Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Lent and the Lobster


Today is Ash Wednesday. I'm sure we'll have some people bearing the marks during my lunch shift and on into the evening. Lent for a Lobster server means insanity. All the "good" Catholics have given up red meat, and they therefore seek our fish and seafood meals every Friday night. That makes every Friday night only slightly less chaotic than Valentines night. And it comes every week.

This is good in that our volume goes up, we make more money. It's bad in that it brings out those cheap old Catholics who rarely venture past the neighborhood burger dive, so the concept of leaving a tip is foreign to them. If I walked through my section with my bath robe on swinging a ball of burning incense they'd responsively reach for their wallets, but when I bring the check by their generousity magically evaporates. It's not my fault you had to wait an hour to get a table, convince your fellow Catholics to give up somehing else (insert Priest jokes here).

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16 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's kind of harsh on the Catholics. Couldn't you have used some kind of code, like the way you let us know that the customers in Mondays post were black by mentioning the Hennessy order?

I can hardly wait for your Passover story next month.

Anonymous said...

Catholics are some of the most generous of all the denominations. Lighten up.

Anonymous said...

Personally as a someone who gets his religon lampooned all the time i thought that was pretty funny (I'm jewish) lol for passover you won't get much traffic from orthodox jews at least though because shellfish is against kosher. Nice post though keep it up

Anonymous said...

oh and by the way that map thing is way cool.

Anonymous said...

I'm with you! Didn't realize that there were SO many catholics in my small town. and I swear all of them 13%'ed me tonight. Thankfully the night had to end at 9!!

mist

Lobster Boy said...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about Catholics specifically, just a sub-group, the old cheap grumpy ones. Catholics make up a sizable segment of the population I wait regularly, and they are often good tippers. One of the better tips of my career was from 2 nuns, a priest and a bishop.

I generally like the Catholics, they're not afraid to drink. Ever. Period. Good for add ons!

Lobster Boy

Lobster Boy said...

As for the Jews, I'm not sure, but my guess is our kitchen's aren't verified as being Kosher, so the likelihood is that if they are Orthodox (or any other type of strict practicing Jews) they wouldn't be eating in our store. I might be wrong though, as I'm not up to speed on Kosher requirements and certifications. I do know I've never seen a Rabbi in our kitchen. For that matter, no Priests either.

Lobster Boy

Anonymous said...

you don't need a rabbi and there is no such thing as a jewish priest but yeah most (all) kosher jews would not touch red lobster with a ten foot pole. No offense

Anonymous said...

What percentage of Jewish people are strict kosher-heads? I bet most Jews eat out wherever they feel like going - you probably wait on them all the time.

Lobster Boy said...

Shilohtd,
I'm quite aware that Priests are not Jewish clergy. My point was there aren't religious leaders in our kitchen, resturant staff not included.

Lobster Boy

Anonymous said...

Ehh most jews follow a lighter code of kosher (hebrew name does not come to mind) I for one do and I woul dnot think twice about ordering french fries at a mcdonalds but not something along the lines of a cheesburger. Meat and dairy and/or shellfish=big nono

Anonymous said...

why don't restaurants pay their waitstaff a decent wage and not pass it on to the customer on top of the published cost of the meal???

i can't think of any other industry (though i'm sure there are some and i'll be enlightened) whereby the customer is supposed to pay directly, the service provider's wage when it should really be part and parcel of the 'experience'

i say to the restaurant owners...pony up and pay a decent living wage to your employees, then pool the tips and redistribute...even take 10% if you want - at least they won't be worrying about having enough cash in pocket every day of their lives

Anonymous said...

You're lucky you don't get a lot of Jews--they're the worst tippers. You're lucky if you even get a tip.

I think Catholics are the best tippers, and the ones who don't tip well are definitely in the minority.

Anonymous said...

i'm wondering about the generalisations....because i'm scottish and sick and tired of all the comments about the 'mean scots'

some of the most generous people i know are scottish

Lobster Boy said...

The only Scots I know are great people (my wife is almost pure Scot). None of them are tight with their money, and only a couple of them enjoy Scotch.

Which is why when I mentioned a group I tried to quantify it and not just say "every xyz person is great...". It's always subsets of the larger group that cause the problem for the group as a whole. Unfortunately, depending on where you live and work, you encounter a larger portion of this subset of a given culture. I have enough experiences with other minority groups to understand this concept quite well.

As as for the Jews, short of wearing something (and possibly speech style) that would identify them as being Jewish, I likely would miss the fact a person was a Jew 90% of the time. If Jerry Seinfeld was in my section and I didn't know who he was I would never peg him as being of Jewish decent.

Lobster Boy

Richard Lewis said...

The fellow that said the Jewish folks don't Tip as well as others is Stereotyping. Jews, by their basic upbringing, give to the poor On A Daily basis. Christians like to put their money in those dishes on Sunday morning that goes into the coffers of the church. Jews give to the poor on the street, through the actual Giving of their means rather than letting some religious hierarchy decide where their "tithing" goes. The old story of the Jewish farmer who lets the poor along the road to harvest from those parts his crops that the farmer doesn't work. So don't think the Jews don't "Tip" as well - they "Tip" according to works. I haven't seen a decent waiter in months - if not years - that actually seemed to know the name of the cook/chef, where the food comes from, how it is cooked, etc. So perhaps the comment was from one of those POOR waitstaff that just didn't care to learn his/her trade.