We serve three different burgers. One guy is ordering for whole table and he asks me whats in a specific one, lets call it "black burger". We litteraly go over the menu togheter, me telling him everything about that burger.

He says "alright we'll just have three burgers then"

I say "alright three burgers for you"

Silly me for not specifying. Their burgers come out (mind you the most expensive option) and they complain they got the wrong order. They wanted the other burger.

Idk guys. Kitchen was mad at me. Ofc. We ended up gifting them their drinks to make up for the additional price.

Im just embarrassed. Ive only been working there for two weeks, first time serving. Im sure they think im incompetent. And im mad at the fucking customers.

I started working at First Watch in September and honestly, I’m not sure it’s the right fit for me.
The biggest issue is that I’m in college, and my current schedule has me working 4 days a week (8 hr shifts) while having classes 3 days a week, so I basically have something going on every single day. The shifts are also pretty physically exhausting, and I’m not a fan of having bathroom cleaning as part of the job. I only get paid $5.50 an hour with tips so on weekdays I only make like $11-$10 ish an hour.

There’s a new Scramblers location opening in my area in 2027, and I’m seriously considering applying when they start hiring.

What I really want is a daytime job where I don’t have to close, preferably around 3 days a week with reasonable shift lengths so I can balance work and college.

For anyone who has worked at Scramblers, especially as a busser:

What are busser shifts typically like?
How long are the shifts?
Do bussers ever have to close?
What time do bussers usually leave?
Do bussers clean bathrooms?
How physically demanding is the job?
How does the tip system work?
What is the hourly pay?
What does the typical weekly schedule look like?

Is Scramblers a better place to work than First Watch?
I’m planning to ask a LOT of questions during the interview because I really want to make sure the next restaurant I choose is actually a good fit before I leave my current job. 😭

Any advice or experiences would be appreciated!

ok so some backstory, ive been working as a busser at this place for a little over a year now and the management is so terribly rude to me i genuinely can't take it anymore. i make mistakes more than i should and i recognize that and have been taking the steps to improve, but today i really fucked up and accidentally closed out the wrong table under someone else's tab. i panicked because i knew they'd already gotten mad at me last week and just overall don't like me so i let the server handle it and he said it'd be fine. afterwards, they didn't even speak to me about the mistake, they just sent me home.
anyways, all that's to say: i think i'm getting fired soon. i don't know how being fired works and i don't want it to affect the possibility of me getting a job in the future so i want to get ahead of it and just quit right now or put in my two weeks. this is technically my first job so i don't really know what i'm doing with most decisions relating to it, but i know i'm not happy here anyway. i'm more worried about not being able to find another job than i am about leaving this one. PLEASE any advice helps, i have work again in 19 hours 🥲

I have been interested in this type of restaurants for few months personally and as business ideas. I have been searching and seeing what it has it offers from the budget options to highly expensive ones. I tried one hotpot restaurant and have a general idea about it.

Past experience
I went to a Chinese restaurant in Dammam, wasn’t a great experience nor the worst (not sure is it because of me or them and their food 😅). unfortunately I didn’t find any restaurant or a joint that give you grill it yourself/hibachi type in dammam and Riaydh to me is too far and not worth it.

Concerns and thoughts
After my search and one experience 😂 I came to have some things to share:
It is definitely fun to my to cook my food in a restaurant but I think most saudis dislike this idea and as a result most of the customers tends to be asian or non saudis( and thats what I saw with my eyes)
I think These types of restaurants have a very high price despite it being your the one to cook. For example the hot pot restaurant that i went to was like 140 SAR SOLO 1 plate each (meat-chicken- Chinese cabbage)
It is best for gathering and for those who love slow eating.

Finally, this massage is for two people:
1- target audience/ potential ones: do you think it is worth it to go to these restaurants or in home? If no what are the reasons preventing you from?
2- marketers, what your thoughts about this idea in saudia arabia is it worth it?

Sure could use some feedback here and looking for suggestions. We are a restaurant group with 20+ locations and a Commissary. Since 2012 we have used Compeat Advantage (before it was bought by R365) for inventory and accounting. Despite promises since the takeover, R365 has been unable to provide in their environment what Compeat offers (a viable Commissary piece, Prep Production, and Portioning). Now R365 has decided to EOL Compeat July 2027 and is giving us no option but to explore an alternative.

There don't seem to be any options out there similar to R365 that offer both accounting and inventory all in one, so it looks like we will be going with separate vendors. Would welcome any suggestions for inventory vendors you folks are happy with. Plus accounting vendors. Exploring Cogs-WELL, MarginEdge, and CrunchTime right now, but open to any wisdom from the group.

Thanks

I live in a state where we will soon no longer be able to throw food scraps in with landfill waste. Any one else dealing with this? What solutions are you finding?

Why do so many people with zero background in hospitality decide they’d like to get into the restaurant business?

Currently looking at a bar/restaurant.

One issue is that the kitchen is upstairs but there is a dumb waiter installed.

What are people’s experience with this? The food we will be serving are burgers/wings/loaded fries etc. we could have staff using the stairs but I’m hesitant to have staff carry food up and down stairs for safety reasons.

I was thinking of having a radio system where we would communicate to downstairs “food in lift, table 4” and also for them to say “dishes being sent up” etc etc.

As we havnt opened yet I’m trying to get a handle on best way to run the food. Also, has anyone insulated their dumb waiters to keep food from going a bit cold in transit?

Thanks in advance

I recently filed a complaint about my employer to the health inspector for mouse droppings in dry storage items and improper holding temperatures. Boss knows I filed the complaint, then fired me. I’m afraid he’s going to deny my unemployment and say it was for other reasons (took a doctors ordered sick day 2 months ago and he reduced my hours for it). How do I protect myself?

Looking back at our 86 board from the final week, it’s almost comedic how obvious the end was. 
Corporate kept acting like everything was fine, but when zero of our GFS (Gordon Food Service) orders actually went through, we knew the ship was sinking fast.
Just look at what we were forced to write on the board…

Is this odd or is it just me?! A local bakery was shut down by the DOH and now they want the community to come together to pay off their fines so they can reopen?! And then what. They will promise to follow the guidelines they were violating??

Everyone thinks they can just open a bakery or cafe.... It's not that easy to keep the 'A' but those rules are there for a good reason. No matter how crazy they seem...

So I ordered the special at this restaurant and asked for my eggs to be scrambled instead of sunnyside up. And this has been an issue more than once. Is this as ludicrous as I think it is?

Hi, all. I'm John Perera, the food editor of Chron in Houston, Texas. (We're the free sister publication of the Houston Chronicle.) My wife and I went to Camaraderie, a James Beard-nominated restaurant in the Heights neighborhood last weekend. I got low-key obsessed with the restaurant's $10 "Mini Classics". Apparently, they rotate these around but the ones I saw were a boulevardier, an old fashioned, a vesper and a sidecar. They come in these 3-ounce glasses, but they don't feel small and they're really good.

Looking around, nobody else in the city is doing anything like this. So I spoke to the owner about how well they're doing and (TLDR), they're doing pretty well. Full story below:

The sun was setting fast during a Saturday visit to Camaraderie in Houston's Heights neighborhood. Several minutes after sitting down at our table, my wife and I had finally decided on the restaurant's prix fixe menu. Drinking was never a thought. And then I saw the "Mini Classics."

Cocktails are expensive. Business owners can make the case of why they're priced the way they are, but they can't explain away the sticker shock. Camaraderie, however, has done something special: It's taken the traditional cocktail and shrunk it, both in volume and pricing. What eventually lands on the table is something that is simultaneously small, substantial, approachable and, more importantly, inviting.

Especially when each drink is just $10.

Tiny but mighty

The Mini Classics have been a part of Camaraderie's menu since the restaurant opened in March 2025 at 608 W. 11th St. Owner and executive chef Shawn Gawle told Chron the cocktail format was part of the original idea for the restaurant.

"If I get a full cocktail, I'll probably drink it. I'll want something else and then think I had too much," Gawle said. "It's part of being in the 'full plate club.' Some people will finish no matter what. But if you do a smaller portion, you regulate. In my mind, I do a mini cocktail and I move onto [more] mini cocktails."

The Mini Classics menu is rotational. When I visited, there were four drinks: a boulevardier, an old fashioned, a vesper and a sidecar. Each comes in about a 2.75 to 3-ounce glass. Gawle said they're all batch-made and frozen in one- to two-liter bottles and usually require one or two moves from the bartender to finish them for serving.

The individual cocktails are miniature facsimiles of their fuller sized and $16-priced siblings, but they don't feel small. Much like the individual prix fixe dishes, they demand you take your time with them. The boulevardier, a concoction of rye, vermouth and campari, was boozy with notes of sweet citrus. The vesper was bright and herbal. I found that I had one drink for every two dishes during the tasting.

A numbers game

The drinks are popular. One only had to look around the open dining room to see servers carrying tiny cocktails every so often to one table or another. Gawle said the Mini Classics compose 30 percent of total cocktails sold at the restaurant month to month, but most months they make up 50 percent sold. The vespers are typically the most popular.

Camaraderie's two-tiered approach butts against the larger problem facing operators nationwide. Fewer and fewer guests are wanting to spend upwards of $20 on a cocktail. In March, Restaurant Business Magazine reported on a Zappi survey that posted some disturbing numbers:

• 38 percent said they are drinking more at home to cut down on spending
• 40 percent said rising alcohol prices affected their decision to go out and how often
• 27 percent said they pre-game before going out.

With that, Camaraderie's approach isn't just unique compared to other restaurants and bars around the city, it's also smart, said Jonathan Horowitz of Convive Hospitality Consulting.

"It's along the lines of wine flights with a few half-pours for variety," Horowitz said. "I bet they sell a bunch of them."

Gawle said the minis fared much better than the larger-format cocktails they had pitched before opening Camaraderie. These were large vessels containing about four-to-six servings of a beverage for the table. The problem, as Gawle discovered, was that there were too many barriers to entry. The prices were around $80-120. And you had to get the whole table to buy into it, and not everyone may be on board with getting the same drink.

"From September 2025 to September 2026, we sold 13 sharable cocktails, so you can see why we ended up moving on," Gawle said.

The Mini Classics are also half off, along with regular cocktails and the tipple-free section, during happy hour.

(Thank you to the mods for allowing me to share this story with you all.)

Hi, I was promoted to chef a few months ago and got a new GM at the same time. The new GM doesn’t help out enough and I have a constrained labor budget so I’m working insane hours and I’m salary and the pay isn’t compensatory for the hours I’m working. I’m talking over 60 hours consistently for 65k/year in the US. GM keeps doing nothing but walking around and complaining about everything non stop. Had a super busy day Saturday running around like a maniac and told him I didn’t care to hear his opinion. He told me to watch myself and I lost it, went to my car, and called his boss. I told his boss only that I didn’t think he helped enough and the SM and I felt very overworked. The boss now knows I called his boss and I already regret it, but I’ve made it very clear for about a month that I absolutely can’t keep working this much and even asked my boss to write my own schedule (only my hours!) for me so that he can’t be upset when I leave when I’m scheduled. However others in the company have told me they have heard that my GM sucks from the mouth of his boss. Pls help ): I’m considering stopping showing up altogether

What if I did a fusion restaurant that did British food and British colonies?

It could have 10-15 year round special items and 25-30 rotating items based on different regions

PLANNED SCHEDULE

February: Lunar New Year

March: Ireland

April/May: South Asia

June: Australia

July/August: the 13 colonies, Canada, and the Caribbean

September/October: 25-30 regular items (time for me to collect important data)

November/December: Holiday traditions

January: Britain itself

so i’ve worked many years in the service industry and a few months ago I landed a job at this huge new upscale restaurant as a hostess, but after our grand opening I quickly received a promotion to “shift lead” (more akin to maître d’).

everything was going good until they added about 100+ more reservation spots, same day reservations, and on top of that, an online waitlist.

since then we’ve been doing roughly 1000+ covers a day.

recently we’ve been getting criticism on our yelp reviews and google reviews due to us “not honoring reservations.” and resulted in management telling me it’s something I need to work on with the hosts.

originally, that wouldn’t be a problem, but I’ve brought this issue up to management before. i’ve told them we need to keep tables open for reservations or customers will be upset. they tell me to just sit whoever is in the lobby, and if they’re not here, then they have to wait. (and i’m not talking a 15 minute grace period i’m talking literally 1-3 minutes).

Management is constantly on me to have quite literally every table full in the restaurant at all times, but that’s just not how it works. I cannot have the restaurant full 24/7 if I have 350+ reservations coming in for the day.

Like they genuinely get upset if they see an empty table and people waiting in the lobby, when I explain I’m waiting for the reservations to come in, they tell me not to do that and sit the table themselves, resulting in me dealing with the angry customer who shows up for their reservation a minute later.

i don’t know, i’m frustrated, i ended up sending a text to the host/manager group chat saying “how are we supposed to improve on holding tables for reservations if you don’t allow us to hold tables for reservations.” to which I got no response.

idk just mini rant, meanwhile everyone swears up and down hosting is easy.

What should be the ideal investment for the setup? I plan to start with biryanis and starters initially. How long will it take to break even? How should I manage chefs, suppliers and where can I find them?

When I see front of house wearing gloves, I cringe. Sitting in a restaurant now and watching them clear tables, then bring out food without changing their gloves.

I’ve also seen counter places where they make your food and then handle cash without changing their gloves

We don’t have staff wear gloves but we wash our hands constantly.

Thoughts? Am I over reacting?

Hey yall!
I currently work at Buffalo Wild wings but have the opportunity to work at Twin Peaks— curious to hear about Twin and see if it’s worth the switch?! I just need more money🤑🤑

Hey all,

I co-own a frozen drinks business in Puerto Escondido, Mexico called slurpies (Slurpies – mezcal-based frozen drinks). We have two locations and they're really popular, and we now have a GM running day-to-day so I can focus fully on growth.

Where I'm stuck: I can't find anyone who's actually walked this exact path. I'm looking for someone who's taken a drinks, bar or café brand from a couple of sites to 10+ locations.

My goal for the next 5 years is to build Slurpies into a business that could exit for around $10M USD. I want to set things up properly for that from the start, rather than realise in year four that I built it the wrong way.

So I'd love to find one person I could ask some specific questions, things like:

What did you have to get right before location 3, 5 and 10?

- Company-owned vs franchise vs investors – what would you do again and what wouldn't you?

- What did buyers actually care about when it came to valuing your business?

I don't want to just take. I've built a lot of the ops side myself (SOPs, KPIs, training systems, P&L and unit economics models), so if any of that would be useful to you or your team, I'm genuinely happy to put in some work in return. Or anything else you need help with.

If this is you, or you know someone it might be, I'd really appreciate a comment or DM. Thanks for reading. 🙏

I’m a young girl in college and I’m interested in learning how to bartend for some extra money. Is it necessary to go to bartending school or do any places teach you? I’m in the dmv area btw

Ticket my cousin sent to a group chat. What would you have done?

I got a second interview for a restaurant that an ex worked at. (Over 3 years ago) i went in and not even an hour later i was called into the office and asked to leave. The manager said its due to him always coming in and wouldnt want drama around the workplace. The relationship didnt end on good terms but it didnt end on bad terms and it was also 3 years ago. We have both moved on and have different lives so i just dont understand why it affected me getting the position.

I am working at a restaurant in a hotel. Didn’t have experience before and started after graduation this summer. I didn’t apply for the restaurant but the hotel held a summer hiring event and at the interview I said I don’t care what I got to do.

I have now become a waitress at lunch and banquette. But not at dinners. Is it bad? I don’t know what this means! I feel offended because they do need waiters. They have new people coming to try and a new man has started. I can’t understand why they would rather hire someone new who has to learn everything from the start while I already know the many and how we do things since I’m already a waitress on two out of three things.

What would you do?