Smoke, Food, and all that Jazz.

Today was the first day of the "slamation" of Smoky Mountain. And its all the Jazz Festival's fault. We all thought it would start getting more busy than usual on Wednesday night, but Wednesday night came and went, and although those huge buses drove past the windows all evening, they didn't come in. Thursday, so I'm told, was the same. Life was good. Life was calm. And then Friday dawned and BOOM. It all came at once.

Generally on the weekends we have six servers or so; four for the dining room, one for the Empire Room, and one for the bar. Tonight there were ten servers working the rotation, and still they were all insanely busy. The kitchen staff was crowded too. We had two drivers on, and Ben was considering calling Nolan back in to help. Four pizza cooks, two pasta, two sando, two dishers, two drivers, one pantry, two hostesses, two bussers... that's a LOT of people in the kitchen area, and then you've got those ten servers running in and out of everywhere, and everyone is trying to breathe. Johnny was rather bitter about having to crank out so many pizzas in six hours (I think their count was well over fifty, and thats not even counting all the personal pizzas they made), but I personally don't think he should be allowed to complain since he had at least three other people making pizzas with him at all times.

The hallway was packed with people on our waiting list and I was surprised that people were willing to wait over an hour for a table. Our food is good, yes, but is it that good? ... come to think of it, yes it is. lol

Since we were mainly catering to college and high school kids tonight, the servers didn't really upsell the salad line. I was grateful for that. I got really good at making Sesame salads, though, since for some reason that was the big seller for the night. At one point I ran out of red peppers and carrot, so I had to do some improv and make it up a bit. I did really good too! I added a little of this and a few of that, and viola! A Sesame remix! I'll call it the Addieme. Hahaha! Anyhow, I was proud of myself for knowing my salads well enough to know what would go good with what. I had fun with it too, and it looked like the customers didn't exactly hate it either!

All in all, it was a crazy busy night, and although I had to stay half an hour past closing, I did have fun. I'm working a double tomorrow, and I doubt it will lighten up any more than it did tonight. But! I'd much rather be very busy and actually feel like I'm doing something than have it be insanely slow and want to just be done. Besides, its the hard work and busy shifts that pay more and are worth more in the long run. We might not always enjoy them, but the hard work does pay off more than we think. And I'm grateful. Yes! I am.