What it means to work in a small restaurant

The restaurant here is tiny. I don't mean space-wise; each table is well spaced out so you don't need to hear others' conversations while eating, but I think we can't seat more than about seventy total without some major cramping going on. Add that to the fact that since the Italian dinner time is very short, we only do one seating, maybe turning over a table or two to someone who is willing to eat really late (after 10 PM). This means that at our busiest we can only do at the absolute maximum 80, and it seems that right now, during the off season, we haven't been getting more than about 50 in on our busiest nights. And we haven't had very many busy nights. Friday last week was the party, Friday this week we saw thirty-some people. Saturday of both weeks has been really busy, and while last Sunday was slow, this one was also mid-paced.
Those are our busy nights. Our slow nights.....well, if this were the States, I would say that it is time for a change in the business model. We had a four-top on Thursday. One four-top. That means only one table of four people. Working that night, we had two cooks, one chef, one stage (me), a hostess, a waitress, and a dishwasher: seven people. That night in the kitchen I organized our folder of dessert recipes.

Furthermore, a small restaurant means a small kitchen--two people actually cooking with the chef stepping in only on the occasions when things get hairy. That means that by adding me into the kitchen I'm almost a 50% increase in labor force. But the space around the stoves is very cramped, and we only put out one cold appetizer, which chef does. That means that all there is for me to do once service starts is desserts, and maybe, at best, one out of every two or three tables orders desserts. So once service starts, besides the sweets I can pretty much help put the garnishes on dishes and that's about it. There just isn't enough to do otherwise!

I would love it if Keiji taught me how to run his station and then on a slow night chef said "take the evening off, Jenny will run your station". When you only have 10 people to serve, it really isn't much of a challenge for me to run a station, and everyone else in the kitchen would be there to catch any mistakes I might make. But I am positive that won't happen, which means I am left standing around once the first guests come in the door.

But the small size also means that people have a better feeling for what is going on in the kitchen overall. Keiji and Susanna are always aware of what the other is doing, and they don't even label their mise because they each know the menu so well that they can identify everything on sight (I still wish they labeled dates, but you can't win them all...). Such a small kitchen means things are coming out more consistently because it is always the same person doing everything, and the low number of people they serve means more opportunity to do things right. Generally speaking I like a kitchen just a little bit bigger, but I definitely see the advantages to having such a streamlined system!

(note: this was written earlier in the week. Last night was another 1-table night, and apparently tonight since we did enough prep yesterday for both days, we're doing a deep clean of the kitchen instead, possibly closing down entirely.)

(also, an update on knives, since that post was old as well: I pulled out their stone last night, and discovered that with a lot of elbow grease you can still get the knives sharpened on that stone, but it probably took me forty five minutes of work to get a useable edge on two knives. Now I should also admit that I am not an expert at sharpening knives, so maybe some part of that is me too....)