Good morning yall! I slept in until 6am this morning but my mind is already in high gear, as I mentally plan the preparation of the gala Reveillon Dinner to benefit the PAWS Animal Shelter tonight but before I get to work in town I need to present these observations… We just finished our first weekend of Christmas parties at our new location and I want to share a look at how restaurants and their Krewes work during these busy times, so perhaps yall will better understand what we attempt to accomplish! In an average evening, there is a natural ebb and flow to the rhythm of the restaurant, accomplished by the carefully timing of booking reservations and seating of subsequent walk in guests. While we may have 175 seats, our goal is NOT to fill every seat at the same time: to seat the entire house at 6:30 would result in overloading the kitchen and slowing service to a crawl. Occasionally, a table of guests will notice a nearby table that may have been seated after them getting their food first and complain. This will often happen with a table of 6 or more. But there are many components to consider: Are there well-done steaks on the big table? Does the other table have perhaps a simple Big Salad or fried shrimp, which come out more quickly? Many things to consider but please know the tickets are generally prepared in the order they come off the kitchen printer, with each one evaluated by the expeditor. Special requests are filled to the best of our ability to please as many as we can, but know yall are ALL important to us and we bust our butts to make your DINING experience a pleasure… We offer a DINING event not fast food. If you have a time constraint please let us know and we will make every effort to get you served as quickly as possible. If you are just looking to grab a quick burger, we respectfully suggest heading north on Federal Boulevard! But if you are willing to kick back, have a beer or soft drink and unwind while we prepare our half pound custom made burger- you are in the right place. Which brings us to the Christmas party experience! With our Riverton configuration, our maximum potential for private celebrations is 50 guests in the Conti Room, 25 guests in the Royal Street Gallery, and 30 guests in the Bienville Room, with one more party of 18 in the Garden District (main) dining room. Each of these parties has a host that wants to reward their team for a job well-done or a family group that gets together only once a year…Within these groups are individuals whose total eating out experience may be limited to a place with golden arches and a 90 second service goal!!! Now we have unrealistic expectations to overcome as well as regular dinner guests arriving as a single business man, a couple on a date, 2 couples going out for a quiet dinner, a family of 6 which includes 4 tired children, a couple who have just had a miserable argument on the way to the restaurant and would really rather be ANYWHERE else, a pair of foreign travelers who wandered in looking for the buffet still listed in guide books….Well, you get the picture: an amalgam of varying expectations, emotional levels, and sophisticated encounters….a recipe for disaster!! And of course the hosts of the parties all want to expansively say Anything on the menu: you deserve it and we would love to offer that choice! However , the realty is now we have 123 people all ordering within basically a 30 minute time span and wanting the food on the table within 30 minutes! Realistically that is not happening! Years of experience in this industry tells us that if we can limit the choices to four menu items with known prep times, limit the side choices, and set up a banquet service line off of the main hot line, we can do a decent job. Do we have room for improvement? Absolutely! Could it be faster? Perhaps a little but there is a limit how much we can push the Krewe. will there be errors? Absolutely- we are only human too! But we want yall to know we are doing our very best for yall. This is this Krewes first experience working together as a unit and we are finding our rhythm and refining our equipment. Our Pit Krewe work tirelessly, washing the dishes to get them back in service as quickly as possible….At times the noise level in the kitchen as the clatter of servers unloading used plates and utensils at the pit, the dishwashers unloading clean service plates at breakneck pace, expeditors calling out to coordinate table orders, banquet servers attempting to organize their trays and Chef shouting for more monkey dishes and hostages reaches a point where my Menieres addled head is about to explode and the dining room may hear a very loud SHUT UP! Sorry for that but it jerks everyone back to the MOMENT, a deep breath and we can regroup and move foreword, calmly… Have you learned more than you ever cared to know about what it takes to get a simple hunk of Prime rib? Yes! Do I feel better after unloading on yall? YES!! But before I get to work I want to give a huge shout-out to my truly fantastic KREWE! My Lady-Bugs, as I call my front of the house servers work their wings off to feed their hungry diners: Thank you (and I HOPE I do not miss anyone here!): Angie, Judy, Betsy, Sabrina, my two new expeditors, Riley and ?? (I am drawing a blank- so sorry!!!!), Heather, Danielle, Megan, Gabby, Marissa, Tisha, Crystal, Sam, Joel, and Berna; The Pit Krewe: Nelson, Ryan, and Kelly; The line and prep cooks: Gerald, Brian, Barr, and Christine; the Back Bar staff: Nichole, Emily, & Patty; and most importantly, my management Krewe: Executive Chef Kino, Front of House manager Bonnie, and Business Manager Diane. I proudly present the finest service Krewe in Fremont County! Thank yall for taking pride in our establishment and embracing my style of Southern Hospitality. Again, if I missed someone, I am OLD and tired. Rant over. Off to work I go.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 14:57:14 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015