The 22 Ways Table 28 Annoyed Me During Restaurant Week

It’s Restaurant Week in my Queens neighborhood and I just had my ass handed to me on a tray. Unsurprisingly, the tray hadn’t been wiped down in two weeks and it’s sticky on both sides. For those of you not in the know, Restaurant Week is when a group of restaurants offer special deals to entice customers to come out to eat. Usually, it’s a prix fixe menu and it brings out the dregs of humanity who are looking for a good deal. This night, every single table in the place is full and since global warming is a thing, the patio is full too even though it’s October on the east coast. I am in the weeds for about two hours straight. A group of women come in and I instantly know I will be writing a blog post about them.

The 22 Ways They Annoyed Me

1. Four of them show up claiming to be a 9-top and want to be seated immediately even though the restaurant is bursting at the seamsjust like a Kardashian in a pair of leather pants.
2. They take five minutes deciding whether to sit inside or outside. Either way means I will be moving tables together.
3. After I get the table ready, they decide to wait at the bar until the rest of the group gets here, so now I have four tables that are as useless as the Spanx one of them is wearing.
4. After a few minutes, they decide to go ahead and be seated, two of them already having drinks from the bar and two of them deciding to order their drinks at two different times making me walk back and forth far too often. And of course one of them wants to taste the wine before ordering it.
5. They can’t comprehend the Restaurant Week menu and have me explain it to them. Two times.
6. The four decide to order since they don’t know when the rest of the group will get here.
7. Another shows up and is ready for a drink but not food.
8. Another shows up ten minutes later and orders a drink but doesn’t want to order dinner so that half of them can eat together, guaranteeing they will be here twice as long as they should be.
9. Now she does want to order some fries since four out of the six are already eating.
10. One of them tells me their friend has called and is almost there and wants to order a tequila and Sprite with lime so it’s there waiting for her. “But she’s not here yet. You want it now?” I ask. She does so I decide to rush it and I have it at the table within 90 seconds knowing that the humidity and warm air will cause the drink to be watered down and nasty by the time the friend arrives. The friend gets there eight minutes later and I notice the drink is sufficiently crappy.
11. The first four women are on the entree course. The one who wanted to taste the wine is unhappy with her medium steak because it has pink in it. She sends it back. It is re-fired. It’s still too pink, even though it is now medium well. She sends it back again. “Just burn the mother fucker,” I tell the cook. “Bitch doesn’t know what medium means.” When i give it to her the third time she looks at it and says, “It’ll do.” I hate her.
12. The “9-top” is still only a 7-top and I could really use that extra table, but they are spread out all over it like mayonnaise on white bread.
13. The one with the steak wants me to wrap it up now. They are all ordering drinks one at a time instead of as a group forcing me to give them more attention and time than any of my other tables.
14. It starts to drizzle so they ask to move inside. Luckily, there are tables available that I hastily pull together and let them know they can move inside, but the rain has now stopped. “Can’t you just open the umbrellas if it starts again?” one asks. “No, they provide shade during the day, but they’re not big enough to cover all the tables from rain.” With that, she looks as sad and dejected as her friend’s ass does in the Spanx.
15. It starts to rain again, so they waddle inside.
16. It’s official: it’s only going to be the seven of them. They have been here for two hours already.
17. More drinks, all at different times. One wants decaf because of course she does.
18. They are getting louder and more obnoxious, irritating other customers.
19. They continue to drink and finish their dessert, the latecomers deciding to not order any food at all.
20. The one who sent her steak back, gets my attention and hands me a credit card. “This is for just me,” she says. No, that’s not how it works. “You’re all on one check,” I say. “I’ll get it and you can tell me how much to put on your card.”
21. They spend an insane amount of time figuring out the check. I feel certain I will get screwed.
22. They give me three credit cards. “Both of these will be for $60 and this one will take the balance.” I know how this is going to work: the two cards with $60 had already factored in their tip, but the one with the balance is going to only tip on what goes onto the card. It always happens that way. I run the cards and hope for the best.

The One Way They Did Not Annoy Me

1. They tipped me 22%!