Grey Goose Blog

Archive for the ‘Stories’ Category

Image - Book Cover by Charles Memminger. Courtesy of publisher.

Today I would like to share with you my compilation of short true stories that took place at the Restaurant X on the course of the last year. None of them deserves enough attention to stand out and shine on its own, but hopefully at least one of them will make you smile or even laugh…

Complainers

1) I waited on ridiculously annoying old people the other day. First they complained that steaming coffee wasn’t hot enough for them. One of them followed me to the bar on his crotches to make sure that bartender poured enough bourbon in his Manhattan. The highlight of their dining experience was to send back a screwdriver (vodka/oj). Why? Because the color of orange juice was not orange…it was yellow!!!

2) My food runner tried to serve Spaghetti Bolognese to a wrong table, but quickly recovered. The plate didn’t even touch the table. Unfortunately a guest who ordered spaghetti at the nearby table observed the whole process with pure hatred on his red face. He was staring at his plate all the time trying to hypnotize it, but he never made a contact with it. Every single time I checked on him he said everything was “ok”.  In the end of the meal he was looking so miserably like his relative has died, but when I asked one more time if anything was wrong, he jerked : “NOTHING!” I offered to take away the plate and pack it to go – he refused the offer.  A few minutes later he asked for a check in a surprisingly calm voice, but his face read willingness to see me on the death raw. I guess a BIG FAT zero tip was hardly a punishment to compensate for his ruined day. Credit to the food runner.

Tippers

1) My friend, Jack, the bartender was laughing telling me this. Although he got stiffed on $80 check. A couple of Italians were ecstatic about “De-li-ci-o-oo-us Mojitoes” – each of them had three rounds.    Mojitoes usually make the list of the most “pain-in-the-ass” drinks to make. When finally Jeff said “Arivederci!” to the happy tourists, instead of a tip he discovered a bus transfer next to check presenter. The transfer was expired…

2) Ghetto kids had a lunch celebration at our place. One of them just turned 21; he ordered a round of beers first happily flashing his ID in my face. A few minutes after birthday boy asked for champagne telling his buddy:”Yo Bro, we gonna put it on Facebook… Popping champagne and shit…”When I brought them a set up to crack Alaskan King Crab Legs, which they obviously never had before, kids thought that crab cracking tools and a steak knife are there for them to act the episode from SAW 3. I had to calm them down as guests at the neighboring table began to complain. I couldn’t help myself laughing when I saw one of them trying to get through the spiky crab shell with his teeth. My professional demonstration on how to use cracking tools definitely saved his gums from bleeding for which I was rewarded with a $5 tip. Should I mention that the check was $180?

Once me and my buddy stopped by for a quickie dinner @  Reno local casino café – everything else was closed and this nasty place still had a line. Place smelled of disgust and unholliness and a middle-aged hostess kept smiling at us frequently. I clearly remember that because she was missing a middle tooth. We were finally seated at the dirty table and a busboy with greasy hair didn’t bother to clean our table for another ten minutes. We debated for while on what is safe to eat in the place like that and settled down on seafood linguine, burger, and spinach-chicken dip for appetizer. Bad choice…

Our waitress moved chaotically from table to table dripping sweat. How did we know that she was ours before she even approached our table? Just because she was the only waitress in the dining room full of desperate and hungry people. We pushed menus aside and silently watched her nervously jumping from table to table like a yo-yo. Finally, she came close to us and her first words were not: “How are you?”, not even “Good evening!” She gave us a hateful look and spited: “So, what do you want?” We ordered.

The best part of our dinner was a flask of cognac we brought with us not that I am picky or expect a lot from cafeteria. Terrible food, however, was easy to forget; shocking service still haunts my dreams. She never ever checked on us, she forgot everything she could forget, including our check. When we were finally able to flag a busboy and ask him to call our waitress, she came over and asked if anything was wrong. We looked at our half-empty dirty plates, which we thoughtfully stacked on the table and said that everything was excellent. We just wanted our check and to get the f…. out of this trashy place. She was patiently waiting and looking over my shoulder while I was scribbling a 15% tip. The only time she smiled was when she saw the tip. Apparently, 15% tip was a rare accomplishment for her. She was so grateful that she even came back to the table and said: “I will check back on you later.” Both of us simultaneously thought: “Please, don’t”.

It was one of the worst and funniest dining experiences in my life. Was I mad at our waitress? Not at all. Although I am thousand miles far from being the best waiter in the world, she made me feel better about my skills

Some of my friends after listening to this story argued that I shouldn’t have left her a tip at all. What do you think?

Racist brain via Inspiration Room

It is often discouraging to work at the tourist place or tourist trap mostly because it doesn’t attract regular customers. Sometimes it is fortunate to work at the tourist place or trap for the same reason.  From my experience half of the regulars are lunatics; once in a while you will come across of particular nutcase that will be remembered for the rest of your life if won’t be a part of your worst nightmares.

Let’s call him Asian dude. He looks about sixty five, but I won’t be surprised to find out that he’s eighty. You know how Japanese people exploit rice and seafood to their rejuvenating advantage. How do I know he’s Japanese? Well,  that’s what he confessed to one of my co-workers, Dan,  a German looking gay-bear-type waiter. “Are you from the South?” – he asked Dan. The reason why he asked that question instead of inquiring on the restaurant specialties remained a mystery until he requested that EVERYTHING BLACK will be removed from the table including black pepper shaker, black straw for his sprite and black basket for the bread. He also put a white sheet of paper under his butt so he won’t be sitting on blackish leather chair. Oh, did I mentioned that he was dressed in all white from his socks to his dyed freaky hair.  He would order Chicken Alfredo or Ceacer salad with chicken. NO PEPPER. He would complain on our black aprons and , of course, if he would sense dark-skinned mexican busboys within five feet from his table, the tip he normally leaves decreases from 10% to 1%.

He got banned from all of the neighborhood eateries with the exception of restaurant X. Once, however, he showed up in particularly cheerful mood and asked for all the waiters to line-up like in massage parlor… The host politely asked him to get the fuck out and we missed him for about year.  I owe the inspiration for this blog entry to his latest visit a few days ago; he told me about black construction workers drilling a hole right next to his apartment. It must be a conspiracy.



This story is a part of the series reflecting on crazy regular customers who dine alone. I’ve published it already on Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/tumblelog/greygoose). With the exception of the character’s names this story is 100% real.

Billy is about eighty years old and every other afternoon he likes to visit the restaurant X. for an early dinner.  He always prefers an enormous table by the window which normally sits six and orders a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc with some clam chowder. I’ve never seen somebody consuming the wine so fast.  When I used to work at the wine bar me and my buddy had shots of Zinfandel while the boss was in the storage room, but Billy was quicker than us – it was needless to bring him an ice bucket – by the time you come back with it he kills the bottle.  He has a reputation of a kind-hearted alcoholic who prefers to be left alone. He doesn’t bother you and even leaves twenty percent tip on the regular basis; it sucks, however, that he stays for about three hours on average and you cannot turn a table.

Once in the beginning of my shift at about 4pm I spotted Bill dozing at his favorite table by the window. He was done with his meal and wine altogether but apparently wasn’t in a rush to leave the restaurant. My friend Jenny, a super-friendly Chinese waitress, informed me that the guy destroyed a bottle and two glasses of wine during the lunch and was “taking a break”.  I didn’t mind until he started snoring laud enough to attract the attention of nearby guests.  I approached and asked if everything was ok and he waived at me. It looked like he was saying good bye to me and to his miserable life.  I’ve decided that letting him die by the table is not such a good idea so I called the manager. By the time manager on duty arrived, Billy fell asleep once again masterfully using his walking cane as a pillow. As we managed to bring him back to life with a help of gentle slaps in his face, he started yelling all of the sudden: “Where is my soup!!!”  I swear god, he never ordered anything from me and that’s what I told to the manager.  We politely asked poor guy to leave the restaurant premises, but he refused threatening to file a claim. Finally we kicked him out and on the way out he was floating through the dining-room screaming that he will never come back… Next day he was sitting at the same table ordering Sauvignon Blanc once again. Eventually we got rid of him by introducing a two-glasses-of- wine-rule which was impossible for him to stomach. I like to believe that we saved Billy a couple of years of life.