Customers steal. I don't really know why, or really how, or what the purpose of having odd cutlery in your household is. But they take. We lose so much money on stolen forks, spoons and chopsticks.
It's a gradual thing. Once upon a time we would have enough cutlery to set up all the tables and a second round, no problems. Now we have to hope that the kitchen staff aren't too busy when we run out of cutlery so that we can get then washed, wiped and set in time for a second round. It's painful, but no matter how many times we replace spoons and forks people will take them.
And if people aren't taking them, where do they go? Some deep dark black hole out the back?
Due to amount of stolen cutlery we now have three sets of different forks and spoons because we can't seem to find the same set to replace the old set. So when it comes to setting up tables, it's a case of making sure that we pick the same set of forks and spoons so that it doesn't look like WE have odd cutlery (when in fact we actually do).
Then there's chopsticks. Children are always intent on taking them home with them. They have this facination with chopsticks, they can't use them, so they must take them home and use them as drumsticks. The unbelievable thing is that the parents let the children take them home. So maybe this is where the stealing cutlery starts from, when they were young it was okay to just take any old cutlery home even if it meant stealing.
We are currently using plastic chopsticks. These are reused like all the other cutlery in the restaurant. I know of other restaurants that use wooden chopsticks. One use and they throw them out. Why? Because its cheaper to buy disposable chopsticks then to maintain plastic ones that continuously walk out the door.
Vases and salt and pepper shakers are also key items that seem to catch people's eye. They aren't anything fancy yet people just can't seem to get enough of it. Just because customers pay for the food and service I hardly think that means that anything on the table belongs to them as well. This is not a all-you-can-take restaurant.
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There is a 15 people booking tonight.
This always turns out to be a much more interesting night than usual.
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1 comment:
I worked in restaurants for years - and although I can't speak to the chopsticks - I know for a fact that most of our silverware that disappeared ended up in the trash - not stolen.
It just seemed that when the bussers, servers or dishwasher dumped the plates they missed an errant spoon or fork.
I know that no one wants to do it but if you go through your garbage on a busy Friday night you would be surprised how many pieces you find.
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