If you can’t wait, go home to your kitchen

“Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.” – Proverbs 14:29

Fer Cripes sake -- Kwitcherbellyachin’!

You know who you are… The pair of old farts raising Cain with the 16-year-old at the Mac & Don’s counter because he’d given you one maple syrup packet and you wanted two…

And you, the jerk who stiffed the college student pulling an extra part-time shift because the kitchen was slow and the bartender was backed up so she didn’t get you your beer and Buffalo wings as expeditiously as you would prefer…

And all you self-important fools lecturing managers, owners and franchisees on how to run their business even though you’ve never served a drink, flipped a burger or bussed a table in your entire comfortably privileged lives…

Yeah, you. Shut up. Sit down. Or go home and cook your own supper.

I’m fed up with you and I only eat in restaurants. I fear your lives would be in danger if I worked there and had easy access to large kitchen knives…

Now, I tend to frequent a number of bars, bistros and greasy spoons, mostly because I enjoy eating things I’d rather not cook and because there’s no practical way I can keep a dozen or so different kegs of beer in my kitchen fridge. It’s pretty clear from my seat in a booth or at the bar that this pandemic has taken a toll. Folks that worked there two years ago aren’t working there anymore and finding people to fill their aprons is proving a challenge. Almost everywhere I go there are fewer people doing more things with less experience than before we’d heard of COVID 19.

That means things are different.

For instance, I dropped by one of my favorite places a few days ago. It was a reasonably busy night and there were two servers and one cook covering a 20-foot bar, a dozen or so tables, some outside seating, and a steady run of carry-out orders to boot. Quiet frankly, the wait was long, but the beer was cold and the food was good. I left happy and look forward to being back.

After working a good number of years in the kitchen and behind the bar, I could see what they were up against. They did good. Sometimes things just take a while.

And, by the way, the management rather proactively put a little notice on the menu board and on each table reminding the clientele that good things come to those who wait and patience is a virtue. That night, at least, it seemed folks were taking that message to heart.

But too often that’s the exception, rather than the rule. Time was when eating a meal away from home was a treat, a reasonably big deal. But of late it’s become a commonplace thing to have someone else cook our food, wash our dishes and thank us copiously for the privilege.  Consequently, all too often, otherwise ordinary folks seem to feel that an order for a couple of double cheeseburgers and fries entitles them to take on airs like they’re Marie Antoinette or the Shah of Iran – entitled to have the lower orders at their beck and call and to offer up abuse at their slightest displeasure. Somehow these tinfoil tyrants think if they can get the server fired or get the cook to quit they’ve accomplished great things; proved again that the customer is always right – after showing the world they’re an arrogant arse who we can all do without. Impatient, impolite, insulting, they raise a stink and we all have to smell it.

Really, if you can’t stand the wait, go home to your kitchen.