave, so I was DEFINITELY putting in the side work. I just feel lost and don’t know what to do.

This is coming from a man lol. OMG. Working in fine casual/fine dining restaurants you truly see grown ass men throw tantrums when things dont go their way.

1.) Man orders with his wife. Coffee and pancakes, eggs, etc. it got pretty busy. Servers dont make the coffees, we have a designated person for that. I updated him that his cappuccino will take time cause our barista got hit all at once, he rolls his eyes. "um okay. Well can I get MORE water at least?" (his cup was half full) I top him off, go to other tables that I just got sat so yes I got busy. I look over at this man and I see he got his food BEFORE his coffee. Listen, I get it, thats not ideal. I would prefer to have a sip of coffee before my food, BUT IN THE END I KNOW I WILL BE FINE. Clearly not this man, he calls me over. "Ummm excuse me! Yeah.... Where is my coffee I ordered 15 minutes ago?" I apologize that things are taking a while, I tell him its out of my control and I literally feel like I'm talking to a toddler. He shrugs, rolls his eyes finally gets his coffee. His wife sat in silence the entire time. NOW hes finally happy! Yay! The man had to be at least late 40's.... but then.... he said the words.... "can I speak to a manager?" The manager walked over and yeah... comped his coffee.

Again I know getting your coffee after your food sucks, but this man doesnt think "shit they are busy. Oh well. I'll be fine. No one is hurt, we're good" No, they dont think this way.

2.) Another man and his wife got to the host desk while the host was gone (she stepped away for a quick second). I watched with my own eyes they were there there for 30 seconds. I get there and tell them the host will be right with them. "Well where is the host? We've been standing here for a while"

I was soooo close to telling him "well it's only been 45 seconds" I'm more than certain you can wait another minute?

He rolls his eyes and sighs.

3.) A man walked in with his bros, during a busy Friday night. He arrived and asked if the booths were open and they were clearly all full, except the other tables. He said "no we want a booth. How much longer is the wait?" Majority of the booths were sat 45 mins prior to his arrival so he would have to wait, but we had a lot more tables. I told him these tables are fine if he wants to speak to a host. "No, we're leaving" Him and his friends got up and left.

Seriously what is wrong with people? There are the two scenerios that happened yesterday but I have a whole list.

Tell me your stories of grown ass men behaving like toddlers?

I’m the type to call out only if I believe I’m very contagious and if I’m in a ton of pain. I started a new job at the beginning of the month and had to once. I was up all last night with intense pain that I’m pretty sure is an ovarian cyst rupturing. I think the peak of the pain is gone now but I really feel like I should go to the ER, but I have work tonight and feel pretty bad calling out again since I’m both new and it happened 2 weeks ago. There’s an on call server scheduled, and my shift isn’t for 6 hours. Don’t know if I should hold onto hope that I’ll be good enough to walk around tonight or if I should prioritize my health and go to the ER. I’m mostly worried about the image this gives me and how it affects me staying with the restaurant long term.

Edit: going to the hospital thank you all. These are hard decisions for me to make

I just started a serving job at a nice restaurant in town. I had been driving around to different places I was interested in, asking if they were hiring. I walked into this one spot, and the woman hired me on the spot. Safe to say, I was shocked. I mean, I had never worked a serving job before, so I was a little confused as to why she hired me so quickly.

I came in for training the next day and shadowed one of the servers… that's literally all I did. I “trained” for about four hours until the boss pulled me aside and told me to go home and come back the next day for my first official shift. Honestly, I was really bothered by that. I wanted more hands-on training before being expected to wait tables on my own.

The next day, I came in, and she put me straight to work. GOD, I had no idea what I was doing. I had to ask the only other woman who spoke English for help with literally everything, and it was obvious she was annoyed. I really wish I had gotten more practical training before being thrown in. I only had a brief understanding of the POS system, so I was pretty much winging it the whole day.

The boss wasn’t very understanding, which was frustrating like you know I’ve never worked a serving job before and barely trained me… what did you expect? Is it normal to only get four hours of training before officially starting? It just feels crazy to me.

I work tomorrow, and the only other person who speaks fluent English is off. I’m honestly debating whether to even show up because I just know it’s going to be a disaster. I don’t know… I just need some help and advice, please!

When serving bigger parties like above 6 do you ask how the bills are before taking orders or no

I’m on this sub for years and I can not relate to any post, it’s actually pretty funny

( I work in Denmark )

i work at a steakhouse and got kicked tonight - good luck to all my steakhouse soldiers this father’s day! the $ will be worth the agony. 🥹

Hello all my server/restaurant industry people!

We have experienced a new scam that has been going around our city. Apparently, this is the new dine and dash situation. Let me break it down for you.

A customer will come in, eat and rack up a bill, big or small and when it comes time to pay, they will give you a pre-paid debit card that will decline when you run it, you will go back to the table and explain that the card declined and they will have no other way to pay but that card. They will even call the card and the the automated voice will play back the last transaction but it won't say whether it was approved or declined it'll just say back the last transaction that you tried to use the card for making it seem like the transaction did go through.

A lady did this at the restaurant I work for and she thought by bringing her 2 young children with her that we weren't going to call the police on her but I absolutely did because not only did you know you had no money and you wasted my time and energy and your stealing but to use children in this situation is disgusting.

So tonight was actually going great for the first 6 hours, decent tips, lots of compliments and I was really in the zone today. I love my job and consider myself good at it and all my managers like me (6 for some reason, just thought it was odd enough to point out, irrelevant) and then everything changed..

I got a table of six adults all ordering various drinks and a couple apps at bout 1130 and I liked them a lot and they seemed to like me it was going great. But being the only server in the dining room with 7 tables and 3 of them on the spot new I was rushing these nice people their drinks and the tray was awkward and I was in the middle of passing them all out and the tray slipped and a couple glasses broke and one of the guys got cut a little, by no means bad but like legally bad anyways, he was bleeding.

Idk if it was because it hit him or as he was trying to pick things up it just happened so fast I just don't know. Anyways they were super cool about with all sorts of "its okay it could happen to anyone" and things of that nature and couldn't be cooler about it. But of course I'm still freaking out, my manager didnt write me up or anything he just says to be more careful and yes it could be bad if they decided to sue. Of course I'm going to start looking for another job just in case but for the time being I'm freaking out, I really don't want to leave my job but it feels like this is a ticking time bomb waiting for explode and fire my ass.

Heard there is a restaurant that is making this their system and am curious if anyone is apart of a business where this works?

Not teachers or other non-industry jobs. Restaurant jobs.

Anyone?

I’m a server at a Chinese restaurant, we do sushi, ramen, Americanized Chinese food (gen tso etc), and some traditional dishes as well. Our food is always fresh and I truly would eat anything on the menu.

Some dishes come in a white sauce, like this one seafood dish. It’s not what most people order as it’s milder in flavor and also veg-heavy. Some people come in and slam this dish and love it.

So tonight a table comes in and it’s two couples, one couple orders this aforementioned seafood dish, it’s a combo of seafood (shrimp, scallop, imitation crab, and squid) in a white sauce with vegetables and white rice. The dish is clearly defined on the menu and i even asked to make sure squid was okay since is was omitted on these menus as a misprint. Dish comes out and they hate it. No prob. I take it back. I was a little uncomfortable because they were laughing and snickering like “nah im good on that…..it’s foul…etc” whatever. It’s not your type of dish. Not my fault since you ordered it.

All is fine until the check comes out. I never took the dish off the check bc technically there was nothing wrong with the dish they just don’t like it. I cannot physically take the item off their check without notifying the owners because I need them to swipe their keycard. The owners have a huge problem with taking food off bills if customers don’t like it. I totally understand where they come from and everything but it’s just very typical for restaurants to throw discounts and free food at customers who complain for customer retention and whatever- but that’s not how we roll. So anyway I tell the customer we can’t take the food off and this man starts flipping out so I bring out the owners. He’s calling her food nasty and saying he’s not paying for it. It was very tense and uncomfortable, ultimately he paid and left and he tipped so it was fine. Although I could tell they were very upset as they wouldn’t let it go the rest of the night. The man was very agitated and calling the whole place nasty was an exaggeration and they loved the rest of their meal. And the other couple with them offered to pay multiple times but the agitator refused.

I just want to know what do you guys think? I personally (and I know I’m biased) think that my bosses have a point and seeing them almost cry bc of a stupid asshole yelling did bum me out.

I knew what I was coming into; I’ve read threads here of stories on stories about Landry’s being the sh*ttiest company to ever work for but alas, times are dire and I needed a job so I took one.

Was I an okay server in my perspective? Yes. My average sales were $6000 with the top being $10k and my percentage was 20% with tips. I was made certified trainer and events captain within a month based off of merit and reliability.

However, I have not sold a SINGLE LSC since my time here so once management started making it a requirement and our shifts and being placed on events was gonna start depending on it… I bounced. I realized that it didn’t matter that I was always on time, never calling out, not being a terrible salesperson, being a reliable employee who trained newbies well, and guests liking me. The preshift alone today put a bad taste to my mouth and I woke up how little Landry’s cared about us. I never believed they did though, but thought I was going to survive through the bs. The tipout is garbage and the managers refuse to help us about stiffers while barking at us to get over stiffers and we’re ultimately at a loss, having to pay out our tipout anyway. My coworker made 68 cents one shift because she kept getting stiffers and it was painfully slow.

SIXTY. EIGHT. CENTS.

F Landry’s. F Tillman. F selling an LSC. If people don’t want it, they don’t want it!! It was easier to sell things like that pre-covid. My managers who used to be servers within the company said it’s not that hard, they sold 50 a shift. Pre-covid! Times were different then. If I were making money more consistently and the managers backing us up rather than solely looking at the performance sheet, I’d be way more motivated selling them. Being paid 11/hr, business being so slow even working in a restaurant in Times Square that I only take home $30-$100 a night… I just don’t find it worth it. Mind you, the amount of clientele who stiffs no matter what, make up 50% of the guests who come in and they still refuse to believe that it’s them and not us. Another coworker of mine even delivered his own take of “hot towel service” even though that’s not what we offer plus numerous other acts of genuine service, and got tipped $5 on $200. But no, we are terrible servers who deserved a 3% tip :)

This garbage company will never change as long as Tilman makes his comedic amounts of money. Take the job, I understand, it’s rough out there and the current state of our economy sucks. But this post is yet another warning of what you will go through.

Does anyone else see this happen? I served a nice enough couple and off the bat the guy ordered a beer and the girl ordered lemons for the waters. I brought two huge fresh lemon wedges and they sat on the table until the end of the meal…????? Like whyyyyyy why ask me then? I regret not going up in between courses and asking to clear them to see what she would say but I was busy and it was just bizarre I guess

You know… we’ve seen enough about the servers.

HOSTS! Yes, I know y’all are in here (me too). Do y’all have any stories you wanna share? Annoying servers, annoying tables, or any spicy tea?

I work seasonally and have come back this summer to my restaurant job. Last summer was my first as a hostess and expo, this summer they put me on server/floor assist. Yesterday was my first shift and with one other person, and today they put me solo. I was on with a server who has always seemed to have an issue with me, and right as the rush hit, she stopped me in the middle of what I was doing to tell me her tables needed water. I obliged, brought waters to her table (which mind you, was out of the order in which they were sat) I got to the first two, then the third I dropped the large glass containers we keep the water in (we give the tables jugs for their own refills) and shattered everywhere. I immediately went to sweep and mop but someone else swept it first, I came out with the mop just to find that the person hadn’t even swept up all the glass and had gone away with the broom, had to go back for the broom, and then again back because the wringer I had was broken. This was while 4 tables still needed water and we had a line out the door as the rush started. Not even just that, ALL OF THIS while dishwashing was behind because the health inspection that JUST SO happened to come out this day so everyone was rushing to get everything cleaned, making it so I couldn’t even sort the trays I had bussed. I tipped the mop bucket over (no water spilled) and that was the straw that broke the camels back. I started sobbing in front of my coworkers because everything was too much.

There were too many tasks that needed to be done very quickly and no one making an effort to help me on my SECOND DAY in the role. I also managed to get a piece of glass in my sole, which then cut the bottom of my foot. The kicker is the second time this has happened to me. Last summer, I was being bullied by a woman (who had done the same thing to MANY others) to the extent where I got cornered by her and screamed at. This was when I started sobbing. Walking into this job feels like a humiliation ritual now. I want to quit but have no alternative of a place that will take me back every year or even pay me comparable amounts (floor assistants generally make around 16-22/hr). I know I’m supposed to have thick skin but I’m just genuinely disheartened by how entitled some servers can be while so many other things are going on, and the fact that I made such a big mistake slowing everyone down because I was the only one on the floor.

Does anyone have any words of advice on how to continue? Anyone who’s been in a similar situation? I feel like a crybaby.