'Better not to know what is being done with your food': New York restaurant through the eyes of a waitress from Russia

My interlocutor - a pretty young blonde named Maria - arrived in New York from Moscow several years ago, when she was only 22 years old. In the capital of Russia, she revolved, we can say, in a bohemian environment - she worked in the theater as a props artist, studied. They talk about such people - a well-bred girl from a decent family. In the United States, Maria was not entirely of her own free will - relatives persuaded. Long rushed between the two countries, but eventually settled in New York and got a job as a waitress in one of Manhattan's restaurants. She had no experience of such work, except for two months of internship in one of the Moscow bars a long time ago. Everything had to be learned as soon as possible. There was no money for life - by that time she did not communicate with her relatives. Maria quickly enough joined the team, began to earn money, and also noticed everything that she had no idea about before.

Maria, if you compare the service sector in New York and Moscow, is there a difference, and if so, what is it?

When I come to Moscow, all the time I compare our, American, service and them. In Moscow, you will wait a hundred years until they put you at a table and take the order. Usually half of what is indicated on the menu is not. And the more pathetic the menu, the more ambition the staff has. No one is in a hurry there and is not trying to “help”. In New York, on the contrary: here the client is God, the sun, but that’s all! And therefore everything will be done here to please him. Sometimes, in an effort to please the guest, the staff reaches insanity! And by the way, I don’t like this either from the position of a bartender waiter or from the position of a client.

You sometimes write Facebook posts about the wrong side of the restaurant business ... To be honest, after reading I don’t really want to go to restaurants. Do you walk yourself?

I myself go and walk with pleasure, but I can’t get rid of the professional habit of seeing, appreciating and evaluating everything. I involuntarily follow what is happening around as a manager of the hall. By the way, I go to restaurants with friends, where I know that everything will be not only tasty, but also fresh. But even in such places, I try not to think about forks, knives, napkins, ingredients, sanitary conditions. After all, you can go crazy. But many friends, having worked in this area, really stopped going to eat somewhere. By the way, there are films on this subject. For example, Soul kitchen - there and about us, the waiters, and in general about the darkness that is happening behind the doors leading to the kitchen.

And what is the darkness going on there? And is it worth telling the general public about it?

It seems to me yes. This will help someone avoid unpleasant moments - I mean both visitors and potential waiters. Here we, the staff, are smiling at you in the restaurant, but, of course, I don’t want to do this, everyone is just trained. With a smile on your face they will put you at the table by the window, from which you will blow like a precipice in the face or back, or near the kitchen, where all the running and running waiters will stumble on your legs and jackets, and you will hear all the abuse languages ​​of the world coming from this very kitchen. But I guarantee, if you ask to be transplanted, they will refuse you with the same sweet smile, referring to the reserve of tables, or, if transplanted, will be cursed to the seventh knee. And the waiter assigned to you, most likely, is already ready for the fact that you, sorry, Mr. ***, and it will not be easy to deal with you.

On the subject: 10 questions you always wanted to ask the waitress

Ok, you sat down, they brought you a menu that you just started reading. And a waiter with a white-toothed smile is already at your table and asks: "What kind of water should I bring you?" Believe me, he really doesn’t like it when you say that you don’t need water, and immediately begin to list: “Please give me squid and hummus first”. The waiter is unhappy: "Answer the question about water, bitch !!!" He yells to himself. But he smiles and quickly begins to jabber a learned phrase about the special dishes of today.

That's what I do not advise you to take especially, is special fish dishes or some filet mignon. And in general I do not advise taking anything from what the waiter particularly recommends. Because, most likely, this good lies completely in the kitchen, and the cook told the waiters to sell it at all costs. And whoever sells more will get a bottle of beer or inexpensive wine from a nervous manager who finally managed to shove an old batch of branzino.

And if you can not push the customers?

Then feed it to the staff! So about the water. In a jug there will be, of course, tap water, in New York everyone drinks it, since it is tasty and pure. But in the jug itself can be absolutely anything.

After you have ordered food, wipe with a cloth all the appliances. And God forbid you do it fabric! Only disposable paper! Wipe the plates too. Because both appliances and plates are washed this way, one hundred and fifty times fall on the way to the table, they are lifted from the floor and laid on the table. Cloth napkins are folded with dirty hands (without gloves) by tired and swearing employees. You can easily find hair in them (often not even the staff, but the laundry workers where they are washed), and when they take them out of the wash, they will be thrown wherever they want, then they will be folded into the original form and put where the dust is last wiped on the opening day of the restaurant ...

The moment has come when they bring you drinks. I'm talking about alcohol. 90% of a glass is ice (read, bartender money). Alcohol is the cheapest there, of unknown production, bought in boxes, and it is impossible to drink it in its pure form in any way, therefore, if you want to try what you brought, ask for ice separately. And if you want good alcohol, then ask for a top shelf, that is, well-known brands, although it is not a fact that instead of Zacappa rum, you don’t understand what is coming from a bottle with a blue label and palm trees on it. And in no case do not squeeze and do not put a lemon, an orange or whatever you put on a glass in the drink itself! Bartender fruits do not wash before slicing them! Why would they do the extra work? And yes, if a straw was brought to you without a paper wrapper on top, then throw it out right there. By the way, according to the law (and where does our health department look?), Straws cannot stand without packaging on the bar, because they collect dust and touch them with dirty hands.

Or a salad. Oh ... I myself have not eaten salads in restaurants for a long time. With rare exceptions - if I myself was in the kitchen of this restaurant. Why? Because usually vegetables that are brought to the kitchen are unloaded in boxes and immediately cut into cooking or that same salad. They do not wash! The maximum strips of labels from them. Well, why? Because there’s no time to do this much. By the way, if the salad is full of different greens, then this is not a salad, but rather an imitation of the fact that there are a lot of things. In fact, you will be looking for half an hour there slices of cucumbers and tomatoes, which are hardly there. And yes, check this very greens for freshness ...

An interesting point is the presentation of the dish. Do you know why the food on the plate looks as if it was placed very neatly, and at the same time not a single drop was sprayed around the edges? Yes, because when the ingredients are already laid on the plate, its edges are wiped mainly with your hands, if there is soup, then with rags that immediately throw on the countertop, or hang themselves on the belt of a dirty apron, or wipe with that dirty apron.

Do you know how the readiness of meat is checked? Yes, yes, the one you ordered the medium-rear. The chef points his finger at him. Yes, no gloves. Then he licks them or wipes them on himself, and shouts: "Next plate to check!" Exactly so, and not otherwise. Everything on your plate lies exactly on the beautiful side. And you turn over a piece of meat / cutlets / something else there and you will surely see there either burntness or a cut to check readiness. And if it is generously poured with sauce and sprinkled with herbs, then for sure - something was disguised. It either already fell, or burned out, or poked with forks, or the piece does not reach the standard mass and shape.

Dessert. Who doesn't like desserts? On the forehead, ask the waiter - which is fresh and which is already in the refrigerator for three days behind the glass. Ask what is his favorite. Check how this dessert is served. Ask if it is home-made or purchased somewhere. And, most importantly, ask your dessert not to sprinkle or decorate with anything. Know, if they brought you a dessert sprinkled with powdered sugar, doused with sauces, decorated with a scattering of berries and mint leaves, it means that it either fell, or stood for a long time and already lost sight, or something else unpleasant happened to him, which they tried to disguise.

If you take food home, do not ask to pack, ask to bring containers to you and transfer the food to them yourself. Because scooping up your food in a container will be horrible: maybe with your hands, maybe with a fork from another plate, in short, it’s not pleasant. Well, the waiters have neither the time nor the desire to stand on ceremony with you.

On the subject: How to become a princess if you are a former drug addict, waitress or swimmer

When you ask for an account, you will pay as soon as possible and leave as quickly as possible. The staff is waiting to no longer return to your table and generally finish with you. And yes, leave a tip of 18-20%, otherwise you will be damned again. In most restaurants, waiters work for tips, this is their money. If it seems to you that you already paid with interest, think about what you paid to the owner, and tips are the bread of the waiters. Tipping waiters are divided among themselves. Do not go hungry. Leave them in cash, so they will receive more, because this cash is not taxed.

And the most important thing. What should be distinguished large: never, hear, NEVER return the dishes back to the kitchen and say that you have hair there, blood flows from the meat, that there is a dead possum in mashed potatoes or on this tomato it says on the sticker “went you ... ”and you would like a tomato without a sticker. You may not be spit on food, but what you will do in the kitchen with the chef and his team (not the waiter, no), you better not know. I'm serious. More than anything, the kitchen hates when food is returned.

And this is called “customer god and luminary”?

Well, what to do, customers do not like a priori, but they will do everything possible to make you like: one negative review on the same Yelp - and the institution's rating will go down. And Americans like to write reviews.

In general, we stand each other. Here I had one client who came every day and ordered food every day, what she wanted, and not what was on the menu: “Please, I have this salad here, but without tomatoes, onions, pepper, salt, butter, vinegar, and chicken. Let there be greens, cucumbers and well add salmon! How can this not be done? I always do! Tell them! How is this kitchen busy with orders? I want like this!" She ate, cherished everything in the world, and then she was not so, and this is not so, and yesterday it was better: “And why didn’t they serve it? And I'm allergic to this! Take it away! Do you have gray bread with cereals? How not? I won’t eat that! Bring me the jam! How not? ”

And then she enjoyed free coffee and desserts at the expense of the establishment. How why? The manager approached her: “We apologize for what you did not like!” She smiled, seeing that they had removed from the account what she had already eaten, but had charmed, and then left to return the next day. One day, when I got really boiling and I knew that in any case I would quit today, I went to her place to take an order and said something like this: “Ma'am! You come every day, you are always dissatisfied with everything, you always ask to redo everything. Ma'am, go to the store, buy the ingredients and make at home a salad that you like, and we serve what we have on the menu and are not going to cook specifically for you! And there is McDonald’s on the corner, so why don’t you go there and eat there? And if something does not suit you in your salad, then do not go to us! And when you come, then close your mouth and eat in silence! ” - she was taken aback, but fell silent, and I left.

There is simply a huge category of people who go to eat and at the same time have a mess to dine for free. They know that managers, valuing their reputation, will remove everything from the account, even if this client has eaten the entire portion and “then she noticed that this is not what she ordered, or that there are cucumbers that she is allergic to.” The restaurant will do everything so that there is no problem at the establishment, even fire the waiter, if only the guest was happy and did not leave a bad review.

And how does the average New York waiter earn? And is it possible to fix something in your opinion in this system to make it better? Because what you are telling is terrible.

Yes, probably, both the increase in wages and the human attitude to the staff (and so far the bestial) would change the situation. At a minimum, there would not be such a turnover among staff, which is bad for the establishment. You can’t put customers first in such a strong way, because it strikes restaurant employees from bass to managers. Customers use this shamelessly. They come to eat and drink for free, arrange tantrums, “find” hair in a plate or eat everything and say that it was terrible or that they ordered something else, and therefore they won’t pay for it. Gets from them and those who say with an accent: “Where did you come from? English would be learned first! You serve me here! ”

And our salary is very unstable. There is she and tip. Usually it starts at 7,5-8 per hour, plus what the client will leave. In general, everything is simple with respect to money: there will be no tips - there will be no money. Although there are institutions that do not tip and put people on a bet like $ 10-12 per hour, that's all. And do not care. Some do not pay at all, only tips. But in good restaurants and on good days you can earn a lot. For example, in 2013-2014, I was chic. Checks ranged from 800 per week to 1500. Although it must be remembered that there are dead periods when people are reduced in the schedule, everyone hangs around idle, without money, in a circle, rub glasses and fight for $ 10. There were days in February 2014, when I went to work stupidly for food, and watching a couple of everyday guests of the Olympic Games. Actually, it was possible to accumulate on the metro card only. And sometimes a banquet could take away immediately 300-400 a day.

In general, it sounds good ... Why did you leave? Tired of it?

Now I work as a designer in the workshop of the famous Italian designer and architect Gaetano Pesce. I was very lucky with work, I am very happy. Although my entire salary there is $ 1400 a month! I also study at one of the colleges as a graphic designer. Although, I think the restaurant has not disappeared from my life for a long time. Because I work only three days a week and there is really not enough restaurant money. But I can’t go two more to the restaurant, because the leadership of these institutions prefers people who are free at any time, rather than those who set the conditions in the series: “I can’t on Thursday and Saturday after 12”.

But most importantly, I hope you understand - my dears, cook for yourself, eat at home, and do not show off in restaurants!