Tilted Kilt opening night!!!!!!!!

Finally the long anticipated OPENING NIGHT!!!!!!!!!  Opening night was on a Friday night which added to the chaos being a weekend night.

The dressing room situation was twice as bad as it was the day before.  Pretty much every single staff member was here for the opening night!  Even if it was a regular night I don’t think the facilities they had for changing and the amount of lockers available is that great at this Tilted Kilt.  I really don’t have a point of reference though because I’ve never been a server where I had to change into a costume at work.  I still think they could have had a much better dressing area especially given that the building was newly constructed.  Some of us even had to go to the regular bathroom in the restaurant to change because there was not enough room.

Since it was so hectic with the amount of people there Theresa said she’d didn’t have time to do the uniform checks so she’d tell someone personally if there was anything that needed to be changed with their hair or makeup.  I am always afraid of her this way because she’s a big fan of tons and tons of makeup.   I’ve never met a makeup artist that doesn’t think the more makeup the better.  I’m not exactly an au natural hippy but I just don’t think 2 pounds of makeup necessarily looks any better than 1 pound of makeup. 

We took a picture outside of the whole staff.  The person taking the picture had to move back extremely far to be able to get everyone in; there were like 100 servers there as well as kitchen staff, runners, hosts, trainers, and managers.  Kayla turned around and said hi to me and I didn’t recognize her at first.  She had a cute short haircut before but now she had gotten extensions and they were really long.  She looked completely different.  I don’t think it really fit her cute personality but she definitely looked good, more glamorous and sexy.

Stepping inside the restaurant I noticed it was saturated with wall to wall to wall Kilt Girls all over.  It all looked very surreal seeing this blur of red and white plaid swarming around everywhere I went before I realized I was wearing a kilt too and part of this elusive Klan.  I felt as if I had entered some sort of alternate dimension David Lynch movie. 

The restaurant was very packed and all the servers had stations of 2 tables.  For a normal restaurant that’s an extremely small station but for a restaurant opening it’s more appropriate because everyone is slower since they were just getting used to everything.  I think normally we would have a station of 4 tables which still seems a little small but if you have to spend a lot of time sitting with your tables that makes more sense to only have 4.

There was always a long line of people to ring something in which I’ve never experienced working in a restaurant.  The computers were taking forever because people had to sift through a lot of different items that they weren’t familiar with.  I’m sure by the end of the week it won’t be like this once everyone has gotten more practice.  I would hate to imagine what an opening at the Cheesecake Factory would be like because there are 1,000+ things on that menu.  That must be completely insane.  Luckily all of the trainers were still around to help as well as some other people I’d never seen before from corporate.  If not for them I don’t know what would have happened, it would have been like the blind leading the blind.

Since there were too many servers so they doubled up many of them for the same table.  Luckily that didn’t happen to me but I did get sat in the patio where hardly anyone went because it was cold outside even with the heat lamps.  In my section no one there really wanted food, mostly just drinks.  I know it’s the first night but the amount of time it took the bartenders to get these drinks was atrocious!  I waited over 20 minutes every single time!  I’d keep checking back and they weren’t ready then I’d get busy doing something and then runner would come out with the drinks and not know where to take them.  On the patio people were standing around near the heat lamps not necessarily at their tables so it was very confusing for the runner.  Some guests even just went to the bar themselves because the regular bartenders appeared to get drinks faster than the service bartenders.  There wasn’t a lack of bartenders, in fact I there were too many to the point they were stumbling over each other.  The Tilted Kilt has a lot of signature drinks so I’m sure it took awhile to adjust to making everything they weren’t familiar with.

The rest of the night was really spent walking around, trying to look busy, and getting up enough courage to talk to random tables. At one point Tara suggested that we walk around and flirt with guys so I accompanied her to her section.  She was lucky, she had the bar section which had all the customers.   There was the actual bar with chairs and behind it a long table called the Captain’s table.  A lot of girls were already here socializing, I think it was easier to go up to a bunch of people milling around then plop yourself at some random table.

At the end of the night I made about $30.  It was ridiculous.  I’ve never made so little at a restaurant even during a slow lunch shift let alone a weekend night.  Since it was opening night, I had estimated to make much more.  The patio didn’t seem like the best section to have, at least not this night.  I think it would be a great section in the summer when people were ordering food as well as drinks and the bartenders getting them in a more timely manner.  I have hope because this is just one section, I’m sure the rest will be better, it’s just the beginning.