” MANAGERS BEWARE & FOH STAFF “
Establishment: Crustaceans
Location: Beverly Hills
Ok I am a restaurant manager who grew up in this business which I love with a passion. I started out from the bottom, as a dishwasher then busser, etc. Well I have been out of work since February of this year till now. I was hired for this place as the bar/service manager, they asked me to come in for the weekend and try it out, which of course I did, and I need a job! I arrived there at 3 pm on Friday excepting to have a grand tour of the place getting to meet people and so on. They introduced me to the wine director which is a really good manager I might add, so he started to give me the quick tour of the the place. I caught on quick that he was over worked and he looked all stressed out, not a good sign all ready? We chit chatted really quick where I have I worked before and so on, after getting the quick tour of the place one of the owner’s comes in and hands me a contract and explains to me that I will be getting paid per shift a certain amount of money. I read it over and was ok no worries that’s fine I have done it before, she said that my back ground check still has not come in, now mind you people it’s been a week since they started my back ground check, I have done background checks on people and it takes about 2 to 3 days max. So I signed any ways, well I start to meet the staff and you know how it is when you meet new servers and so on, I tell them my back ground and they all look at me with this look of what are you doing here, kind of funny? Well I get introduced to the other two mangers, one who is the host stand manger, never heard that one before and the other guy is the vip manager, whatever that means?? They seem pretty cool I guess, so the night begins I go to look at the book to see how many resos we have for tonight 380, I was like wow we are going to be busy! I ask the lead hostess to explain how there system works, I am use to open table they had some other type of system. So I see what are peak times are going to be, well between 730 and 8 we have about 120 people and between 8 and 830 another 120 people, RED FLAG!!! In my mind I was like are you serious, well it’s my first day and I am just hear to observe the night, I don’t want to say anything at all. So I ask how many servers are on for tonight they tell me that on the bottom floor we have 6 and in the upstairs we have 4 servers, bussers we have 4 down stairs and 2 up stairs, nice. Now mind you we are in Beverly Hills’ and we are supposed to be a fine dining restaurant, so the night begins, I mean the “CHAOS “begins! So everyone gets slammed the host stand looks like the DMV in Hollywood when there system goes down, I mean just a mob of people wanting to get seated, I look to see if the host stand manger is there trying to resolve the issues up there, he is no where to be found, I look for the vip manager and he is on his iphone texting I turn around and look again and the host manger is doing the same thing! I go to try and help a server out and I come back to see if the mangers are helping out at the host stand, they were still texting and this pretty much went on for the whole night! Will now the place is packed the bar is full and the restaurant is full and everyone is running like chickens with their head cut off, I go upstairs to see how things are going, I see a server and I ask him if he is ok, he looks like he is about to drop dead. I ask him what is your station, he tells me, and I see that he has a party of 22 people, the private party room with 16 people plus 4 tables of 4 people??? I asked him who is helping you, he looked at me like I was crazy and he said no one, this is how it is here he said, poor guy I really felt bad for him so I started to help him in whatever I could you know, it’s only my first day? After that I see that everyone has more than 6 table’s parties everywhere, so I jump in the mix and try to help everyone out as much as I can. Well the night comes to a end I am tired the servers look like they went through hell, everyone is thanking me for helping them tonight, I told them I am here to help it’s my job. I go to the front desk and load and behold what do I see, both mangers are still on their phones texting??? One comes up to me and says it was a busy night and that he is tired and all, in my mind I am like, from what texting all night long! Well one of the owners comes to me and says that tomorrow she wants me in at 3 again; she asked me what did I see that needs improvement? Well the next night is the same thing chaos, Sunday same thing chaos. Finally it is Monday and I am in early in the morning, we sit down and I tell her that what I am going to say to you might seem very harsh but I am a very blunt man and I say what I see. She says no problem she wants the truth, so I let her have it, sometimes people ask for the truth but in reality they can’t handle it. She looks at me like I just slapped her face, hey the truth hurts some times. Well after debating the pay issue and everything else, I told her to give me a call and let me know if she wanted to hire me or not, well she did, fuck me. I started out my week on Wednesday and just kept seeing the same stuff happing every night, the whole staff was very thank full of me for helping out where I could. I decided to ask each server what the story was here and they all told me that this place is very missed up and that they go thru managers like water, I asked the oldest server there how many mangers he has seen in his 8 yrs there and he said about 24 of them! There was this one good server very sweet women and she wanted to give me some advice, she said to run from here because this place is evil!!! Well from asking everyone from the servers to the bussers, runners, kitchen staff, they all said the same thing, this place is missed up. This place has no chef no sous chef and no GM, well it has an asst GM but he is on sick leave because supposedly he had an internal nervous breakdown from working here, nice. What amazes me is that this restaurant is in Beverly Hills, one of the richest cities in the world and they have this restaurant that anyone who is a foodie or a restaurateur would know that this place is a mess, from just sitting here and having dinner. Well to make an all ready long story short I walked out yesterday and have no regrets about it, even in these tough times that jobs are scarce, I have high standards for a restaurant and believe me, to all managers and foh staff do not work here unless you are ready to sell your soul to the devil. This place was probably good when it first opened up but know it is a shame, another tourist stop in Los Angeles??
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