Career Servers in St. Louis
Mar 1, 2008 general food, restaurants
The postings over on the forum about the quality of service in recently opened restaurants got me to thinking about something last night.
While I stand by my defense of those restaurants and the opinion they will indeed work out the kinks in time, I can’t help but wonder if some of the restaurants lack of staff in number is do to their holding out for the right candidates.
Is it better to have a body, anybody, even if it’s not a good fit, then it is to have nobody at all and risk the possibility of being understaffed?
I am always struck by the number of quality servers when dining in larger cities and have often wondered if this depth is due to career servers leaving smaller markets to move to larger ones in order to earn a higher wage.
Certainly we have some excellent servers in St. Louis, but with the increased number of quality restaurants has our city perhaps tapped out the availability of first tier servers?
It’s a thought I find interesting and certainly one I do not have the answer to.
The best service I have personally received in St. Louis was from a server named Jake at Arthur Clay’s who also worked at King Louie’s. Always attentive and professional as he worked his tables you could see that he would alter his style for each becoming what it is they wanted. He was extremely enthusiastic; not just about the craft of serving–and it is a craft–but about the food being served.
It shows when the front of house staff truly cares about what their restaurants are serving, and Jake had this. While I have no idea what happened to him I’ve always wondered as his love came through dramatically in his style of service and he is for me the benchmark with which I gauge all servers.
As an aside, I have made it a point recently to contact the restaurants we dine in when I found the service to be admirable. Too often restaurants only hear about their servers when things have gone wrong as the concentration when commenting on a good experience is almost universally placed on food. This shouldn’t be the case, and I am fully aware that I am guilty of this as well.
Tags: Arthur-Clays, career servers, forum
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March 2nd, 2008 at 6:54 am
I just wanted to give a shout of support for Jake. We requested him every time we went to King Louie’s (and that was often). We considered Jake a part of the King Louie’s experience and have wondered ourseleves where he has landed.
March 2nd, 2008 at 10:32 am
If the glitterati in Hollywood can have their Oscars, someone should create a “Jake” award for St. Louis’ best servers! Maybe that someone should be you, bill burge.
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:14 am
What I’ve noticed the chains doing is over-staffing to start, both hoping that quantity will substitute, at least initially, for quality, and knowing that they’ll lose half or more of their new hires in the first month.
I know it takes a huge pile of money to open any restaurant, and doing it as an entrepreneur, on a shoestring, the last thing you want to do is to “waste” money you probably don’t have on “extra” staff on opening day, but it beats the alternative of seriously-unmet expectations by all those first-timers, many of whom won’t be back based on first impressions . . . “you can pay me now or pay me later” . . .
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Aw, I miss Jake and Arthur Clay’s for that matter. I wonder where he is now?