From the other side of the table

The Age

Tuesday February 8, 2011

Caroline Tuohy - Caroline Tuohy works in a St Kilda cafe and has been a waiter for six years.

In Cafe 101, waiter Caroline Tuohy serves up a guide to being a customer in the 21st century. 1. When I ask if you are ready to order and you say "Yes", that is not your cue to begin reading the menu, discussing what you'd like with your friends or pointing at each other so someone else goes first. Just order.2. With coffee, there is no such thing as strongish, weakish, a little bit hotter than normal, quarter-strength, half-strength or any other bollocks. It's one, two or three shots, with milk that's fat or regular, skim, skinny, trim or soy. A soy decaf latte with one Equal is not a coffee. Try tea instead.3. Coffee cannot be timed to arrive exactly when your food does. You don't pay enough for the food or service to demand that kind of stuffing around. Tip generously (and I mean $5-plus) and then we'll talk.4. Why must you insist on sitting at the dirty table? Why? Just find a clean one ��� how is that hard?5. Unless there is a sign suggesting otherwise, seat yourself and we'll be with you as soon as we can.6. The easy-to-recognise sign of "we're ready to order" is to close your menu. Don't wave, click or bust out an "excuse me". Same goes for putting your knife and fork together on your plate when you want me to take it away. Don't put your finished plate on another table. So rude.7. Do not, under any circumstances, order from ��� or try to pay ��� the barista. If you order a "drink-in" coffee from the barista, you might as well have said nothing.8. Say hello. Don't just walk into my establishment and ignore me.9. I'm the middle man. If the menu says no substitutions, we mean it. If you want an ingredient taken out or changed, then you go ask the chef. These guys are hot, angry and busy. They have their menu items down to a fine art ��� prepared and practised ��� so the least amount of time elapses between them getting the order and the order leaving the kitchen.10. Don't even bother asking to split bills from Friday to Monday. We have a finite amount of change, so if you and your five friends all give me a fifty, we're out. Same goes with asking for change for parking ��� but that's on any day.11. Don't ask me to order for you. If it's a toss-up between two things on the menu, I'll suggest the more expensive one.12. I don't need long-winded explanations. If you're waiting for a friend to arrive and I ask if you want a coffee, a simple, "I'll wait until my mate gets here," is fine. I don't care, nor do I need to know, if you might have a coffee later, where your mate might be or what their ETA is. Short, sweet and polite is the key.13. This exchange is never acceptable. Me: "Hi guys. What can I get for you today?" You: "Menus." (Well, duh.) Me: "Sure, no problem. How about a coffee to kick you off?" You: "Menus." Rude, rude, rude.14. Don't expect to get served if you're talking on the phone.15. Cyclists in stretch fabric: we're laughing at how you look in stretch fabric.16. If you're in a hurry, go to McDonald's.17. Children in cafes are either delightful or appalling. Don't let your little ones wander the cafe or they'll get knocked down; you don't need a four-wheel-drive-sized pram to ferry your children about and there is certainly no room in my cafe to park it; don't let your kids play with the sugar; and PLEASE TAKE YOUR SCREAMING BABY OUTSIDE.18. Menus change with seasons and chefs. Something that may have once been on the menu may not be there now. If you point this out, you are stating a fact rather than opening a discussion about the old dish's relative meritsand your thoughts on why its removal isn't to your liking. Just order something else.19. Inflation affects us all. I remember paying $4.90 for a packet of cigarettes, 39 for a litre of petrol and I'm pretty sure my parents' house in Malvern cost $40,000 in the '70s. So your coffee sets you back $3.30. Live in the now.20. Never underestimate your waiter. I've worked with actors, agriculturalists, world travellers, single mothers, state-level soccer players, university-educated, motivated, talented, witty people. Each has come to work in a cafe for reasons of their own. Thank you, enjoy the rest of your day.

© 2011 The Age

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