Had one of our busiest weekends in a while and came in Monday to find the freezer sitting at 45 degrees. Lost a bunch of food, called the repair guy and fixing it would cost almost as much as replacing it

Found a used commercial one nearby but I'm not excited about dropping that much money on another freezer that might die in six months and of course we still need to restock before Friday

Anyone here had good luck with used kitchen equipment or is buying new the safer bet?

For me it's Oceans

I almost always fill out the surveys when I have excellent service but generally don’t when service isn’t great.

Realistically does it make a difference? Does anyone really use the results to reward or hold staff accountable?

Hey all! I recently started a busser job back in April, and since then I have been paid $10. Today I discovered a busser who started late august and barely has any shifts is paid around $12, and probably other bussers are paid more than me from what I discuss with them about. This is my first job by the way, and I am a teenager. Should I ask for a raise in wage? By the way bussers get no tips.

This weekend I visted a popular establishement where I saw one of the bartenders vaping behind the bar, leaning over the back bar with his e-cig and exhaling the vaper over a collection of clean glasses. We all obiously know he'd never do this with a regular cigarette or cigar.

Is this a problem in the way I think?

What's the best way to convey a cleanliness concern to a place you know and respect with a great reputation? Message them on social media? Call them and ask to speak to the manager? Or stop in person?

This is a place I really love and visit regularly. I have no cleanliness concerns otherwise.

I've taken over a commercial kitchen and this oven came with it. I believe it's Forno Bravo but I haven't been able to locate the data place. I've emailed the company to see if they can confirm... it was installed without a permit and covers an electrical panel - which the health department LOVES (#sarcasm) so we will be removing and selling it. Just trying to find out as much info as I can on it. I've been told it's $25k-$30k brand new. Not sure what to sell it for. it's about 5 years old.

I’m currently a dishwasher at a restaurant and whenever someone leave from the kitchen/shift they say bye to everyone in the kitchen.

Went out with a friend. She requested hot water in a mug and had us put all of our silverware in. She said that ever since she worked in the food industry, she saw how they don’t properly clean utensils and so she has done this ever since.

I don’t recall if she specifically asked for boiling hot water. She didn’t care to keep it in for too long, maybe a minute or so.

Is this a normal request? More importantly, is it a legitimate concern and does it actually work?

Im 20 years old and frankly lost all hope in landing a job in my field when I graduate computer science. My dad owns a commercial building right next to three schools, about 50 meter from a college and less than a mile from two high schools.

He told me I can always open a restaurant there if things go bad, and he’ll loan me however much it takes to open a franchise. I don’t have much knowledge besides the fact that I worked as a line cook for 4 years. It’s not something that particularly passions me but I could not fathom the idea of making no money post bachelor degree. The only reason I’m considering it is because of the sheer amount of foot traffic the franchise that is renting the building for now is getting.

Is it something that the average Joe can do? I need something concrete so that I can stop stressing about my future it’s torturing me

Our internet went down right at 6:30pm yesterday. absolute prime time rush. Its actually insane how paralyzed a modern restaurant becomes the second the network drops.

Every single POS terminal started flashing red. card readers stopped taking chip. The KDS screen in the kitchen went completely blank so the line cooks were just standing there staring at me like I had the answers. im literally elbow deep in grease trying to reset the back office router while three servers are having a panic attack about their open tabs.

We offloaded our network headaches to specific gravity a while ago so they were the ones dealing with the ISP on the phone, but the whole restaurant tech ecosystem is just so incredibly fragile now tbh.

These major pos companies charge us thousands a month for hardware that folds like a wet napkin the second there's a connectivity hiccup. Part of me really wants to just rip all the screens out and go back to handwriting tickets on a metal spike.

I’m a busser at a busy diner, and I’ve dealt with some of the most terrible people, and the way they leave the tables with their kids, and just trashing the tables, is nuts.

Today, a woman in her 60s/70s maybe (?), walks up to me and says, “can I talk to you?”, I’m thinking “oh boy, here we go”, and expecting the worse, she says, “you’re working really hard”, and she gives me a twenty.

Fuck ya. There’s still some decent people out there.

EDIT: thank your for the amazing feedback everyone. This community is awesome and I appreciate you all working through this with me. My final conclusion is to not try and fight an uphill battle where it’s clearly not necessary. “Love the problem, not the solution.”We’ll be workshopping a new mod that’s less messy/heavy for a bar.

Context: neighborhood bar with 20 food items on the menu. Rev is 70/30 bev/food. Avg spend/check is $30.

Part 1:

We sold 735 orders of fries since 9/3.

42 of those orders upgraded to veggie chili cheese fries, or 5.71% (1 in 18 orders).

This addition to the menu is contributed about 6 cents of an increase to our avg spend per head.

While cool, the impact to revenue is negligible.

Part 2:

In order for it to have a meaningful impact on revenue (spend per head), 1 in every 5 french fry orders eould need to upgrade.

This would contribute to a $1 increase in our avg spend per head.

The ask:

Based on this, what do you think we should do

Opinions I’ve collected from others so far before forming my own:

\\-Look at impact to cogs and incremental prep labor to identify financial impact
\\-too early to do anything, wait it out through the winter, this item fits winter better
\\-ensure staff is properly advocating and upselling
\\-forget vegetarians, make it real chili and it will sell better

Restaurant I work at has added a satellite bar that has a direct phone line back and forth to the kitchen. We want to prank call them. What ideas do y'all have? We already did "Is your refrigerator running?"

So I work at a wedding venue. For the most part we always have outsider party decorators come to our venue to set up for parties/ weddings. My experience they’re mostly always pleasant but it’s always that one that thinks you’re their employee when you’re clearly not lol.

I was working a bar mitzvah and everything was going fairly well. However one of the party vendors (male) had knocked over a bin of name plates for the food displays off the shelf. He grabs some leftover food we had from the party and walks off. So I proceed to pick it up because I didn’t want anyone to fall while holding a tray of glasses or ceramic plates. I said to my coworker “I like how he just knocked over this shit but made sure to grab food”. Said vendor then comes up behind me and says “I was coming back, you talking mad crazy, I thought you was a real one but you a fake one”. I’m like “sir we are not friends and I don’t know you” 😂 Said vendor wasn’t even working our party, he was working a different ballroom that held a wedding.

Yall tell me if I was wrong cause in my opinion I found it ignorant that he was more concerned about some damn chicken tenders than cleaning up the mess he made. Also calling me “fake” when he has no idea who I even am and on top of that I’m the one that cleaned up the mess. Should’ve thanked me instead of being aggressive the way he was.

I’m kinda unsure if this is the right place to post this, but I had an interview with chilis and then they set me up for orientation and my first day of training. They asked me if I had finished the paper work they emailed me, and I didn’t even know I got an email. I checked everywhere so many times over and over again i feel like im going crazy. I even let the manager go through my emails tf. So they said they’d “put in a ticket and get back to me and try to resend the email” because “she could only send two emails otherwise she’s blocked on her side from proceeding any farther until I do something with the paperwork she emailed to me”. I have plenty of storage as well and she repeated my email back to me and said she used the same email I applied to the job with. Maybe it could have been misspelled….?

I tried calling and someone said “the ticket was put in, they’re working on sending you that email. We can call you when we send you that email.” Okay sick.
I wait a few days, nothing so I call again. She said “look it’s busy I’ll call you after lunch rush I don’t have time right now to send you multiple emails.” Okay I do entirely understand that, go get em! But then I didn’t get a call and no email and I’m at such a stand still. The email was sent the 16th, day I got the job. I’m posting this on the 24th 😔 I’m not mad or anything I’m just super defeated. What’s going on here??

I'm not sure how to take this but in summary I was told I cannot bring outside food into the cafe.

Context:

As a regular customer I purchased a dine in coffee at 730am in an empty cafe. I had my peanut butter sandwich which I like to eat with my coffee.

I was told by the owner that I cannot bring outside food and eat it there even though I purchased a coffee and have purchased food there many times before and they know this.

I've spent $100+ in the past year alone on coffee and food here so I don't see why it was an issue, especially when it was quiet and I had already purchased a coffee. Note: I haven't been back since.

I’ve been working at this restaurant for about 4 months. I started off strong and was even thought of for leadership roles. But it seems my performance lately has gone down and I was written up for it. I feel like I’ve lost my mojo and basically my confidence in myself, I go home everyday feeling like shit cs I don’t think I’m doing well enough and I know that cant be helping at all but idk how to get out this slump any advice?

TLDR: Applied for server position, said I would train as a dishwasher/kitchen helper first but when I asked today they told me they don't need foh staff so I'm wondering if I should quit.

I applied like a month ago for a serving position and they said they wanted to train me in boh first before going to foh because I didn't have any restaurant experience. They said I would mainly pack takeout orders and wash dishes and help out in the kitchen. I thought I would mainly just be packing the takeout orders bcuz that makes the most sense like to transition to a busser/server but I've just been washing dishes and when there aren't dishes to wash they make me prep food.

So today I finally asked when they were planning to promote me and the manager said they don't need foh rn they needed help in the kitchen. He then said I could help out the foh sometimes, I didn't ask but if I'm not getting the foh tip percentage then hell nah wtf. why would I do extra work for like nothing in return??? I got pretty upset bcuz well duh, like it's a smaller restaurant so I like wash the dishes and help in the kitchen and sometimes I have to help the servers clean up and stack plates and I wouldn't really mind but like they expect me to do all these things and get kind of mad if I don't know I have to.

Like today one of the workers was showing me how to cook this thing and I asked her why do I need to know this aren't I the dishwasher and she said like roughly translated "we're the kitchen we do everything!" and was just telling be I should learn so I can help cook for my family.

I don't like NEED this job I won't starve or anything but I also dk if i should just thug it out so I can put it on my resume bcuz I've only been working there for a month.

and idk if I should quit cuz also Halloween is soon XD and if I quit I can go the whole weekend lol.

I (20F) have been working at this restaurant for over 5 years and have been kitchen supervisor for around 3. The other kitchen supervisor is a female maybe mid to late 30s and has worked here for around 3 years I’ll call her G. G and I have never had issues before, she has had attitude and anger issues towards multiple coworkers but me and her have never personally been in a conflict.

About a month ago I made a complaint to management about her not being fully fair with other employees and not following standard rules like using headphones on food line or actively taking phone calls while cooking, not washing hands etc. management talked to her and after that she went to the GM and claimed they were choosing favoritism towards me and that I was targeting her. My GM spoke to me and I explained that wasn’t what I was doing and that I would do same actions with anyone else and the only reason I didn’t say something directly towards her and went to management is because I don’t have authority over her.

Then last week Wednesday we were busy and she was cooking and I was expoing I asked her about fries for an order and she just blew up on me. Raised her voice said she had other things she was worrying about and that if I’m in a rush to come do it myself. I explained that I wasn’t trying to rush her and was just checking on them because it was for a ticket that was at a 40 min wait time, the rest of the night she kept mumbling under her breath cussing and called me a bitch under her breathe. I ignored her and told management what happened. The following Saturday we had a sit down with the GM and worked it out so I thought.

This Tuesday I was grabbing some dishes to go soak in the dish pit and she blew up on me again telling me I need to stay in my place. I explained what I was doing and she just kept trying to argue with me so I took the dishes walked away and updated the GM that there was still clearly an issue. Wednesday (yesterday) my GM talked to both of us separately I explained I didn’t personally have an issue with her and I don’t know what’s causing this sudden conflict and that I just want a healthy work relationship with her where we can act as a team. She told my manager that she feels I’m harassing her and discriminating her because she is native and that she’s going to HR. My GM told me she can’t stop her from going to HR but not to be worried because I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not worried just stressed over the situation and don’t really know what to do. I still have to work with her and act normal and it’s just frustrating. I’ve never had issues like this with anyone and get along with all staff really well.

Update: my manager told me today that she is dropping the claims I wasn’t told her reasoning for her choosing to do that but am over all just grateful not to have to go through the whole situation! I work with her again for the first time tomorrow but am just going to come in and work hard and do my best to have a good shift with her and hope for the best for our future working together!

This adds a whole new meaning to the phrase "AI slop." Are many restaurants really creating AI images for menus and menu boards?

"I can't tell any of these apart. I can't even tell what restaurant this is. How am I supposed to know if I even want to eat here if it's not a real photo of the food?" said Jessica Krcmarik, a graphic designer and frequent patron of Metro Detroit restaurants, especially on the east side. "Honestly, the AI-generated food looks gross. The texture is actually horrifying."