The way expo tickets pile up during a Friday rush is getting out of hand

I work saute at a place in Austin with about 60 seats indoors and another 40 on the patio. Last Friday we had 200 covers between 6 and 9 PM, and I swear the expo printer just kept spitting out tickets nonstop. Three times during the rush I had to stop mid-fire and re-read the stack because I missed a modification on a ticket buried under three others. My sous chef grabbed the pile at 7:30 and said 'whose idea was it to put a 4-top of wellingtons next to a 6-top all doing salmon medium rare?' Nobody plans for how bad the ticket logjam gets on a busy summer night. Has anyone tried using a digital system or a color coded ticket folder to cut down on the mess?

2 comments

2 Comments

cameron_craig2d ago

MAN I used to be one of those cooks who just grabbed the top ticket and prayed. I totally thought color coded folders or digital systems would just slow things down even more. But after reading this I'm starting to see it differently. I had a Friday last month where I missed a dairy allergy on a ticket that was literally stuck to the back of another ticket and the waiter had to bring the plate back to the rail. That moment made me realize we're not running a controlled disaster, we're running a system that's set up to fail on purpose. If a digital ticket system could pop the mods to the top or flash a color when something's critical, I'd actually try it now. I used to think that kind of stuff was for fancy places with money to burn, but honestly if it saves me from one more re-fire I'm in.

lucas1592d ago

...and on top of all that, the printer's probably still running through next week's specials at that point. I've seen cooks literally just grab the top ticket off the pile and hope for the best, which is exactly how you get a table of four all asking why their wellingtons are raw in the middle. Color coded folders sound great until you realize nobody's got time to sort tickets when the expo rack looks like a game of 52 pickup. Maybe we should just accept that Friday nights are a controlled disaster and move on.