The Dinner Rush

I started my first day in the middle of a hectic dinner rush. I was learning how to be an assistant waiter in a restaurant onboard called Skyline.  I shadowed a coworker, let's call her Anna, as she rushed from the kitchen through the automatic doors and into the dining room. A band wearing tuxedos was playing non-denominational Christmas tunes. The spacious room was filled with the smooth sounds of a saxophone solo. True to its name, the decor was urban themed. Skyscraper pillars held the ceiling in place. The walls, too, were covered with simplistic paintings of really tall buildings. The tables, over one hundred of them, were draped with white tablecloths.

Anna hurriedly pointed out where everything was located in the server side stand, but I struggled to comprehend her Chinese-accented English over the melody of "Jingle Bells." She grabbed two hot plates and balanced a third on her forearm and set them in front of guests all the while telling me to serve from the right and to never call out a dish. When the head waiter takes the order, he numbers each guest. The one facing the door is number one, and then you proceed clockwise. Women's orders are circled. Children's entrees are confined within a triangle.

I was still trying to remember so many details, like where the bread is stored. Where do I find the water glasses? When is it acceptable to clear a table with a tray in my hand? The side stands consist of two shelves in the shape of an equal sign. The side labeled SOILED is where we store dirty dishes arranged on oval trays. We land clean glasses and food on the CLEAN side. The waiters maneuver in the space between. 

We all bump into each other, yell out "Landing!" before setting down a tray, and lightly tap each other's backs to let them know we are behind them. Drawers full of silverware, sugar caddies, butter dishes, and wine glasses are flung open. Then there are separate compartments for square tablecloths and round tablecloths for 2-tops, 4-tops, 6-tops, 8-tops, and the captains table. Several of my fellow waiters moved around me in balletic fashion. I was trying to stay out of the way while trying to familiarize myself with this new environment, but there was no time for that. Anna was scurrying back to the humongous kitchen, a cavernous maw of ridiculous scale. 

We don't have to kick the doors down; they swing open automatically. Inside the first room is the beverage station and beyond that is the bartender's domain. She works behind a cage and makes drinks for the servers to run to their tables. The ability to create small talk isn't essential here. 

Just to the left is the dish pit. There are three bins full of tepid, greenish water. Each one is designed to soak spoons, knives, and forks. Someone's job is to muck silverware, which means separate everything and load it into smaller rack. This is actually the sole responsibility of an unfortunate employee who does this for five hours each day for five months straight. If you hate your job, know that others have it a lot worse than you, and they only make a little more than seven dollars an hour. 

At the dish pit, there's a shelf to land trays, and beneath the ledge is a yellow bin and a blue bin. I'm smooshed between the mucker and two other servers who are shoving plates toward the dishwasher and then jamming water glasses into empty racks to the right. I try to move quickly but I'm deciding whether or not the butter is wrapped in a paper product or plastic. Where do I put the teapots, the ice cream dishes, the martini glasses? There's a spot for everything, but all my coworkers come up with different answers. Most advise me to put it anywhere I please, and then run away. 

The dishwashers across from me are drenched with sweat. Their hands move faster than a rock and roll drummer as they become engulfed by a cloud of steam erupting from the dish machine, a conveyer belt long enough to house a Harley Davidson. The water heats up past 180 degrees and emerges on the other side, where one guy organizes the disparate elements onto a stainless steel counter and another guy transports everything into the correct cubbyholes. 

Beyond the clean dishes lies the soup station, where frantic waiters ladle steaming French onion and burn their palms in the process. A restless pastry assistant behind them scoops ice cream from massive drums. She has the best job in the whole restaurant. Both the ice cream and soup are conveniently placed to the exit route that consists of one 90 degree corner, a popular spot to collide with a waiter carrying a tray full of wine glasses. 

We are just getting started here on this tour through the kitchen. Past the sherbet and sorbet the floor opens up into an assembly line, a cafeteria, or the trenches of war depending on your perspective.

To my right cold food like salads, fruit plates, and salmon tartare sit atop frosty beds or in refrigerated drawers. Salad preps continuously fill plates with greenery. On the opposite side lies a squadron of line cooks who are each responsible for a different dish. Signs with a name and picture of the dish hang above their stations. Hardly any of them ever smile. Mostly they stare menacingly, daring you to ask for a modified order.

Anna grabs a clean oval tray near the soup bowls and reads orders from a slip of paper she tucked into her shirt pocket. She needs a salmon, two chef's specials, a rack of lamb, and a New York strip cooked medium but the sour cream on the baked potato was 86'd. 

"You put the steak order in when you get your appetizers," Anna said while slamming her tray down onto the ledge across from the cook's station. Behind the line stood a tall, unsmiling black man lifting salmon fillets onto plates with a spatula. 

"I need one salmon," Anna said to the cook. She turned to me and said, "If you need an entree, you just go to the cook who is making that entree and tell him how many you need."

There are no tickets ceaselessly screeching and spewing out of printers. Head waiters use the Micros POS system to order wine and mixed drinks, but the food has already been paid for when he guests purchased their cruise package. Skyline is a complimentary restaurant, so there is no need to spend any money. Everything is charged to the room cards. No cash is exchanged except for tips. The only thing a guest must pay for in this restaurant is booze. 

As a result of this process, assistant waiters must join a queue behind their coworkers and yell out how many salmons you need when the cook acknowledges that it is your turn to order.  So we must wait in the steamy kitchen for the food to be cooked. And the lines get can get extremely long because these cooks prepare dishes for two restaurants:  Skyline and Liberty. Liberty is a more formal restaurant located upstairs. The waiters have to transport their loads up an escalator to reach their dining room.

When the cook places the finished dish onto the counter under the heaters, Anna grabs the hot plate without flinching and loads it onto her tray. She places a plastic dome atop the fish to keep the meal warm. Then she rounds up the lamb, the steak, and the two specials and stacks those on top of each other. 

When she lifts all her entrees, her tray resembles a skyline with buildings of varying heights, except these are poorly constructed and sway and threaten to topple over. She must balance the heavy load and maintain her own balance as well. Did I mention the ship was moving? When we are out at sea, the waters can be rough during storms, which makes the floor bounce as we are pummeled by forceful waves. The room suddenly goes crooked. The floor slants, and you find yourself walking slightly uphill and then immediately downhill. 

You don't want to drop your tray and smash the plates on the ground. Now the guests will wonder what is taking so long. Your head waiter will grow impatient because he's basically staring at the guests looking neglectful with nothing in his hands. The cooks will be cranky you must ask for the same order again, and you'll have to wait in line again for anther ten minutes. 

By that time, you'll probably be sat again because the hostess has grown apathetic and pushes buttons randomly on a computer, which means you're getting a family of six that someone less busy should have gotten. So now that's eighteen people who expect to be fed within thirty minutes. Over 800 guests have walked through the doors tonight, and some of them are cranky, tired, sunburned and seasick. The entire space is filled with pandemonium, but that is just another Saturday night.