I’m sitting in my favourite bar in Halifax on a brilliant spring day. It’s one of those mid April days that only Halifax seems to inspire.
The cool breeze, the chill of the shade combined with the warmth of the sun and the controlled chaos of Spring Garden Road on a busy Tuesday afternoon
The anticipation of warmer weather to come, spring is in the air as underdressed students and summer pushing hipsters bustle about.
I’ve come here to work on different things but sitting at a table in a neighbourhood pub on my only day off of the week tends to make my mind drift toward the career I’ve chosen for myself; Serving the people of beautiful Halifax.
• There’s nothing worse than making a mistake on a customer’s meal at a big table. As they say, power to the people, and tables with a lot of guests carry that extra clout. Now you have anywhere’s between 6-20 people all thinking you’re dumb. You can almost hear the murmurs and whispers. “How hard can it be to take an order?” “How hard can their job possibly be?” “It’s not even busy in here.” The fact is we all make mistakes. We all make mistakes every day. I can honestly say that I serve about 200 people a week and I usually only make 1-2 mistakes over that time. A server thinks that’s pretty good. A customer can’t understand how it could possibly happen once. The thing about making a mistake at a big table is that now everyone is offended you made the mistake, and they take it out on you come tip time. Let’s say you serve 20 people and you get everything right for 19, but you screw up on 1 person’s order. Come tip time, the other 19 people will now tip you based on that mistake, even though you gave them perfect service! But worse than all of this…is the collection of stares judging you after the mistake has been pointed out. There you stand with 20 sets of eyes all glaring at you. You know how everyone can’t look away from an accident? That’s the scenario here. You’ve become the train wreck that people can’t look away from. You are now stupid, inept, and bad at a job a monkey could do. It really sucks.
• Servers and bartenders hate it when people grab their own drinks off the bar and take it to the table. I’m not talking about someone at the bar, coming up to order a beer and pay for it. I’m talking about people who have ordered from a table, see their drinks sitting at the service bar (the area where servers pick up their drinks), and go and grab the drinks. Unacceptable. In every instance this has happened that I’ve seen, the table hasn’t even been waiting long. And they always say the same thing to the server, “We were thirsty.” And the server always thinks the same thing: “Go fuck yourself”.
• The Coast and their section on restaurant reviews is a fucking joke. 2/3rds of the people who write reviews online for the Coast are either bitter ex-employees pretending to be customers or current employees and owners doing the same. Check the profile of almost every contributor and it will say “1 comment/review.” These reviews have absolutely no validity whatsoever, yet owners and staff take them so seriously. Through a complete lack of moderation and general common sense, the Coast has taken a good idea and turned it into an absolute farce. If you want good restaurant reviews, go to one of the Travel websites, or the Halifax dining website. Whatever happened to talking to the manager or owner if you have a problem with your meal or server? Now, people are going online to complain on the coast and writing some absolute belligerent, inane nonsense in pathetic attempts to discredit the establishment. It’s even got to the point where people are trying to describe the server they had a problem with. “Short, loud, blonde girl who spent more time talking to her boyfriend.” Give me a break. And the amount of anxiety these horse shit reviews give owners is unbelievable. Some owners have even begun to respond to them online. Since when did a free weekly publication ran by a bunch of hipsters begin to wield so much power over an industry that may be the most powerful for a city of its size in the country. Time for all of us in the restaurant/bar industry to step back and take these reviews with a grain of salt. If anything, when I read some idiotic, ill-tempered review it makes me want to go that place even more to check it out for myself.
• Bartenders hate it when people come in minutes before closing. But if you do decide to enter an establishment just as the staff is preparing to leave, at least sit at a table and keep the conversation to yourselves. The only thing more annoying than a customer moments before closing time? A customer who sits at the bar and tries to engage the bartender in conversation. Just so you know, the bartender has mentally “shut down” at that point, and has no desire to talk to you. Even if it is “his job.”
The cool breeze, the chill of the shade combined with the warmth of the sun and the controlled chaos of Spring Garden Road on a busy Tuesday afternoon
The anticipation of warmer weather to come, spring is in the air as underdressed students and summer pushing hipsters bustle about.
I’ve come here to work on different things but sitting at a table in a neighbourhood pub on my only day off of the week tends to make my mind drift toward the career I’ve chosen for myself; Serving the people of beautiful Halifax.
• There’s nothing worse than making a mistake on a customer’s meal at a big table. As they say, power to the people, and tables with a lot of guests carry that extra clout. Now you have anywhere’s between 6-20 people all thinking you’re dumb. You can almost hear the murmurs and whispers. “How hard can it be to take an order?” “How hard can their job possibly be?” “It’s not even busy in here.” The fact is we all make mistakes. We all make mistakes every day. I can honestly say that I serve about 200 people a week and I usually only make 1-2 mistakes over that time. A server thinks that’s pretty good. A customer can’t understand how it could possibly happen once. The thing about making a mistake at a big table is that now everyone is offended you made the mistake, and they take it out on you come tip time. Let’s say you serve 20 people and you get everything right for 19, but you screw up on 1 person’s order. Come tip time, the other 19 people will now tip you based on that mistake, even though you gave them perfect service! But worse than all of this…is the collection of stares judging you after the mistake has been pointed out. There you stand with 20 sets of eyes all glaring at you. You know how everyone can’t look away from an accident? That’s the scenario here. You’ve become the train wreck that people can’t look away from. You are now stupid, inept, and bad at a job a monkey could do. It really sucks.
• Servers and bartenders hate it when people grab their own drinks off the bar and take it to the table. I’m not talking about someone at the bar, coming up to order a beer and pay for it. I’m talking about people who have ordered from a table, see their drinks sitting at the service bar (the area where servers pick up their drinks), and go and grab the drinks. Unacceptable. In every instance this has happened that I’ve seen, the table hasn’t even been waiting long. And they always say the same thing to the server, “We were thirsty.” And the server always thinks the same thing: “Go fuck yourself”.
• The Coast and their section on restaurant reviews is a fucking joke. 2/3rds of the people who write reviews online for the Coast are either bitter ex-employees pretending to be customers or current employees and owners doing the same. Check the profile of almost every contributor and it will say “1 comment/review.” These reviews have absolutely no validity whatsoever, yet owners and staff take them so seriously. Through a complete lack of moderation and general common sense, the Coast has taken a good idea and turned it into an absolute farce. If you want good restaurant reviews, go to one of the Travel websites, or the Halifax dining website. Whatever happened to talking to the manager or owner if you have a problem with your meal or server? Now, people are going online to complain on the coast and writing some absolute belligerent, inane nonsense in pathetic attempts to discredit the establishment. It’s even got to the point where people are trying to describe the server they had a problem with. “Short, loud, blonde girl who spent more time talking to her boyfriend.” Give me a break. And the amount of anxiety these horse shit reviews give owners is unbelievable. Some owners have even begun to respond to them online. Since when did a free weekly publication ran by a bunch of hipsters begin to wield so much power over an industry that may be the most powerful for a city of its size in the country. Time for all of us in the restaurant/bar industry to step back and take these reviews with a grain of salt. If anything, when I read some idiotic, ill-tempered review it makes me want to go that place even more to check it out for myself.
• Bartenders hate it when people come in minutes before closing. But if you do decide to enter an establishment just as the staff is preparing to leave, at least sit at a table and keep the conversation to yourselves. The only thing more annoying than a customer moments before closing time? A customer who sits at the bar and tries to engage the bartender in conversation. Just so you know, the bartender has mentally “shut down” at that point, and has no desire to talk to you. Even if it is “his job.”
