Lazy Sunday...err, Tuesday

Only here at the Sea Catch can you only see 45 reservations on the books at 5:30pm when we open, and then end up with 210 completed covers at 10pm.

I am the last person to complain but damn, can you see why its always good to be prepared? I mean I didn't 86 a damn thing, but I have less then 5 pieces of every fish we carry. I would call that cutting it too close but hey, I did the ordering last night so it makes me look like a genius...and an idiot because I will be the one cutting 150lbs of assorted fish tomorrow morning when I get here. Awesome!

The night started out so smoothly, we were putting up an order every few minutes. Nice pace for a Tuesday evening, until my GM comes back into the kitchen to let me know he just sat 2 of our 3 dining rooms. The 3rd wasn't even open because we didn't have the staff, and why would we? It's only a Tuesday. Likewise I was short a cook, as we usually don't require an extra guy during the week.

Thank goodness I didn't have to worry about my raw bar tonight, the guy I had out there has got to be one of the quickest this side of the Mississippi, if you get my drift. My line, however, would require some major assistance throughout the night. I only raised my voice a couple of times, mostly in jest because I just don't like to get angry and what good would it do...until I saw a server looking to run a dessert for his table.

The tray already had his table plus 2 other tables on it ready to leave the kitchen. My one food runner was running around like a chicken without a head. This server actually began to take the other desserts off the tray so he could only take his own. Lazy bastard, so I yelled across the kitchen a couple of select words of encouragement and he reluctantly took the entire tray. No shit, a bit later a server came into the kitchen to look for his food, asked about it, and I gave him a table to take (saying his would follow) and he left the kitchen saying he was to busy to take the food out....

You are going to sit here and tell ME that YOU'RE too busy with the 3 tables you have? Do you see the tickets touching the ground from my printer right now? All this while I am actually behind the line cooking with my guys and putting up food while trying desperately to keep the kitchen from blowing up.

My GM comes back several times asking if we are OK and if such and such table is ready. My reply? "It's gone..." Now go work on your wait staff, who are too busy to run for me when we're busy and they've got 3 whole tables.

Not a good way to start the week.