12 Tips To Enjoy Your Favorite Local Restaurant: How To Get Better Service When It Is Busy

I work at a local restaurant as a cook. It is a boutique brewery, and a large space in our small city. It is almost always busy on Friday nights and weekends, especially when our Big Ten football team is playing. It can be busy at other times, mostly related to the usual university events of graduation, student arrival and the frequent pub crawls.

We cook to order, so nothing is frozen and microwaved. What the guest receives are freshly made, local products . We bake our own breads and prepare our sauces in house. Our line is set up for quick service. But there are times it lags simply because of the volume of orders we receive. There are a limited number of cooks on the line. We can crowd in eight cooks if we are really busy. If 300 people are placing orders, a delay is inevitable, but the guests are still getting quality food, freshly made.

How can the guests help the kitchen and servers get the orders out quickly while maintaining the quality we want to give them?

1. Know what you want. Many restaurants have menus online, or QR codes c that can be scanned at the table. Go ahead and ask questions about ingredients or portion size when the server gets to your table, but have an idea of what you generally want.
2. Have one person place the order. Save some time by compiling your order before the server arrives to take it.
3. Order appetizers first. We specialize in an old world soft pretzel that will serve four as an appetizer, and will arrive at your table in a few minutes. When the appetizers arrive, then place a second course order. In many casual restaurants, the order is brought out once, so appetizers might arrive with the main courses. Most restaurants can (and should) be able to handle a second course order. It spreads out the work in the kitchen so a big order doesn’t hit the line immediately.
4. Order different things. If everyone orders the Chicken Caesar, or Philly Cheesesteaks, one cook is making them, and in limited space. The order will come out faster if the work is divided between several stations on the line.
5. Avoid overindulgence in alcohol before eating. If service is busy, it is tempting to keep ordering booze to…