Random Tidbits from McAllister's

I enjoy eating at McAllister's. I like an occasional turkey sandwich...or baked potato the size of a human head. What can I say?

Anyway, the service at my local franchise is very hit and miss. One day Kevin and I went after we had had a week of leftover tropical storm weather and when we got there, the ceiling was falling in. Mind you, it had been a couple of days since it rained. But they had buckets on some of the tables that were full of water (no water dripping from the ceiling at this point)and pieces of the ceiling tiles were broken and lying around everywhere. There were several people in line, and between the reduction in the number of available tables due to the water buckets and the fact that 75% of the unoccupied tables had not been bussed, seating was limited.

In the meantime, there was a guy working dilligently to fill up all of the napkin baskets (which weren't empty!) and straw baskets (which weren't empty!). Which I guess made sense because if you're going to have to eat while standing up, you're probably going to need extra napkins. Eventually, two employees started sweeping through the restaurant with a giant trash bag, throwing trash from the tables into the bag. But it would have been too efficient for them to do it all in one pass, so they did it in two.

Step 1: One person holds the bag while the other dumps the throw-away items in it and sets the non-throw away trays back on the table.

Step 2: They come back later and gather up the trays and wipe down the table.

Very odd.

But it doesn't stop there. Last week, Hayden and I went to McAllister's. There was quite a line to get to the cash register, and an angry mob gathered around the To-Go counter. One lady reported that she had been waiting for 30 minutes for her To-Go soup. Anyway, when we finally got up to the cash registers, the chick who took Hayden's order wrote it down on the pad and then told Hayden that she would have to wait until another girl came up to help because she, "doesn't touch the cash register."

I'm still trying to figure out how one performs the job of cashier without touching the cash register.

By the way, they've had a "Now Hiring" sign up in the window for two years straight now, so if you need a job and you're somewhat competent, please go apply.