1. Don't be on your cell phone
If someone is servicing you and trying to take your order, please save that phone call to your mother in law for another time (or just wait until after you order). It is very difficult to cater to your needs when you're barely paying attention.
2. Have your payment ready
There is nothing more frustrating than having to wait for someone going through their purse for loose change when there are 20 other people waiting to have their orders placed. Please save yourself, and everyone else time by pulling out your cash, credit card, or whatever else before hand. Also, if you know you're short on funds please don't dine out...I don't get pleasure in telling you that your card was declined.
3. "Can you check in the back"
If your server tells you that they're out of a certain food, or drink than that means we are really out. Telling us to go check in the back, knowing fully well what we just told you, makes you rude. It wastes our time and everyone else's behind you. We don't have a warehouse in the back with a garden and 20 chefs to create what we ran out of. Please just accept the fact that we get busy and we run out of stuff, let's face it, this isn't Hogwarts.
4. Give cash, rewards cards or anything else before your order is rang through
Nothing is more frustrating than having a customer hand you cash and then after the order was already rang through you hear "oh wait I have change" or "oh, here's my rewards card". Now I have to get my manager to open the cash drawer, and I have to recalculate your total (its simple math but we are busy and this could have saved us a lot of time). I have a lot to do besides serve burritos, please be aware of that and stop holding up the line. We do say "anything else" for a reason.
5. Pick up your trash
Leaving your napkins, straw wrappers, receipts and anything else that you could have picked up yourself and thrown out, on the table makes you an asshole. The trashcan is right there as you walk out of the restaurant, please be courteous and pick up your trash. It makes my life a lot easier when we have a rush and the line is out to the door.
6. Control your children
If you plan on letting your kid run all around the restaurant or scream from the top of their lungs while I'm taking your order...please just stay at home. They're your responsibility, you can clean up that milk that they dumped on the table while you laughed and took pictures.
7. Use your manners
It takes a lot for me to still smile regardless of how rude you are to me...but that is what I get paid for. A simple please and thank you would make my day to be honest, and don't blame me for something I can't control (like the prices of food). I'm a college student, with feelings, please respect that at least a little. I love my job, and servicing people but it gets kind of hard to use my cheery voice when you give me attitude for no apparent reason.
8. Don't come in five minutes to close
It's almost ten at night, and I still have to do all my closing responsibilities (and HW to do). Please don't come into the restaurant right before we close, it is very frustrating...I have animals to take care of and classes to study for.
9. Be Kind
We are people with actual feelings. We aren't robots, and human error happens. We have a lot going through our minds, and if we mess up your order we are genuinely sorry...please don't yell at us and make us feel stupid. I'm just trying to pay my way through college and pay my bills. It doesn't take a lot to use kindness towards others.
