The Restaurant

The Restaurant
Formal Dining

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Working in the Restaurant: Having Fun!

Up to this point I have only blogged about getting a job, what work will be like, different working conditions, and that sort of thing. I haven't written a single word on the amount of fun you can have while working in a restaurant. While games can be played anywhere, I think these ones are particularly fun in a restaurant enviornment.
We in the hospitality industry work hard and play hard. It's what we do. There are dozens of games you can play while at work, many of which are competitive, it's our nature... Cooks have races to see who can cook the fastest burger, who can make the best dish out of three ingredients (often times this game is called Iron Chef after the secret ingredient theme), ticket time races, etc. etc.
My favorite game is from the front of the house, but can be played in the back with any participant that isn't aware of what's going on. This game is the word game, some times called the Super Trooper game. The object of the game can go one of two ways 1) Classic version, to see how many times you can say a word while interacting with your guests or 2) to see if you can get your guests to say a particular word. Obviously you can't choose an inappropriate word and you must follow the company rules and policies, and obviously you can't just say "meow meow meow" or ask them, "Hey, can you say 'meow' for me?" It has to be subtle. The more common the word is in your establishment the easier the game is and generally the stranger the word (or more distant from your venue) the harder it is.
Example:
If you work in a pizza restaurant:
Easy Words to say/make them say: cheese, pizza, pepperoni, large, toppings, hot, fresh....
Hard words to say/make them say: kittens, silo, missing, Michigan, bedspread, pain...
All parties playing the game must agree on the word or the words you are trying to get them to say or are saying. Honestly how many times can you say 'freedom' while selling pizzas? Even harder, how can you get the customer to say the word freedom?
Some people get too complicated and claim they get a point for every word that begins with a letter, that's just too complicated!

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