Clean your plate or someone else will…

I have been in the restaurant business since I was 14 years old and that was a long time ago! In this blog I want to share interesting, weird, informative, stories about my life in and out of the restaurant business.

So the bus boy or server clears your table, so what happens to everything? I know that is a crazy question but most restaurants wipe the plates and wash the dishes BUT…

That is not what always happen!!! All the leftovers don’t always go in the trash.

The Obvious

You would be surprised what the crew will eat off cleared plates. This is mainly the front of the house, servers, buses, Bartenders, runners, and even managers.

Kitchen people don’t scavenge! The old saying is “if you work in the kitchen and you’re hungry you’re stupid” plus there is a big big difference between the “front of the house” and the “back of the house” which I will post soon. They usually dislike each other which is good!!

Ok! I can understand eating an untouched piece of pizza no actually I can’t. Some front of the house folks will eat anything. Steak! Yes! They just cut off the untouched portion, sandwich halves? Yum! The main thing they ate were leftover fries. YUCK!

There was always food stashed in the wait station. I always thought it was gross but I did eat leftovers once, no twice. One of my first jobs as a busser was at a restaurant that was a nice place that served cottage fries with cheese dip to every table like a bread basket.

I loved those fries and cheese, I was 15 years old so I indulged, but that habit didn’t last long after witnessing double dips and children’s putting their fingers in the cheese after their nose.

Plus, if a table only ate a little cheese sauce it was reheated and reserved. Yes they did!

Three Quick Gross Outs!

1.Donna, the Bus Tub, and the Pickle

It all started at the Purple Onion when I was 15, not really I actually worked a week at a Baskin Robbins when I was 14. In Michigan you can work dairy when you are 14.

I was hired as a dishwasher for the evening shift which was slow.

The restaurant was in a little boutique mall that had a butcher, fish vendor, bakery, Gyro shop, liquor store and a head shop. What more do you need? The whole mall was awesome with the smell of patchouli wafting through the air.

The head cook (Dave) and I would get a steak from the butcher and beer from the liquor store (yes we were underage) and we would sit around all night eating, drinking, playing cards, and pranking the servers.

“Who put the raw egg in the microwave?”

Donna was the night manager. I liked Donna but Donna was extremely frugal.

Many a time did Donna come back to the dishwashing station and grab a half of an uneaten sandwich out of the bus tub, dust it off and eat it.

Many servers will pick food off dirty plates but a manager eating out of the bus tub?!!!

Gross but here is the grosser, is that a word, thing that she did!!

Most people didn’t eat their pickles and Donna thought that was such a waste. She put a little pan in my station with pickle juice to save the pickles to reserve.

Pickle spears floating in spilled coffee in the bottom of the bus tub. Yep! Just rinse it off and into the pickle juice. It was to disgusting for me to do so I put fresh pickles in the juice so when Donna checked on me she was happy.

2.The Bread Basket and Butter

Bread is expensive and great bread is very expensive. Owning a restaurant is a tough business and the margins are tight. Most restaurants buy their bread.

That being said,I am not making excuses for the restaurant business but many restaurants just refreshed the old bread basket with a couple new pieces and it goes out to a new table.

Yum Yum!! So you could actually a have a piece or more of bread in the basket that has been to many tables.

This isn’t as common as it used to be because many restaurants are charging for the bread.

I never did this and was often hesitant to eat bread at some restaurants.

So gross, as I see someone blow their nose in the napkin and set it on the table (a pet peeve) then go digging around the bread basket while coughing.

This one sounds gross but at least they kill the bacteria.

So all the butter filled ramekins come back to the kitchen and many chefs have a dump bucket for the leftover butter. Butter is expensive!

Many Chefs clarify the dump butter. Clarified butter is a is the preferred oil/fat on the sauté line. It makes everything taste better and after the clarification the butter has a much higher burning point. Interesting read.

3.Mmm…! Chips and Salsa!

Salsa and Chips Free!! Yes!!!! High Fives!!!

Not so fast buster!

See the table to your left leaving with 3 kids and one is picking their nose!

Well a lot of small indie Mexican restaurants have dumps for the salsa and chips just inside the kitchen door. Then they are reserved!!

No way!! Yes way! I have worked in two different Mexican restaurants (one was my cheap brothers) that did this.

Restaurant owner are alway trying to cut food cost, it is a rough business.

I will post about the one Mexican restaurant soon. The owner bragged about 21% food cost. But… stay tuned

Just a note… Is this your friend or family

I don’t like eating dips with my family. My brother double dips, my brother and dad lick their fingers. Mom at least turns chip around for the double dip.

Then another table gets it.

Check out these other restaurant stories

The Well Done Steak! Well Done!

Don’t be embarrassed. The cheaper wine is good!