Our Glossary of Terms

First things first. I believe that waiting tables should be like the Israeli Armed Forces: everyone between the ages of 18 and 24 should be compelled to serve their country. Maybe then most people would treat us with a modicum of respect. "So are you in school and working here for the summer?" Screw you, I'm almost thirty and have a B.S. in Marketing.

 

Sorry, I just had to get that out (remember the whole "Angry" thing?). This is all a lead-in to our glossary of terms for those of you who never served. I'm not going to trawl the comments to answer all your questions. Every field has its own jargon--deal with it.

•  FOH - Front-of-house, this is what customers see in a restaurant. Also used to describe several positions including waitstaff, bartenders, bussers, foodrunners, hosts, etc. 
• BOH - Back-of-house, this is everything else, kitchen (or "line"), pantry, prep area and dishpit (yes, we call it that for a reason.) Also used for Chef, Sous Chef, line and prep cooks, and dishwashers 
• Support Staff - Usually bussers, foodrunners and bartenders. Some restaurants include hosts/hostesses so they can get away with paying them minimum wage which can be as low as $2.125/hour in some states. Yep they take that down to the half-cent 
• Door Whore - Unflattering term for a hostess, usually one who's good looking but terrible at their job 
• Store or House - The entire restaurant 
• Expo Window - Place where food is put after being plated and before being run to tables. Often referred to as just "expo," or "the window" 
• Books - Reservation books, can be used to described reservation software. It is always plural, don't ask why 
• Reso - Reservation, pl. resos 
• Covers - The number of diners for a shift 
• Rush - The hour or so when most of the night's business will be done, usually around 6:30 to 7:30 
• Double-Seat - Getting two tables at the same time (take a guess what triple-seating is) 
• In The Weeds - When a server is really, really busy. Usually after getting double- or triple-seated 
• POS - Point-of-sale, i.e. computers used to enter customers' orders (and yes, most of them are pieces of shit) 
• Ram - Short for ramekin, small cup used to put sauces on the side 
• Monkey - Like a ramekin but bigger, a small dish used for putting sauce on the side (I've asked for years and no one knows why this is the name for it) 
• ___-Top - Description of party/table size, i.e. a six-top is a party/table of six 
• Solo, Deuce, Tre - Respectively, a one-, two-, or three-top 
• Big-Top - Any party of more than six people, because no one has a table for seven. Usually made of two or more tables pushed together 
• Round - Round tables 
• Mis-en-place - French for "set in place," this has two seperate meanings: BOH - prepped ingredients and sauces. FOH - place settings that are on the table before customers arrive. Often shortened to "mis," or "meez" 
• Turn - Two meanings: n. a period in which one or more tables finish dining, v. getting a table in and out of the restaurant so it can be reseated 
• Flip - Quickly turning a table, usually done on small check totals or early dining menus so you can get a better table. Also called "turn and burn" 
• Auto Grat - Short for Automatic Gratuity. Usually 18-20% service charge on tables of six or more, or discounted checks applied to the subtotal. Often shortened even further to just "Grat" 
• Bumped - You know that line below gratuity on your credit card slip? Yeah, that's for leaving extra money which is not only allowed, but highly encouraged 
• Double Bumped - Same thing as above but usually done on cash tickets when the customer doesn't realize the bill has been auto gratted and leaves yet another tip on the total (no, we're not going to chase you out the door and point out your mistake) 
• Englished - This comes in many forms and is applied to groups of people who, historically, are notoriously bad tippers (no one said this was going to be PC), e.g. Canadians, Hispanics, the British, Europeans in general (but for some reason not Germans, go figure), Indians, blacks, doctors and women 
• Campers - People who think a restaurant is their personal lounge. Two hours is okay if you ring a decent bill and tip well, but three or four hours is not cool, especially if you are the last table in the restaurant 
• Paying Rent - You don't see this much but I'll mention it anyways. If you do hang around long after you've finished your meal, realize that the server is missing out on making more money. Even if you've paid your tab and tipped, throw some extra money on the table when you leave. That is paying rent 
• Cashout - A report that tells you how much you've sold and how much you owe to the house (or how much the house owes you) 
• Tipout - Percentage of sales or tips to be shared with support staff, we rarely get to keep all the money we make 
• Shift Drink - At many restaurants, employees are given a drink at the end of the night

 So that's all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure there will be addenda in the future as needed, but I've got to head to the store where we probably won't have many on the books until everyone starts making resos at 5 o'clock and we get slammed by the rush by a bunch or three-top campers who need an extra ram of every sauce known to man only to get Englished after I've missed out on a turn. See? You almost understood that, didn't you?