Time Out Singapore’s new chef columnist, Bjorn Shen of Artichoke, on why the occasion can be a nightmare for restaurants
Photo: Ahmad Iskandar Photography
My crew and I get to work earlier than usual on Valentine’s Day. It’s a totally different menu that we’re serving tonight, and most of the prep that we’ve got in our fridges we can’t use. So we’re doing everything from scratch. We race through prep all afternoon, stopping only for pee and smoke breaks. We apologise to our partners for the umpteenth time that they’ll have to spend the night alone while we bust our balls feeding other couples. But, hey, this is what we signed up for when we chose to don aprons instead of suits. So, no sweat.
On the front, we’re fully booked. Our reservations have been staggered across the evening, so the kitchen doesn’t get slammed with everyone ordering at once. Everyone who nabbed the 7.30pm tables were happy campers, but those who could only be seated at 6.30pm or 8.30pm were a little annoyed. Also, 90 percent of our bookings tonight are two-tops, a change from the usual four- and six-tops. This means our medium and large tables are under-used, and our servers have to push twice as hard to upsell drinks and desserts to even think of sniffing our sales target. Game on.
Half-past six. Where’s everyone? 7.30pm. All hell breaks loose. Everyone shows up at the same time. Within a 30-minute window, we seat 70 percent of our reservations – definitely not what we planned. The sh*t officially hits the fan. Cooking and serving a large number of two-tops is much harder than cooking and serving larger groups. Especially so on a night like tonight, when people want their photos taken multiple times, hearts to be drawn on their plates, rings to be baked into their soufflé, the chef to greet them with a bouquet of roses, and so on. All this would normally be ok on a usual night, but tonight we’re already balls to the freaking wall, thanks to everyone who ignored their reservation timings.
There’s some good news, though. The front of house team brought their A-game and managed to upsell a crap tonne of alcohol and dessert. It looks like we may hit our target. We pull through the night, barely. Some of us leave with thoughts of vandalising flower shops, murdering teddy bears and getting angry tattoos.
All that hustle had better be worth what we just went through. Let’s go check our sales. WHAT?! Less than usual? Even after all the bricks we just sh*t? Guess why, folks. Because the other 30 percent of the reservations didn’t bother showing up. We’re guessing they must have booked tables at multiple restaurants and decided only on the day where they felt like going. Yup. And they didn’t even have the decency to call and cancel.
Happy Valentine’s Day, people.