Why do waiters at certain restaurants NOT write the order down?
I’ve worked in restaurants for about ten years. In these ten years, on almost a daily basis, I’ve dealt with customers who are of the opinion that they know how to do my job better than I. The short answer to why any waiter or cook employs any method at all? None of your business. The good ones have figured out how to make it work, and writing down orders may or may not be part of the process. They spend a hell of a lot more time at their restaurant than you. If they’re good at their job, then they have intimate knowledge of their workplace’s peculiarities. Perhaps every dish has a corresponding number at PF Chang’s which this waiter long ago commited to memory. Six numbers with a quirk on but one of the dishes is quite easy to memorize, no pad required. He may have been on his way back to the kitchen when he took your order. In that case, it’s likely he meant to tell the cook directly instead of trusting an order slip to express your request. Customers tend to assume they are a waiter
Also, to emphasize what’s implied in my response, there’s nothing at all wrong that you were nervous when your waitperson didn’t write anything down. It makes most people nervous. Sitting there worrying about whether your waiterperson has screwed up your order can be a real distraction from what otherwise would have been a relaxing meal. I strongly disagree with the attitude that some people have above that disdains customers worrying about such things and that in doing so, the customer is supposedly presuming to know better than the waiter how to do the job. The customer isn’t claiming to know better how to do the job—they’re just naturally worried something is going to go wrong. If the customer feels that way, in a fundamental sense the waitperson isn’t doing their job.
Speaking as someone who eats at restaurants, I’m always annoyed at waiters that don’t write down my order. From experience, I know that the odds of getting a wrong order when it’s written down are maybe 1%. The odds of getting a wrong order when it isn’t written down are more like 5%. I find that annoying. It detracts from my meal, even when the right order eventually shows up. Do I take it out in people’s tips? I don’t know, never really thought about it. Perhaps I’ve generally forgotten about the earlier part of the meal by the time the check comes. But perhaps I haven’t. My advice for waitstaff: carry a pad and paper, and pretend like you’re writing, even if you aren’t.
From experience, I know that the odds of getting a wrong order when it’s written down are maybe 1%. The odds of getting a wrong order when it isn’t written down are more like 5%. From experience, I know the odds of that statement being pulled out of your ass are 99%. If you can show me a list of all the restaurant meals you’ve had over, say, the last decade with consistent notation of order-taking (written or memorized) and outcome (number of mistakes), with an accurate statistical analysis including P values and ranges, I’ll withdraw my remark and apologize handsomely; until then, I’ll assume that like the rest of humanity, you’re letting one or two memorable experiences color your idea of how things work in general. (“Yeah, every time I go out with a blonde, it’s always the same…”) We humans are great at storytelling and terrible at probability.
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