Courage Under Fire

I have a complicated relationship with luck.

On the one hand, I believe a man controls his own luck. That with enough preparation and skill, the effects of chance are well accounted for. But then again, as I continue to work in this field I find there are just some things you can never really control. Frustrating as that is for the obsessive-compulsive perfectionist, sometimes you have to let loose and roll with the punches. The more you tense up and try to fight it, the more damage it ends up doing.

Christmas Day in Long Island for a Chinese restaurant might as well be defending the storming of Omaha Beach. In an area so heavily populated with Jewish people, you as the Chinese restaurant owner, being the only place open for miles is going to make things crazy.

So what kind of preparation do we do for this epic day?

Well the kitchen is doing prep all week, of course. The tables, linens, glassware, and waiters are optimized for maximum efficiency. And other than setting a floor plan, and timing the tables throughout the night ... that's about all you can hope for.

But oh wait, your busboy doesn't show up. That means bringing tea and noodles, filling water glasses, cleaning utensils, clearing tables, keeping the bar stocked with ice, and a plethora of other jobs are now on everyone else's shoulders. Most notably, mine. He was fired once before for drinking on the job, and my best assumption is that he is in an alcohol induced coma somewhere. Time to soldier up.

I mean, what else do you do? Hunker down in the corner and cry? The waiters' quality of service is now affected across the board. On such a busy night, every extra action is going to have magnified effects down the line. They need me more than ever tonight, illness be damned.

So service carries on. The waiters are under noticeable stress from the extra workload, and though I'm pretty fast, I still have other jobs to do. Dorothy is slammed on the phones, people are calling constantly, seeking tables and/or modifying their reservations. Not to mention there are a whole bunch of people wanting take out and delivery, and the kitchen has reached its threshold. Chinese food is fast, we have some damned good cooks, but there is a limit for every restaurant. We have just hit ours.

See, the maddening pace of a Saturday night is great when it's in control. You only got three hours of sleep, and you're coming off a drinking binge? It's all good, the adrenaline will push you through the night.

But a Saturday night that is out of control, and beyond your restaurant's abilities ... that's not good. It saps your will to work, it stresses you out, it makes time slow down and every ticket that comes through the printer makes your heart sink. When will this onslaught end?

True, there are ways to prepare for this. Don't overbook, make sure your staff and supplies are prepared. But as you can see, some unforeseen events can occur.

So I'm going through this night thinking it's a disaster. We overbooked, there are VIPs coming in ON Christmas Day without a reservation, and we have to accommodate them. And the kitchen is taxed. They've been rocking nonstop since noon and they're showing signs of fatigue. Even Xiao Di, our most tireless and consistent cook is faltering. Plates are getting messy, timing is off, and dishes just aren't coming out fast enough. The waiters fire dishes a few minutes later, because they have to spend extra time doing what the busboy would normally do, and every step of a dinner is pushed back an extra few minutes. That means our 4:00 seating which was expected to get up at around 5:30, is now looking more like 6:00. That in turn pushes all over reservations back even further, and the crowd is gathering in the front. We don't really have a lounge for customers to wait comfortably in, we have a bar and a front desk. As the crowd gets squeezed closer together, and waiters are navigating their way through the mass to get drinks, the overbearing feeling of impatience and frustration is infecting the dining room. Not to mention, the new waiter, Ken, is fucking up everything.

This is about as bad as bad nights get. Every time I go to the front to help expedite a take out, I am pulled aside by an annoyed customer to tell me how much I suck, how I should have warned them that take out was going to take longer than an hour. Okay, true, it's more like an hour and a half. I miscalculated. I'm sorry. I didn't see this shit coming. But what the fuck do you want me to do about it now? I'm trying my best, and as you can see, you're not the only person who wants Chinese food tonight. Do you go to Rockefeller Center on Christmas Eve and wonder "Why the fuck are there so many people here?"

But you can't show weakness. As primitive as it sounds, it's an animal-dominance kind of game. Once you show that you're stressed beyond your capabilities, or that you no longer have control of the situation ... you are fucked. They lose all faith in your establishment, they get nervous that it's never going to turn out right, and they start freaking as a result.

You have to stay calm. You have to assure them that everything is going to be all right.

I roam the floor filling water glasses, taking orders, answering questions and doing some menial fetch tasks. Oh she needs a tea cup, oh her wine glass is dirty (lipstick is the bane of all dishwashers ... especially that bright red, waterproof bullshit that makes you look like a clown whore), oh I need an extra napkin, etc. Things that would really throw an extra wrench in an already hampered waiter's life, force them to make an extra trip to the kitchen, I will do. And really ... I'm looking for as many smiling faces as I can .. because my morale is pretty low.

It's a dangerous balance. You need to overbook a little bit because there are always inevitable cancellations. And plus you want to make money. I mean at the end of the day, that's why we're here. This is our livelihood. We want to max out our restaurant as much as possible.

But yes, we did push it a little too far this time. We're not accustomed to this level of volume, so we haven't quite mastered this art of overbooking. It's something that Daniel Boulud once called his curmudgeonly maitre'd, Bruno Jamais, a master of ... getting just the right amount of reservations over the tipping point. (Does that count as ending with a preposition? I'm going to say no.)

It's a fine line between calculated chaos and just pure mayhem. Busy restaurants toe that line a lot in the pursuit of money and customers. Every customer is a long term investment in my opinion. If someone is unhappy with their appetizer, the short-term loss of sending them something else, no questions asked, is greatly outweighed by the long-term gain of a loyal customer. So what, you lose $7.00 profit on a botched set of dumplings. If you make a fuss about it, that's all that customer is going to remember. If you graciously send them something else, apologize and ensure they get something they will really enjoy... well, then you have a customer who will return every few months, maybe every few weeks until they move or die.

But there isn't much time for theorizing, always tons of shit to do. I spend a lot of my night sorting through the dirty utensils. Dirty forks/knives/etc. are thrown in to a bucket with bleach and soap. They are then dumped on to a tray, organized and washed. The organizing part is a pain in the ass. It takes at least five to seven minutes to put dinner forks, appetizer forks, teaspoons, soup spoons, tongs, serving spoons, dinner knives and steak knives in to their appropriate slots. That may not sound like a lot, and it's even manageable on a busy Saturday night. But being that there is no bus boy, the waiters can't afford to take that time. Five minutes away from the dining room on this kind of night is a goddamned eternity. So roll up your sleeves, young man. Time to get dirty.

Tonight, we could make a killing just on volume, but it's really about getting the word out. Loyal customers are bringing family members, friends who are now isolated to our Chinese restaurant. Maybe they usually go to some place a bit closer to them, but now they've been put on man defense with us. It's up to us to knock it out of the park so next time they say "FUCK that cheap take-out hash job, I'm going to Pearl. It's fucking worth it." (Note: I realize most people don't get amped up about food the way most men get amped up about football so I just used my voice there out of convenience)

So that's also why I'm so nervous and stressed. In the past, at the end of the day, Va Pensiero and Blu/Futami were not my restaurants. Sure, I always try to work with the attitude "Treat it like it's yours and one day it will be" (Except Blu ... fuck that place. A lot.), but this restaurant actually is mine. I have no plans on it, and certainly don't desire it, but there is a very real possibility I would have to take the reins on this beast one day. My mother's success depends on my capabilities. I'm invested, I care, hence I'm nervous. If we pushed it too far today, if we overstretched our capacities and fucked up... how much lost business is that?

Moment of truth, the slow and steady progression of customers out the door. It will start at a slow trickle around 8:30, but most everyone will be rushing out by 10:00 to get home and decompress.

First customers we have time to really talk to and show out the door are pissed. See, unhappy customers are very quick to get pissy at me, or Joanne or any of the waiters. But when they talk to my mom they usually aren't so quick to anger. They show the respect, and my mother is trying to fix everything anyway. I don't know what they're upset about, something about special treatment and their waiter, but they won't tell us who their waiter was (though we narrowed it down to two) and they won't exactly say what they're pissed about. They're rambling, being unintelligible and vague. Very constructive criticism. All we can assume is that they're ticked the table next to them got free ice cream. Well, free ice cream is for VIPs, and that couple next to you is our bartender's parents. Yes, they get special treatment. Most restaurants aren't egalitarian when they dole out favors like that, that's the breaks. Anyway, my mom wants to make it up to her, tells her next time she comes in she'll take care of her personally. But this woman won't hear it and her husband is dragging her out the door.

"I drive 150 miles to come eat here, and I come all the time, I can't believe you would treat me this way. I don't want to argue with you, I'm just not coming back. Merry Christmas."

You can imagine the tone with which "Merry Christmas" was said. It wasn't the kind of tone benevolent grandparents use when spoiling their grandchildren with gifts. It's the kind of tone you get from your ex-wife when she takes your dog and house on Christmas Eve, leaving you with just enough Tylenol to off yourself, and just enough cash to get drunk and not be a pussy about it.

Fuck.

That's bad. First seriously PO'ed customer is making me really upset. Was it that bad tonight?

So I take a breather by the front desk and await a couple large parties exiting. They are drunk. Like, you-shouldn't-be-this-sloppy-at-your-age-drunk-but-hey-fuck-it-it's-Christmas-drunk. They are all laughs. I'm not sure if this is a good gauge of our performance tonight. They're so sloshed that their already poor ability to distinguish between Asians is now rendering them capable of only seeing big, yellow blurs. They sure are merry though.

The thank you's are exchanged, the "I'm bringing all my friends!" are exclaimed, and the hugs and coats are doled out. Okay, maybe not the best litmus test but I'll take it. Like I said, I need some morale here... I'm fading, and the nasty cold I've gotten from post-traumatic-drinking-disorder has really made this night difficult.

The night goes on, the rhythm is smooth, I actually have time to catch a few glimpses of the Nuggets-Thunder game (I bus tables for three straight hours and this is what you do for me, Kobe? What the fuck!?) and more customers peddle out.

Well, they're not as sloshed as the previous group but they sure as hell are happy. Can this be? Did we pull this shit off actually? I have to observe more, this could be a fluke...

Nearly every customer that rolls out has a smile on their face, thanks us profusely despite having had to wait longer and suffer through less-than-stellar service, and graciously tips for coat check. I apologize to the customers I know a bit better about tonight being crazy, and a lot of them shake my hand and say "To be honest, I thought it was going to be busier."

You mean, you don't hate us for trying to pack this bitch up? It doesn't seem like we're just trying to maximize our profit? Because we're not, we're just trying to make everyone happy. You mean you really like us?

Damn, I really love the Jewish people. Now if y'all just weren't so exclusive about who you date, maybe we could talk a bit more. I mean I don't blame you, there are decades of bias in American media against the Asian male, and you simply aren't exposed to our culture because we are at every turn made as exotic and threatening as possible, and...

Sorry, off-topic. That's for a whole 'nother blog.

So the customers seem pretty happy! But there's only one way to be sure...

I start closing out tickets. Whenever you pay with a credit card and add tip to the credit card, someone has to manually input that in to a computer. On a night like this where we've served over 450 customers (not including lunch), this means a lot of fucking dinners charged. But it's good because tips are indicative of a lot of things, not the least of which is quality of service.

I found out Greg, the sushi chef at Futami, was secretly judging all of us by our tips. He let it slip once when we were having a cigarette that, let's call him Frank, had shitty tips, was a shitty waiter. And I quickly asked, "Oh, so you know how we do on tips now? What do you think?" He brushed me off with a "Yeah, yeah, yeah you doing good."

Anyhow, tips can say a lot. On a bill over $200.00 getting 16-18% means you were fucking phenomenal. On a bill less than $40.00, getting 16-18% usually means they're a little on the cheap side. For the most part, bills in between should be very close to 20%, or you're doing it wrong.

Here we go, moment of truth...

Hey! These tips are good! Okay, we're getting around 6:00 PM. This is where shit hit the fan for us. Okay, they dip a little bit, but nothing atrocious or indicative of a grievous failure on our part. Seven PM, nine PM, big parties, deuces, fast-dining couples and lingering parties... everyone is pretty fucking happy!

You don't tip well unless the whole experience was pretty good. Even if your service was phenomenal, if the food sucked, usually the tip takes a little hit. So considering the situation, this is good news for us.

That's why I like stats. They're clean, objective, free of context. Sure, a QB may have two interceptions that weren't his fault, tipped throws, but the fact remains he had two interceptions and that means something. (And no, Jenga, stats didn't work so well for you... just because you had 20/15 assists/goals throughout a tournament doesn't mean what you think it does because NUT didn't have the manpower to record all your turnovers ... if this were ESPN, your efficiency rating would be highly suspect ... ahem).

So everything went better than expected. I guess that's the nature of life. I can't help but have a sentimental/philosophical moment. It's Christmas night, one of the most harrowing Christmases I've ever had, and there's a distinct feeling of relief as the restaurant empties out. We tried to control all radicals, but there's always an element of chance. You can sway luck to your side a little but ... just a little. We may have made some missteps tonight, but there were big families here and they chose to celebrate with us. There's something warming about that. And even though this is not how most people spend their Christmases, I am nonetheless with my mother. This is our family, this is our life, what choice do we have? We work, and through work are fulfilled.

So you have to let go a little bit. All that stressing and freaking was probably necessary to try and do a good job. It's indicative of the fact that we care. But it usually goes at least a little rewarded, if your heart is in to it. Yet another fine thing I will have to learn to balance. Preparing for the unexpected, but reacting to it when it finally comes with calm and poise, rather than panic.

Here we are. Christmas. Life lessons doled out at an emotionally charged, and mystical time of year.

There will always be major speed bumps in life. I never expected to lose my father overnight. I never thought that two of my high school classmates wouldn't make it to twenty-four. I never thought I would drop the cello to become a cook. I don't know what's coming for me, even with culinary school looming on the horizon. I just hug my grandmother every day, because you just never know.

If things turn out really shitty, don't be too hard on yourself. Then again, if things turn out great ... don't be too proud of yourself either. Keep your head down, stay healthy, hug your loved ones, and have a Happy New Year.

EP6