It’s the biggest horse-race of the year and we’re cooking in a track-side marquee. Well-dressed, drunken men barge in and start cutting up lines of white powder on a work-bench. Another urinates on the ground next to boxes of cutlery and food. They yell and swear when told to leave. We aim a fire hose at the intruders and a half-full wine bottle flies through the air and explodes against an oven.
Drunk and obstreperous, he’s short the price of his takeaway spaghetti marinara. He and the server have an antagonistic history and he hurls the skin-scorching hot meal at his nemesis. The server ducks. Splat! Prawns and pasta fly; the rest of the meal slides down the wall in a smear of fishy cream.
Arriving half an hour after the kitchen’s close she wants a steak. Now. Front-of-house decline her request and she grabs the till, tears it loose and throws it to crash open on the floor.
Fortunately, this sort of awful behaviour is rare and thank god, because the great unfed; the general public are what it’s all about. Contrary to the opinions of some chefs and owners, customers are the most important people in the restaurant. Without them we are nothing.
'The customer is always right,' is a basic tenet of hospitality, but unscrupulous diners will use it to their advantage. Like the green young waitress telling me a customer needed his dozen oysters replaced, at no extra charge, because they were off. Calling bullshit, I ask to see them. Oh, but he’s eaten them all.
Trying to scam a meal is one thing, but a whole table of food is another level of larceny. During a manic lunch service, jam-packed with fast turnovers of tables, a family of six, eating a substantial lunch, suddenly freak out.
The daughter, allergic to peanuts, has eaten sauce containing them and is in anaphylactic shock. Front of house deal with this emergency, using an epidermal pen on the . . . relaxed and subdued teen. Dad, aggressively loud, insists the restaurant call an ambulance and the family all leave with the paramedics. Without paying.
An hour later Dad rings up. He wants to sue the restaurant. The owner explains that the menu stated all the ingredients clearly – and no-one mentioned any allergies. Dad insists that a legal assault will be made. The owner sticks to his guns. Then Dad says he is open to an out-of-court settlement. “Bring it on,” laughs the owner. We never hear from this shake-down artist again. Sadly, there sometimes is such a thing as a free lunch – in this case entrees and mains for six.
Sometimes the customer is wrong. Yes, ma’am I’ve been to Bali too, but gado gado has no meat in it. No sir, the Guinness pie is not served with a pint of Irish stout on the side. We shouldn’t laugh at their ignorance either, but sometimes it’s hard. How about being sternly told to hold the canine pepper on the grilled fish?
Or the cocktail party guest inquiring about the tiny buns, perfect replicas of a high-top loaf, stuffed with rare roast beef and rocket. Did we use very small ovens to bake these loaves? Yes, and the chefs are 16 cm tall.
And then comes that day when the customer makes an error that taxes morality and tests one’s ethics. I was working at an open-kitchen bistro in the off-season. Mondays were dead, and I worked them alone; taking orders, serving, making drinks, cooking, cleaning up and balancing the till at the end of the day.
One afternoon a well-dressed, elderly Japanese man had lunch with his wife. He had no English but indicated what he wanted. They happily ate and drank and when it came time to pay, the man peered at the bill; a total of $32. He began peeling off twenties and fifties and laying them on the counter. I was taken aback. The old geezer thought the bill was three hundred and twenty dollars! A voice from the dark side whispered in my ear, “Go on, take it. No one will know.”
But I'm not made that way and I gestured at the man to stop counting out notes. He looked at me in surprise, and I carefully removed two twenties, showed them to him, and made the change. The rest of the money I politely indicated wasn't necessary. Realisation dawned in his eyes. I got a sincere nod of thanks and he gathered up the pile of notes and put them back in his wallet.
Customers do consciously give cooks money though, even coming into the kitchen to do so. I’ve had currency notes thrust into my hand in the middle of service by happy customers.
Being giving money is great, but any compliment really does make a line-cook’s day. Truly folks, your positive acknowledgement of the grunts in the kitchen cannot be underestimated. It turns the headache of a difficult service, or frustration over an earlier cock-up, into good cheer and warranted pride. This sort of five-second altruism will melt a hard old cook’s heart.
The customers who create a really special glow are the regulars. They become family as they return again and again like kids to Mum’s bosom. We hear their stories and they hear ours. The food we make becomes a part of their lives and they become part of ours. We love them as they vindicate our culinary prowess and our love and care. In a world of fast-moving trends and shifting demographics these loyal diners can justify our very existence.
So, the coldest chill a cook can feel, the darkest depth to which they can fall — is when a regular makes a negative comment about their food. Watch the cook rush out front, face creased with concern, to engage with their customer. See them listen beetle-browed and intent and then forensically dissect exactly wasn’t right. The cook will personally remove the offending plate and take it away.
And as they rush back to make the meal again, perfectly this time, they might stop by the till and insist on paying for their customers meal. Now ain’t that close to love?