The Restaurant Rant: Intro
Sharing tales of the “Industry”, Life, and some of my favorite simple recipes.
I think there is an old saying if you are not embarrassed by your first version of something, you released it too late. So here it goes.
Of course, my reason for getting involved in the hospitality industry resulted from me being a dumb ass. I was in college and attended a party at a pretty shitty hotel in my hometown. Let’s call that town “Sprinklefield.” So, friends of mine rented a hotel room to drink some beers and smoke some weed. Highly controversial at the time, but now legal pretty much everywhere.
One of my buddies at the party did a super thoughtful thing, a few months back I told him I did not own any cassette tapes from the Grateful Dead and had just heard a few of their songs. Yes, I am aging myself. Anyway, he remembered this and at this hotel room party, gave me a mix tape of greatest hits from the Dead. So of course, being a stupid teenager, I got into my truck in the parking lot to listen to the tape, we had no intention of leaving the parking lot but the morons that we were brought beers to sit in the truck and listen to my new favorite band.
Well, we were being watched and just a few minutes later the sirens were on and was blocked in by one of Sprinklefields finest. Long story short we get out of the car and tell the officer we had no intention of leaving, he did not much care about that since we were underage drinking.
The only thing he said to me was, “So do you want to be charged with a DUI tonight or tell me what room everybody is partying at? I said looks like you are going to have to charge me with a DUI.” So, they did. In true Sprinklefield fashion, after my friends found out that I did not rat them out, they didn’t make me pay for a cup at the next keg party. Not sure if that was a fair trade off but I thought it was the right thing to do. My initial decision was so stupid to go to my car that I had to take the heat. I couldn’t be a Fredo. If you do not understand the Fredo reference, then its time for you to finally see “The Godfather.”
I think really this is the whole thesis of these posts , is self-awareness from the viewpoint of human behavior in the hospitality setting both from customers and from workers.
It was my mistake to leave the hotel room, so I had to own it.
Getting to my first job. So, I was very blessed and fortunate that my family new a very good attorney and my parents had the ability to pay for since I was an 18-year-old know nothing that did not have 5k to try to get my ass out of trouble. I’ll hear it now from all the privilege folks, but my dad had the privilege of working 2 full time jobs to have 5k to help is moron son at the time. So, all you folks can save the privilege talk.
So, fast forwarding, my attorney did an amazing job and exposed some lies that the officer made, and I escaped the DUI with just an underage drinking charge. This I was guilty of and gladly accepted. This did not come for free.
We had a masonry concrete business at the time. Hard skilled labor. So, in return for my old man putting up the 5k, I worked doing manual labor free for 3 plus months to repay him. I consider myself very fortunate to be given this option but that still did not solve my money problem. No paycheck for me at the end of the 40-to-50-hour week. I still wanted some cash in my pocket. This is where the journey begins…
So, I saw an Italian restaurant in Sprinklefield that was looking for a part time busboy. I got the job and hence started my love hate addiction to the bar and restaurant industry. This is where it all began, if I never left that hotel room my life would probably be very different. I do believe that if I never left that room, I would not have met my amazing wife roughly 17 years later. That is the crazy ride that we are on in this life. Our ride is Thunder Mountain, highly recommended.
Well, this job was not high paying but at least I had a little cash in my pocket at the end of the week to afford some cigarettes, well and beer of course. No, I didn’t learn my lesson yet. But this job started an on and off 20 plus year journey in the hospitality industry, mostly bars and restaurants, having every job from bus boy to managing partner of my own wine bistro for a long couple years.
One thing I learned off the bat is there are many good people that work in this industry but there are also a lot of scumbags. A lot of “one way mother fuckers” as we would call them. Selfish and only care about themselves. Majority of my rants reflect customer behavior, but I also have some rants about hospitality professionals. It’s a two way street.
We all need to better. As patrons or visitors to restaurants or any other hospitality situation we need to be better as folks that work in these industries that are hospitality pros we can be better as well. There are many things that we know as customers we should not do when we decided to visit a bar restaurant, tasing room, supermarket, whatever it may be. And I think we all can learn from this.
Sometimes you must know what not to do to get better as humans and treat everyone with the same amount of respect you want to be treated. It can’t be all rah rah positivity, you’re the best Johnny, you can’t do anything wrong. You’ll do better next time. No, sometimes we must know that this is not appropriate and certain behaviors in the hospitality setting need to be called out. It is not just one way in this business. This goes for the hospitality pros as well.
There are many things that I observe and have probably done some of these things myself working where I can do better, and we all can do better. And I think if both the customer and the hospitality professionals can be cognizant of some of the human behaviors that are not appropriate in these settings it will be a much better experience for everyone. To quote one of my favorite movies, Rocky 4, “If I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!” Take two and half minutes out of your life and watch the clip.
I think this clip sums up how we can all make the hospitality experience better for both the customers of the works. My goal here is to talk about the elephant in the room. Let’s have the conversation. Let’s treat people better.
So, with the premise in mind of improving self-awareness from the viewpoint of human behavior in the hospitality setting both from customers and from workers perspective. Moving forward with my blog posts, you tube videos, and hopefully future book and podcast. I think these are issues that can be discussed on a regular basis. By being aware of what not to do, we all can learn what to do.
I hope you will enjoy my stories and observations from this world and this prospective to help make something that I have a deep passion for a better place. Let’s make the hospitality experience better for everyone.
I am not sure yet how this will evolve but I look forward to reading your comments and sharing your stories as well.
Welcome are all folks who work in hospitality with some of your observations and from customers who have had bad experiences with hospitality workers. I think by having this open dialogue, we can be better people with some more understanding and prospective.
