A Tale from a My Career in the Restaurant Industry
The week of Fourth of July is the slowest week of the year for any restaurant that is not on the beach. This is also the time of the year where the front of the house staff is there the latest and works the hardest. Many managers like to impose the spring cleanings of all cleanings on their staff. They give you “motivations” such as “The health inspector will be here this week, and we need to make sure that everything is perfect.” The fact of the matter is that the health inspector is always lurking around the corner. He or she is always coming “this week.”
One Tuesday night, I was closing the bar. It was slow (being the week of the Fourth of July), so we decided to close early. “Awesome!” I think to myself, “I can maybe catch a few drinks at my favorite local dive bar.” Nope. One of the managers tells me that we are to stay late and not only clean the bar (which we do every night), but detail the bar.
Now I don’t know how many of you have been behind a bar, but do you realize how many things are back there? There are liquors a plenty to make every drink known to man (and some that we have made up along the way), bar towels, a variety of juices, menus (five different ones to be exact), beer, wine, glassware, muddlers, jiggers, extra pour spouts, cigarettes (this is Virginia mind you), sliced fruit, frozen drink mixers, half-and-half, whipped cream, a blender, and not to mention all of our personal crap that piles up in the cubbies. All of this crammed into a ten-foot by three-foot bar. With three bartenders and a barback, how does anyone get anything done? Well being that it is a slow night. There is only myself and my barback.
After I kick out the last remaining customers (politely of course), the barback and I begin pulling everything out of the bar. We cover it in a number of cleaning products, hose it out, and begin creating a giant pile of dirty bar towels by wiping everything off. Then we wipe down all the bottles, throw out the fruit, scrub the floor mats, and proceed to put everything back. By the time all is said and done, it is now 2 o’clock in the morning and I have already missed last call.
Cranky, hungry, and thirsty I drive home. I manage to polish off the bottle of wine left over from the night before. I crawl into bed next to my already passed out boyfriend and fall asleep reminding myself, “I hate the Fourth of July.”
XOXO Jenna
*written 9.6.2009
