Someday, someone will read this.

X X, the regional manager in charge of several Philadelphia-area CHAIN, has been in the service industry for most of his life, just like our general manager, X X X, who is handing us each a small packet. It’s the summer of 2009, and half of the serving staff is gathered in the front of the empty dining room to hear the managers’ “pep talk”. X X’s a busy man and his message is straightforward. In the face of recession economics, food deals and meal specials aren’t going to be enough: customer service will be what makes the difference. Both men have seen the ebb and flow of the economy and the effect it has on restaurants, and both are serious about the changes our staff is going to make. I glance at the few pages of bulleted lists in my hand, which are all things we’re supposed to do anyway. Greet the guest within thirty seconds. Check that the guests’ food is hot and satisfactory within two minutes. Automatically refill any cup that’s half empty. Thank them for coming in and invite them to come back. Of course, on a busy night all of these things are hard to do. But, X X emphasizes that the extra service will go a long way, both for the reputation of the establishment and more importantly for our tips. He goes on to warn us of a zero-tolerance policy that will take effect in favor of guest complaints: if the service is bad, you’re losing your job. I glance at James, a Temple student who lives three blocks up the street, and Nam, who graduated last year but commutes here from Fourth and South five nights a week. We all get a little nervous.
This is at the debut of the chain’s “SUPERDUPER” insert, its first foray into wallet-saving specials that have become staples of every casual-dining ad for the last six months. The draw of a more moderately priced entrée, despite its reduced portion size, attracts some attention from our regular customer base, which is happier with the price than it is with the selection available to it. Business is business. In the summer of ‘09, BIGAZZ COMPANY, which operates CHAIN in addition to ANOTHER CHAIN and ANOTHER CHAIN, began tampering with the hardy but somewhat bland menu to give it more appeal: a new look here, as with the CHICKEN MENU ITEM; a new taste there with the OTHER MENU ITEM, which was just the old MENU ITEM sans A PARTICULAR THING. The serving staff, meanwhile, some twenty strong at our establishment, and the Back-of-House, the fifteen cooks, struggle as one to learn the corporation’s experimental menu changes in a timely fashion. On a busy Friday night the line can get just about any ticket out in twenty minutes or less, but tonight there are quality standards that bog the cooks down as they constantly cite the guidelines for each new setup. And of course, since it’s new, they have a lot of these dishes to make.
Our waiters aren’t faring much better. While we are consciously improving our service the availability of food at a cheaper price makes for smaller checks, and customers certainly aren’t saving money so they can leave bigger tips. It’s disheartening to an individual who already struggles with the ingratiating nature of an otherwise convenient job.
A bartender with one ear constantly tuned to the television, I’m aware of only a few major news pieces that distract the nation’s talking heads from the reality of our economic recession, and Michael Jackson’s death only lasts for a week on CNN before being displaced with morbidly daily updates on massive layoffs and clinching foreclosures. Traffic at our location crawls to a stop; this is common in the summer, when GODDAMNED SCHOOL and the GOSHDARNED SCHOOL shut down and our greater customer base flocks away from the campuses. But X X and X X X are restlessly aware of the fact that, in order to cling to what little business we still claim, we need to step up our efforts. X X is giving this talk to every CHAIN staff he is responsible for: across the nation, in thousands of restaurants, servers just like James and Nam and I are getting the same lecture.
CHAIN is not the only casual dining chain that has felt the pressure of tight personal budgeting take business away from its doors, and is not the only company that struggles internally with the burden of high food and labor costs. An unprecedented wave of uneasy menu specials has descended as the general response to declining customer inclinations. CHAIN, CHAIN, and CHAIN itself have been groveling to television viewers with some variation on a two-or-three meal course for $20, and stoic, higher-end establishments like EXPENSIVE CHAIN, EXPENSIVE CHAIN and EXPENSIVE CHAIN have gotten in on the deals, too.
What these specials represent is the particular restaurant’s capacity to sell its regular fare at a deceivingly low price. CHAIN'S popular (and recently discontinued) SUPERDUPER option made available to the customer a small FOOD, two select FOOD, and a FOOD, for the total cost of $--.-- (includes tax, but not drinks). This same check, sans the special price, averages a minimum of $--, meaning that for each meal deal the restaurant wheels it is not making the additional ten dollars that once barely covered the inherent food and labor costs in the first place.
The situation is lose-win. The irresistibility of familiar food at such a value is a draw to customers, without which it doesn’t really matter how much the restaurant isn’t making. Some chains, EXPENSIVE CHAIN notably among them, figured out early in the recession that compression is key to turning a profit during tough times: at our CHAIN this is already a regular practice, particularly during the dry season. Waiters bus their own tables nightly and take-out is handled at the bar; more often than not the host, which sucks up seven or eight dollars per hour, is asked to go home, her duties covered by the manager in lieu of any available server. An expeditor hasn’t worked the line here in almost a year.
But, for the sake of saving face, how far is going too far? If there is no one to run food when the servers are stretched thin over so many duties, the $-- -deal courses stack up under the heat lamps and reach the table dry or hardened. At this particular CHAIN the waitstaff has experience handling so much at once, where its summer model has laid groundwork for recession-minded politics. In other chains, a cut expo here, or a busser less there, makes a deeper impact in the FOH’s ability to operate smoothly and efficiently. A mid-week visit to a restaurant as confident as EXPENSIVE CHAIN reveals twenty-minute waits on beer and lingering ticket times as the server struggles to manage a few extras duties at once.
This isn’t to say that our own cost-cutting efficiencies are perfected, either. The stress placed on both the serving staff and kitchen to ensure a pleasant experience for all guests is a tough burden to carry, especially on the employees who already carry a lot of weight. James and Nam have both been serving at this CHAIN for over two years apiece, and in lighter times the occasional complaint raised against one or the other was treated strictly, but with a degree of understanding. In the months following X X’s talk, both are going be fired, on separate occasions: James for being named offhand in a letter that reaches the corporate office, and Nam for a difficult customer’s unavoidably bad experience.
CHAIN, and its peers and competitions, are by virtue of their branding seemingly affixed venues of our times and culture. But, each unit is still an individualized part of the whole. You can—and should—expect decent food and good service from any one of these places that becomes your evening’s destination. Bear in mind, however, that the familiar logo and inviting color scheme of your local chain restaurant is not immunized by some respective corporate vaccine. We are trying our best, but this level we are all in this together. Appreciate that your patronage is being goaded with an enticing, if limited meal special; understand that no self-respecting restaurant might be so understaffed for a legitimate reason; enjoy the time you’re spending off your feet while somebody else is working for you. Servers and cooks have bills too, and at $2.85 an hour, any given server is not exactly looking to discourage a tip. Especially in this economy.