Saturday, March 6, 2010

Rolling Silverware Really Bites


Anyone who has worked in a restaurant knows what a roll-up is and I ain't talking about the fruit kind. I'm talking about the silverware that gets "rolled up" into a napkin and placed lovingly on the table in your station. This is only a facet of your job if you work in a high class establishment that uses linen napkins and not some skanky cheap ass bitch place that uses paper napkins, also known as most of the places I have worked. Doing your roll-ups usually is a part of your sidework at the end of the day. I personally never minded doing them because you got to sit at a table in order to do it and what other sidework is there that lets you sit? It's probably the last thing you do at the end of your shift and you just want that shit done so you can go home. I can't tell you how many times I have looked at a rack of sliver and figured that it was clean enough and rolled those bitches up into a napkin. Depending on the place, you have to roll a certain number of them to be considered finished. At Houlihan's we had to do fifty. We had to roll them up and lay them in a row of five and then stack five more on top of that until we had a big stack of semi-clean silver ready for the dinner rush. Since we all hated doing it at the end of the day, we started getting into the habit of doing our fifty before the shift started and then hiding them somewhere so at the end of your shift all you had to do was pull the stack from the hiding place, show it to the shift manager and call it a day. This eventually turned into a problem. When we had six servers who all wanted to do their roll-ups in the morning and then hide them, it meant that we were short 300 roll-ups to put on the tables for lunch. Now I don't know about your restaurant, but most of the time utensils are moderately important. So of course, that practice was put to a halt. Another thing we did to avoid the nuisance of rolling silver was to share the same stack. For instance, Jane, Randie, Corrine and I would together roll fifty. Jane would then take the stack to the manager to show him that she had rolled her necessary amount and he would give her the all clear. She would then bring the stack to Randie who would then go to a shift leader and show the same stack of fifty and also get the all clear. Then Corrinne would show the stack to a manager and then I would show it to the shift leader and then bolt the hell out of there because it would only be a matter of time before someone working the dinner shift would notice that instead of 200 roll-ups, there were only 50. That only worked for a few times before they caught on, but I think it was pretty fucking genius of us. Not to mention lazy.

The answer to this issue is clear. We should all use paper napkins and plastic utensils. Not only is it much easier for the servers, it is also cost efficient for the restaurant and also good for the environment. Okay, so maybe it's a bit more expensive for the restaurant, but all they have to do is add twenty cents to the cost of a soda and it will blanace itself out. And maybe it's not all that great for Planet Earth, but hey, we are talking about making life easier for servers and I think Mother Nature would want it that way.

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15 comments:

purplegirl said...

If there aren't visible chunks, it's good enough!

If there are visible chunks ... scrape 'em off. They've been through the sanitizer twice, they're sterile chunks!

(Just kidding .... sort of.)

Anonymous said...

hahahahah Bitchy...i cant even add to that cuz you said it all....so so very very true

stiletto said...

We have a server rule where I work... if any silverware is on the germ-infested surface we call "the kitchen floor" by the end of the night, we sweep it up and throw it out. Less to roll and more sanitary for customers.

AZWaitress said...

This is why I don't mind paying the $3 per night for somebody else to roll silver. After doing my tables and BOH closing sidework, fuck rolling silver!

Anonymous said...

They make fabu;ous looking plastic that looks just like silver. I say all restaurants should use it!

Corinne said...

Yeah, we really were pretty damn ingenious!

Sarah said...

The place I work at now uses linens not paper, and we only have enough silver to have about 50 extra once all the tables are set up. SO we have to roll through out the night for our tables and at the end of the night. It sucks. But it is better to only roll 25-30 for your section at the end of the night then roll 100 to get through all of tomorrow's shift.

Anonymous said...

What restuarants still roll silverware?

Anonymous said...

Well, to all of you. If the worst thing you have to do in life is roll silverware, you couldn't have it SO bad. I know someone who has MS and takes PRIDE in his job of rolling silverware. As of this month, his own record at a well known restaurant is 240...and you complain of rolling 50?...YOU ALL GET A LIFE.

Anonymous said...

I work at a bistro and we roll our silverware into cloth linens. I set up the restaurant and then proceed to wash the damn silverware and then make roll ups for set up because the night shift never leaves me any. This all has to be done in three hours. So fifty roll ups aren't that bad, trust me. My wrists ache like crazy after a busy shift.

cxr said...

What's up. I just stumbled across this blog tonight while researching for a project I'm working on. Me and some friends are developing a fully automated machine that does roll-ups. We have a working prototype but it requires an operator for now. We are about to launch a kickstarter project to raise money (assuming they approve) to design and build the fully automated version. I actually used to be a server for many years while I was in engineering school. I've worked Ruby T's, Bennigan's, Red Lob. and a few others. I really hated rolling and I'm glad to see that's still unpopular. I'm working on the business case for why a restaurant should invest in this machine. Anyway, if you think its a game changer, look out for our project soon at kickstarter.com and please back us. If any of you are like me, I paid someone almost every shift to roll mine. Divert some of that cash to our kickstarter project and no one will ever have to roll silverware again anywhere. Also, please spread the word to others in the trade. I'll post gain when we launch...Should be in mid to late June 2013. Thanks!

Unknown said...

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Unknown said...

I work where I have to roll silverware. They don't pay us to sit down. Don't like that. So we have to roll for a straight 6 hrs no breaks or 8 hrs with 1 30 min break no 15s depending on what time you are scheduled to come in. Unfortunately that is our job not side work. We have to use over 200 rolled silverware for place settings on the tables and 2 half barrels that I have counted. I'll go in tomorrow and the next day at 9 am and do all that by myself standing for 8 hrs and I just found out from an Ortho I have a fractured ankel. Anyone who has worked in restaurants know you have to be super fast.

Unknown said...

Gee whiz I thought I had it bad. by
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