The Bitter Bistro

The first podcast is up!  Thanks again to my guests, Meredith Green, Katina Nikou, Fran Nichols, and Josh Macuga for helping to make the bitterness happen!  For bitterness on Twitter, follow me @thebitterbistro Until next time... Server's don't pay their rent with compliments. "Bitter.  Party of one?  Your table is ready." The Bitter Bistro

I usually write about the many, many customers who have acted inappropriately and annoyed me throughout the years.  But it would be unfair to not tell the story of a customer who amazed me with the best attitude, when he had a obvious, severe difficulty to overcome. During one of my shifts, I saw a party of four being sat in a booth.  It was two parents, with their son and daughter.  When they sat down, I noticed something about the son, that he didn't have any arms.  He looked over the menu, ordered what he wanted, and proceeded to have a great time dining out with his family. Then the food arrived.  And I noticed that nobody helped the son eat, because he was feeding himself without having any arms.  He took his shoes off, and with the most amazing flexibility, brought one of his legs over the table, grabbed a fork with his toes, and fed himself with his legs and feet as if they were arms and hands.  Again, at NO POINT, did anyone help him...

Customers love being waited on hand and foot.  But there are some customers who love to tell me HOW to wait on them hand and foot.  I call these customers "waiter watchers."  They weigh their waiter down with all of the crap that they tell them they should be doing, and when they should be doing it. One time I was serving a table of five, and everybody had order an appetizer and an entree.  But one person in the party had ordered a salad in addition to his appetizer.  I asked him when he wanted to have his salad served, and he told me to bring it before everyone got their appetizer.  So that's what I did.  Next thing I know, I'm getting pulled aside by the guy who is host of the group. "Why did you only bring out the salad and nobody else's food?"  He demanded. "Your friend had asked that I bring his salad first so he could get it out of the way, since he ordered more food than everybody else," I pleaded. "You should bring all ...

I came across an interesting discussion on The Huffington Post about tipping.  Now it has become some sort of class war?  I'm interested in hearing your opinions about service and tipping.  Here's the link . Until next time... Server's don't pay their rent with compliments. "Bitter.  Party of one?  Your table is ready." The Bitter Bistro