Wine tastings, from the server point of view....

We had a wine tasting dinner at the restaurant last night. Upon my arrival, I saw that those who got there ahead of me were all busy polishing wine glasses. The room was set for 78, and we were to put two wine glasses at each setting. Plus another 78 glasses on a separate table, where there was also a selection of cheeses, so they could pick up their first wine of the evening to go along with said cheese.

I think we used every wine glass in the restaurant, as we were scrambling about to get two at every setting. For all I know, the customers upstairs in the dining room, who may have ordered wine, had to drink their wine out of tumblers.

Anyways, as we were getting the glasses out, I asked my fellow servers what the game plan for the evening was. Stuff like how long will the speaker (a man from the oldest family run vineyard in America) be talking, when should we pour the second wine, how long in between courses (there were five) etc. No one knew, because no one had given us any information on how they wanted this to go.

At the last minute, we finally get some info. We’re ready to go, we just need to know the timing. And as per usual, there were a couple of last minute things thrown in to glitch it up. Being professionals, we ignored a last minute request we deemed unnecessary. (No one knew)

We know how to work together, and fell into a comfortable routine, which took some hustling, seeing as how we had to gather up all used wine glasses a quickly as possible, wash and polish them (again) so we could set then out for the last two wines. It was cool, everything was under control.

THEN……at the end of the meal….we passed out order sheets so people could mass quantities of wine at discount prices. This is when it turned into a complete cluster f***. The boss hadn’t given one thought to this part of the process. People were waving their order forms in our faces…wanting to check out and leave. Since zero planning had put into this, we were left to our own devices as to how to fill orders. Then we find out we have to give all who bought wine, two checks, one for the dinner, and one for the wine. Did I mention that all the computers were upstairs? We all came up with a slightly different variation on the same procedure, but it worked. Then we started running out of wine. The boss was nowhere to be found during all this mayhem. In hindsight, that was a good thing. He too, sat through this dinner of miniscule portions and five wines, so along with everyone else, he was pretty much half in the bag.

So we did what we do best, powered through it all, and cussed our brains out in the back room.