For restaurants, Valentine’s Day ranks with New Year’s Eve as one of the busiest night of the year. The horrible weather the Northeast and Midwest experienced today meant many couples stayed home and had candlelight dinners and thats because they’re snowbound and without power! I’m sure nine months from now the maternity wards will be hopping.
I wasn’t working tonight but I’m curious how restaurants and waiters fared in the inclement weather zones. Write in the comments section how your night went. Was your restaurant busy or dead? Bad tips? Owner suicidal? Let us know!
Sorry I haven’t been posting lately. I’ve been very busy. Working on the book and other things. I’ll explain the other things in good time.
Happy Valentines Day everybody!
I worked as a bartender at a major airport in the great lakes region at that time. Out of 9 bars in the airport mine was the only one open from 6am to noon. All flights delayed till evening. Worked my a** off but made the best money of my life that day. On the way home spent half my tips on booze, one nice 18 year old scotch, and got drunk for the rest of my 2 days off. The best hangover ever!
P.S I did buy other booze than the scotch by the way. Sorry I’ve been drinking since my shift ended today.
eF4EpQoAeZkBp
“I’m sure nine months from now the maternity wards will be hopping.” funny thing is, at least for my husband and I, that’s TRUE! our youngest daughter was born Nov 15, 2007. 9 months after V-day.
that day was horrendous. I remember trying to drive home from my housekeeping job only to wish I would have just asked my boss if i could find a place to stay the night half way home. My normal 15 minute drive home took me two hours, and three fishtails, at 8 MPH.
I’m late in with this one but one of the other waiters told me this story last Valentines day. A couple years ago, a couple who’d made a reservation weeks beforehand came in for dinner. They ordered a bottle of wine, starters and mains. Before the starters even came out they were arguing and the man got up and left. The woman started quietly crying, so T (the waiter who told me this) went over and asked her what was wrong. Turns out the guy had dumped her two hours before they’d come in but he didn’t want to cancel the reservation. He’d paid the bill before he left, so the maitre d’ sat down and had dinner with her. She ended up spending the night chatting with the bartenders and ended up going home with another guy she met there.
I know I’m late with this, but I remember that Valentine’s Day vividly. At the time I worked part time as a busser and part time as a sales clerk in the mall. I was at my bussing job on the 13th, and we didn’t expect much business, but apparently everyone wanted to go out before the storm REALLY hit, and we were at capacity. This was a HUGE restaurant with 5 separate dining rooms, and I was the only busser in the building (on busy nights, we usually had 5 or 6). If there was a single moment when a hostess, manager, or server was not screaming in my ear, I don’t remember it. They had me running in circles carrying up to 4 bus buckets stacked on top of each other – and, in case I hadn’t mentioned, I’m a 100 pound girl. It was hell, but I ended up making $300 in my tip-out. It was better than I ever make as a waitress now.
On V-Day the storm got bad, but the mall didn’t close so I went to my sales job anyway. No one in the state was going to the mall, so my manager bought us a ton of candy from the CVS and we sat on the floor eating chocolate and writing up our own application with all the questions we wished we could really ask potential employess – I’m sure you can imagine. It was like a vacation.
Love your blog – you’re an inspiration.
This web site really has all the information I
needed about this subject and didn’t know who to ask.