Joy, Rapture and Regulars

The restaurant I work at has a Monday to Friday (excluding Holidays) breakfast special. Breakfast with coffee comes to under 5 bucks. There are a lot of business people who come in for this special and I'm not sure if its on purpose or just plain ignorance but they have a tendency of ticking us off. This is for them.

Open Letter to Breakfast Regulars:

First I would like to say Thank You. Thank you for choosing our restaurant to spend your money at, but there may be something that you don't realize and when I tell you this, I'm not doing it to be insulting or rude. Sometimes we don't see that we are acting a certain way unless someone points it out so I thought I would shine a light in that direction today.

I understand that you are there almost every day (well, almost every morning.... when the special is available..... you know, when the breakfast is cheap) but you can't just walk past a line of people waiting to be sat and seat yourself because you're a regular. For all you know some of the people you butted in front of in line could be regulars as well, they're just being polite and allowing the hostess to seat them where she knows they will be served quickly.

Just because we try to give you a menu, please don't be offended. I know you have the exact same thing every single day that you eat at the Restaurant but occasionally we have new staff that don't know you. Or maybe this is the morning you want to break out of the routine and order something different. The world won't end if you have pancakes this morning instead of eggs and bacon.

When someone comes up to you and says "Good Morning!" the proper response is "Good Morning!" not, "Coffee!", "I'll have the Special." or silence. I understand that you feel you are more important than your server. After all you have a job in a big old office and we are just menial labourers who bring you your food but if we grunted and responded at you the way you do at us you would complain to our bosses about our attitude and tip us less because you thought we were rude.

Speaking of tipping.... breakfast is the one meal of the day where a 15% tip might not be enough. During lunch or dinner, your server is at your table a total of maybe 6 times. Once to get your drink order, once to get your food order, once to deliver your food, one or two qualilty checks and finally to ask for dessert and deliver a bill. During the quality checks they may refill drinks or grab you something that is missing, a condiment or such. And when its done, they are rewarded with a tip that is usually at least 15% of the meal.

During breakfast, a meal that when you get the Special costs under 5 bucks with tax your server is at your table at least 10 times. Plus since most people always down their first cup of coffee so the server may have to refill the coffee at least once before the food arrives and once more when the food arrives. And after multiple trips, some sparked by you waving from across the room and shaking your coffee cup at your server or (my personal favorite) by you getting up and interrupting your server while they are at another table taking someone's order because your cup is empty and you can't wait two minutes for more coffee, you reward the server with a 15% tip. 15% of a bill that is under 5 bucks is less than a buck. Usually its around 83 cents. Kids in sweatshops make more than 83 cents and take less abuse than your breakfast server does.

Or worse than that is when you decide that even after your server made 5 trips to your table for coffee refills and you lingered enjoying your last few sips because you had time (and hogging the table so your server loses the chance to turn it and make more money) you didn't like the way the eggs were cooked or the bacon was too crispy or not crispy enough. And while the service was fine, you feel you must protest so you don't tip your server. So now they are worse than the kids in the sweatshop. They are now your slaves.

Finally, sometimes when your regular server isn't there, you have to be served by someone else. And I know that Judy knows what you have in the morning and just sends it to the kitchen when you walk through the door, but Judy isn't here today and you should also know what you have in the morning for breakfast.... you are able to tell me too. Please don't let it ruin your day. Change doesn't have to be bad.

But that's just the view from my side of the menu.