Tilted Kilt Lunch Shift

Today during the uniform checks Theresa also went over goals and expectations.  Avery was praised for getting a request from a guest and Theresa wanted to see more of that from all of us.  She said we needed to focus more on convincing our guests to come back and the end of their visit because we were there to be relationship builders.  We were also told to let her know if there were any problems with guests because she lost a couple of girls the previous night because they got grabbed and they didn’t feel comfortable working there anymore.

This day was the busiest yet.  Everyone was still on 2 tables each but somehow I ended up with 4 because a few girls didn’t show up for their shifts.  Normally that wouldn’t have been hard at all however there were still long lines to get on the computers which really slowed me down.  I think one of the reasons was that some menu items were listed a little differently on the computer so it was harder for everyone to find.  I also was still familiarizing myself with the vast menu since it’s not like I had gotten good practice the last couple of days.  The trainers had wanted us to focus more on talking to guests than actually learning the food better which I think will bite us in the ass when they leave in a few days and there will be no one to ask questions to because the management knew even less about the food than we did.

For me the best way to learn the menu items better was run as much food as I could.   You didn’t have to run your own food necessarily but it was suggested to run an equivalent of other people’s food to the amount

you ordered.  I already preferred running as much of my own food as I could because I think it made my tables feel like I was more attentive to them.  There was an actual runner there named Krissa who was this cute little punk rock girl with an Edie Sedwich haircut. She just ran food all day; she really worked her butt off.  Even though the servers were supposed to run food most of them pretty much just sat around and schmoozed with the tables or took countless pictures with each other so I really wanted to help her out.  Krissa said a lot of girls didn’t want to come into the expo line area and run food because they thought the chef was mean.  The chef Kyle would yell at anybody if they entered the kitchen expo line the wrong way.  I don’t think Kyle was any different than any other restaurant chef.  Actually he was so typical it was cliché.  Kyle was a no nonsense gruff dude with a lot of tattoos that worked hard and took his job very seriously.  He was probably a pretty nice guy but did not take shit in the kitchen, his kitchen (every chef in a restaurant acts like kitchen belongs to them like it’s their home; essentially it is because they are there the majority of their day). It wasn’t a big deal and it actually says more of his character that he was there to work not to flirt.  Pretty girls in Kilts was not going to sway him from hollering at them to prevent safety in his kitchen. 

I had a young father at one of my tables with 2 little boys and one girl who was about 12.  She looked very annoyed at being there.  Yeah I think it might be awkward at 12 if your dad takes you to a place like this.  She said she wasn’t hungry and didn’t want anything.  The whole time she just sat there and scowled.  Sure enough as most children do she decided she was hungry when she saw her brothers eating and finally ordered something.

One of my other tables was another family that lived right down the street.  They told me that before the Tilted Kilt this building used to be a steakhouse and they hadn’t even noticed it had closed until they came in today.  They had never heard of the Tilted Kilt so they thought they’d give it a try.  Most people I know had

never heard of the Tilted Kilt either despite the fact they now have scores of restaurants.  The weirdest thing today was we had run out of a million beers.  The father would order something and then I’d go to the computer and it was shaded out meaning we were out and you couldn’t order it. He literally ordered 3 different beers and I went back 3 different times only to find each one shaded.   It was like something out of a cartoon or a slapstick skit. I eventually had write down a list of what we

had because it was getting ridiculous.  When I completed the list I estimated that we were out of about 50% of the beers.  I don’t understand how they could have run out of half their stock in the first few days especially when they said they weren’t nearly as busy as they had anticipated.  So if they had met their volume expectations we would have now been 85% out of beer? 

Another table I had were these 2 guys their 40s.  I sat down and talked to them for a little bit and found out that they owned some sort of party supply company nearby.  I told them what beers we had left and one of them became totally incredulous that we only had half of what was listed on the menu.  As a big beer fan myself I would have been annoyed too but he was taking it a little too hard.  I took their drink order and of course the beer the surly one wanted we had just run out when I got to the computer.   I went back to the table and apologized profusely.   I tried to

joke around about it like we were so popular here that we had already run of beer haha, but Surly Sam got incredibly snippety and said he wanted to talk to Theresa.  He tried to act like he knew her personally because he had gotten a coupon from her.  Theresa had made special coupons for businesses nearby because she really wanted local businesses to come and be loyal customers.  I think he thought by name dropping Theresa’s name that I’d be able to magically produce whatever beer he had ordered. 

I told Theresa that my table wanted to see her and she gave me a look like ‘what do you want!”  I think she was really stressed because people didn’t show up for their shift, there were lines to the register, and we were out of half of our beer.  She barked that she was busy and if someone needed something to have Vivian the other manager on the floor go talk to him.  Vivian comes back and tells me that she doesn’t know what that guy’s problem was but he only wanted to talk to Theresa because her name was specifically on the coupon.  For some reason he really didn’t trust talking to anyone else.  Theresa went over and I saw her opening the menu for him and pretty much go over every single menu item like he spoke a foreign language and needed every word explained properly.  Some customers just need extra assistance and some like to exert their power over people that rely on them for tips.  I could tell she really wanted to get out of there and take care of other things.  Later Surly Sam complained that where he sat was way too loud.  There was a group next to him that was joking and laughing but they weren’t really that bad, they weren’t even drinking.  Surly Sam’s friend looked kind of embarrassed.  I wasn’t allowed to take on more than 4 tables so I had them moved and transferred to someone else.  Good riddance.

Like Hooters the Tilted Kilt also sells merchandise.  They have a calendar, mugs, and hats.  We had a calendar girl working at our branch which apparently was a big deal because she could autograph it if they bought it.  We were supposed to use that as a selling point.  I had noticed the calendar girl Cindy during

training because she had very delicate features like a porcelain doll and was a huge fan of heavy makeup and eyelash extensions.  She was also probably one of those people that took 2 hours to curl her hair, it always looked flawless.  At first she appeared a little stuck up and unapproachable.  I caught her a few times staring at herself on TV where a behind the scenes video of the calendar shoot was showing on repeat.  I got a chance to talk to her and found her to be actually quite down to earth and probably the sweetest girl on staff.  Cindy was really helpful to everyone because she was one of the few people that really knew how to work the computer well and could answer any question about the food. 

In the early evening there was a switchover when the new servers came in for the evening shift.  In every restaurant that I’ve ever heard of, the server would be cut from the floor, finish up with their tables, do their side work, and leave when their last table cashed out.  Sometimes if you had a table that was just there forever you could transfer it if you wanted to go home but that usually was your choice.  At the Tilted Kilt when all those new servers came in the manager had to transfer everyone’s section on the floor over to the new servers.  It was utter chaos.  My section had dwindled down to only 1 table that looked like they were going to be there for awhile so I had everything transferred over.  Tara was in the next section over but her section was full because a few of her tables had been drinking there for awhile and weren’t ready to leave.  We both thought it was optional at first to switch everything out.  The new server Amber came on to Tara’s section and Tara asked if she could wait because she had a full section.  Amber said okay but 10 minutes later as I was finishing up side work Theresa confronts Tara and asks her why she refused to give over her tables.  Amber was standing behind Theresa looking really uncomfortable.  I’m sure she didn’t accuse Tara of saying she refused but that’s how Theresa chose to interpret it. Tara apologized and said that she thought it was optional. It was just a simple misunderstanding that Theresa totally overacted on, she practically yelled at Tara on the floor in front of everyone.  

The Tilted Kilt’s system of switching everything over at once made it 10 times more complicated than it needed to be. The problem was that management didn’t want people to go over their 6 hours because legally that would be a break violation. They should have just had an unpaid break off the floor so they wouldn’t stress over people going over time and then the servers could close out like normal at the end of their shift. This way the servers got to keep their tips from the tables they did most or all of the work for. Or they could cut everyone at 5 hours instead and have the servers transfer their remaining tables if they were close to going over 6 hours. Instead the system in place required the manager to transfer every single table from every single server at the exact same time. Everyone was scrambling around. It was honestly the dumbest system I’ve ever seen.

Today I actually made a little more money but for a restaurant that was busy it wasn’t as great as they made it out to be. When I was cashing out in the managers offices there were a few members of corporate there saying how the numbers weren’t where they thought they’d be by now.