Worst service night I've had in 8 years, still not over it

Last Saturday we got slammed with a 40 top walk-in at 7pm and the expo screen froze right in the middle of tickets. I had 3 pastas sent back cold, one steak overcooked twice, and a customer actually asked me if we were running a kitchen or a circus. The worst part was my new line cook froze up and just stared at the tickets for a solid five minutes. Has anyone else had a tech failure completely tank a service, and how do you keep the crew from losing their heads when the system goes down?

1 comments

1 Comment

cameron_owens4924d ago

Buddy of mine had this exact thing happen at his place, a whole table's tickets vanished from the screen mid-rush. He said the new guy just walked to the back and started crying in the dry storage. They ended up writing everything on a whiteboard with a sharpie, and the owner had to run the window himself. Took them an hour to dig out and the walkouts were brutal, like three tables just ghosted. He still gets twitchy when the Wi-Fi blips, and now they keep a paper pad by the pass at all times. How'd your new cook do after the freeze?