Fighting The Only Way I Know How

Another Saturday Soul-Suck come and gone. It was rough, but even more so because it’s Lollapalooza weekend. Times like these, I’m glad that the kitchen gods seem to smile in my favor because no matter how bad it felt today, it was much, much worse last night. And of course, Armanzo was working on Station 2.
According to him, not only did we do 247 covers (as opposed to last year’s 275; ew gross), they mostly came in huge parties, 6-tops, 10-tops, 12-tops–GROSS…..
Apparently chicken was selling like crazy (focaccia and flatbread a given), and to make it worse, Sylvester was NOT killing it that night. “I told him he needed to stop sucking,” Armanzo recounted to me the next day. And also, to make things even more interesting, a rocks-glass shattered on Armanzo’s station and glass was everywhere, resulting in him throwing out a lot of stuff.

Seriously?! This is the kind of stuff that chips away at your morale. And yet luckily, I’ve managed to come away from the station mostly unscathed. For example, tonight we only did about 210 covers, partly due to an early storm that was so severe Lollapalooza attendees had to evacuate the venue. If not for that, I’m sure we would’ve easily seen at least 40 more covers come in to eat. (Because when I’m at a large outdoor concert all hot and sweaty, the first thing I think of when I’m hungry is avec *eye roll*)
Instead, we got a pop and then stayed steady all night, with nearly no glitches. Service was steady and (atrociously) long, but so what? Since when is Saturday not a long soul-suck?

To combat this, I’ve decided that every Saturday I work up until my last day, I’m going to bring in something for the crew. A light at the end of the tunnel, if you will. Last week it was flavored ice freezer bars. The week before that was Japanese sports drinks and dumplings. This week was cheesecake and sparklers. YEAH! Saturday service makes me want to eat a gun, but having something to look forward to in the evening helps to restore a little bit of my (and my coworkers’) sanity.

Speaking of sanity, a 3-top at the bar came in just before the kitchen closed and dared to order foie. Even though we DID have foie, Liz told them we were out of it. Thanks Liz! Seriously, don’t think that ordering foie this late in the night will impress us. It’ll just piss us off. We don’t give a shit that you have the means to afford the foie. We’d actually like it if you didn’t come in that late to order food. They ended up ordering pork shoulder (just as bad), focaccia, flatbread, and a crostini. *eye roll*

On to next week!

Big Love

Just wanted to throw in a little update that Sunday night, my old sous chef/Big Star chef de cuisine Justin Large showed up to eat with his friends. His dinner was fine, they liked everything. Armanzo went out to talk with him a bit and then called me over to say hi and stuff. I’m super bashful when this happens, but I’m grateful when Armanzo throws the spotlight on you. If he knows credit goes to you, he’ll make sure that it’s known, that’s for sure.

Large told me something that really made me happy. He said that I was his favorite person to work with. Whoa! Really?! *fist pump* YEAH! I didn’t get to work with him for very long after I was hired, but when I worked under him during his openers, they were special times, that’s for sure. And it’s funny how whenever he’d announce that it looked like we’d be getting out early, it never happened. Like the time the basement flooded… >_>;;;;

Anyway, I’m just putting down this memory for posterity. Cos when the shit goes down and I’m feeling like everyone hates me, I can just look back and read/remember that at least TWO people have said that they liked working with me.

Also, how did I not know about this little gem? Did he give up blogging? I scrolled down and I saw the entry about Lollapalooza, which I worked, HA. It’d be nice if there were more entries, but seeing as how the last entry was in 2010, I think he’s given up. Sad ;_;