Let me introduce you to the side station. The side station is the area where your server is entering your order into the point-of-sale system, the place where they’re filling your iced teas and water pitchers, the small square footage where they spend the majority of their lives polishing your glassware and silverware.
It doesn’t matter the kind of restaurant in which you are dining: the side station is not as nice as your view out front. There’s a lot of shelves or racks, stainless steel tables, and plastic bins for dirty dishes or soiled linens. It’s an industrial work space that gets more cluttered as the restaurant covers increase. One time, during one of the busiest shifts of my life, I broke a glass on the ground. Absolutely no one had the time to clean it up, or even shove it out of the way. For the next two hours, everyone crunched over broken glass in their work clogs as they got their guests a glass of water. Had I broken the glass out front? It would have been cleaned up in a minute.
This is not to say that the side station is disgusting. We sanitize the counters and there is always soap for the hand-washing sink. Some chefs are demanding and will make people sweep the floor up several times mid-shift. It’s just that…standards are obviously lower in the back of the house. Coffee grounds are probably on the counter. Inexplicably, there is water all over the floor. Why has no one removed this dirty plate by the Micros terminal in the past hour?!
The side station is the smallest of zones dedicated specifically for the front-of-the-house staff. In some restaurants, this can be part of the kitchen. In others, there are several “stations” from which a server can pour a cup of coffee or replace an errant butter knife. In every restaurant in which the side station is hidden behind a door or screen, it is our refuge from the demands of the floor.
And so I arrive at the point of this post: You really mustn’t go back there.
The side station is not for you.
Lately we’ve had some instances where a guest just feels as if they should hop on back there to talk to their server. To the staff, this is jarring, it is embarrassing, and at worst it can be dangerous.
We do not expect those who aren’t staff to be back there. The behavior you see on the floor is definitely not what you’ll see in back. That server who adored you who was just super genuine? I don’t doubt that they were cool! But they were putting their best food forward for you. I’ve NEVER met a staff member who didn’t relax their persona a smidge while they’re in the back —we’re not the same person when we cross that threshold. This isn’t an act or a lie. We just want you to think everything is seamless and effortless to maximize your enjoyment. Guess what? It’s not. If you come to the back unexpectedly, you’ll see us with a furrowed brow and possibly (probably) hear us cursing. Come on man, no one wants to see Mickey Mouse take the mask off. Leave the back of the house to us.
Furthermore, guests have paid a lot of money to have a great dinner in a beautiful atmosphere! Why do people leave their havens of leather and mahogany to see our commercial wasteland of metal and plastic? It’s mortifying to me when a guest paying a ton of money for dinner peeks behind the curtain. It’s a hot mess back here. Scoot back to your luxury, please. Shoo.
Finally, it’s just not safe for people back there — especially tipsy people. There’s hot stuff and sharp stuff and floors that even I slip on in my unisex “non-skid” shoes (so sexy). If someone thinks they get a pass and can go back there because they’re dating someone who works in the restaurant, or because they’re a regular, or because they used to work there themselves, let me assure them that they don’t.
So what do we think when a guest just pops their head into our side station to remind us that they want their check split or their steak mid rare? We’ll happily provide you with practically anything else if you just, please: give us our space.