De Bier Haus, a Belgium-style pub, is owned by a very young and very inexplicably successful entrepreneur named Matt. He’s in his early thirties, but the ball cap and clean-shaven face make him look even younger.
(At 27, I can only stress the fact that a successful person in his thirties is young. Too young to be that successful – since I’m nowhere close yet.)
Apparently, the original owner of De Bier Haus went bankrupt less than a year after building the pub, so Matt bought it at the perfect time – just as it was going under. From there, he’s turned it into the only positive-growth establishment in the area. I don’t know where he came up with the money to buy it, and I don’t know how he turned the business around. But he did. Nowadays, the place is crowded with drinkers and diners.
The pub’s interior looks something like a medieval castle, complete with long wooden tables, stone walls, iron-wrought chandeliers, dripping candles, and a fireplace. The fare is pretty rustic too: lamb shanks, chowder, antipasto platters piled with olives, cheese, meats, mussels, bread. Chilled steins of beer and glasses of wine clutter the tabletops, and there is the drone of conversation and the clink of cutlery.
I stand at the bar, dressed in black. My hair is twisted up into a straw-coloured knot, and I’m wearing eye makeup, for once, that smudges my eyes into a feline shape. I feel out of place, but I try to look natural, smiling at everyone who comes in, and greeting them warmly. Are you in for dinner tonight? Great. Just sit anywhere – I’ll bring over some menus.
Hi there. Just drinks? Sure thing. What would you like? Lake Chalice Pinot… Sorry – was that the Pinot Noir or the Pinot Gris?
Oh, right. The menus. Hi guys, sorry about that. I’m Alieda, I’ll be taking care of you tonight. Our special tonight is a pan-fried salmon fillet on fondant potatoes; it comes with a beautiful spring salad. I’ll just leave you with the menu and come back for your drink orders.
I clear some plates at the table next door. How was it guys? Good. Would you like coffee, dessert? Maybe another glass of wine?
One more thing to remember. Port, cheesecake, cappuccino. That wasn’t even my table. I write it down. My notepad becomes quickly ridiculous. I try to keep track of the table numbers, but they aren’t permanently assigned – they’re random. It’s like that in every restaurant, in New Zealand. The Kiwis love to put a random number on a wooden stand; they put it on any table. It confuses me. Why not just number the tables? One less thing to crowd the table, and one less thing for me to write down.
I serve more drinks at the bar. I remember to bring water to my table, try to decipher their accents, bring them the correct wine, and take their meal orders. I remember to punch it into the till, being sure to send the order to the kitchen. More people come in. The Friday night Happy Hour crowd is mostly populated by yuppies in suits, drinking Stella, or ladies grouped together drinking wine. Soon I have three or four tables, then five or six.
I try to juggle everything at once, but I’m not very good at it, at least not yet. I acquire new tables just by making eye contact.
As soon as they see me, some ladies want to order drinks and dinner (who gave them menus? Who do they belong to?), and before I can get to the till (my home-free), this group wants another round (that’s three Stellas, two bourbon & cokes, house Sauv). Darn, that’s the bell – that man’s steak is ready.
I am not very fast at the bar, but pouring beer and wine is easy and I know I’ll get faster. It’s the cocktails that trouble me. Kiwis call ginger ale “bitter” and Sprite “lemonade,” for example – not very helpful. I find the port glasses. I make the cappuccino. Someone orders Sambuka shots.
I hear the bell again, rush over, carry out food, clear more plates. More people wander in for dinner; they sit; I bring them menus. I must remember to come back to them.
No one brings you a check in New Zealand. It’s quite strange actually. When you’re finished your meal, you come to the bar to pay. You can’t just put your credit card on the table – no one would get it. Also, nobody tips a penny: if you pay in cash, you get your change.
I remember when John and I first went out for dinner in New Zealand, we thought that we were being ignored. We sat around waiting for our bill, and we waited and waited, finally getting fed up and marching up to pay very pointedly. When it happened again and again, we realized that, in New Zealand, a printed-out check is just not done; nor is leaving the cash on the table. You don’t even tip at the bar. It’s crazy.
I can understand now why servers sometimes avoid eye contact. They already have so much to remember – they’re probably chanting to themselves, an order, a table number, and if you interrupt them before they can get to the till, they’ll have to make the embarrassing spectacle of heading back to the table to say something like, “I’m sorry – it was medium well steak, right? And you were having the pork belly. Right. Just checking.”
A lot of the time, people order even faster than I can write - which is saying a lot. I'm a fast writer - I've written four years' worth of lecture notes. In that case it's up to me to remember calamari, risotto, mussells, chardonnay, sauv, flat white.
"Are you from New York?" someone asks me.
"No," I say truthfully, and smile, and keep walking.
Sometimes people order food at the bar, to my immense relief. It makes things much easier. Food and drinks ordered all at once, while I’m standing at the till – no room for error. Then I make the drinks, and I know the food’s already on the way, and already paid for. The only issue is making a spectacle of myself, like a person learning how to type – one finger trained above the till, looking for the right button.
“First night?” they ask.
“Yeah,” I laugh. “How can you tell?”
It’s the walking that does me in. When tables are ordering from their seats, I have to write it down, walk back and forth, and it seems like every step holds the possibility for a distraction or an error. I’m bound to see something that needs doing, and someone’s bound to want something.
So far, I’ve been lucky. I haven’t forgotten any tables, and although I have made mistakes, none of them were very noticeable. My biggest issue is definitely the accents. I can imitate a Kiwi accent easily, but understanding one, in a loud room, is another matter. I don’t have the heart to tell the customers that I can’t understand half of what they just said. I just phonetically write down what I think I hear, and then check it against the menu.
Sometimes they ask me questions I can’t answer: Does the lamb shank come with gravy? So I have to level with them. Sorry, I’m not sure – it’s my first night? But I can ask. I’ll just be right back.
Once I had a guy come up to the bar while I was in the middle of a nervous attempt to punch in a table’s orders (five lamb shanks, one pork burger, a bottle of wine, some beer). I looked up and he just started firing away drink orders. He got as far as a Stella, two Pyos, a Roan Mig Marlow, a Buhbin Bitta, a Mick Kinna – I had to stop him. I’d found the Stella button, but had forgotten the rest of what he’d said. Pyos? Roan Mig? What did that mean?
He wasn’t saying Pyo, it turns out, but Pure, which meant Steinlager Pure – a Kiwi beer, don’t worry about it. I found the bottles behind me in the fridge. The Roan Mig, I deduced, was the Roaring Meg Merlot. And the McKenna is a pre-mixed bourbon-and-cola. You’d never see something like that in a pub in Canada, I don’t think. Buhbin Bitta – bourbon bitter – bitter meant ginger ale. Golly.
The man was completely affronted. He must have thought I was an idiot – he had to repeat his order three times before I understood him. I explained that I was new, didn’t know the till, but the truth is I just didn’t know the lingo, and couldn’t understand his accent.
This morning, Saturday, John left for Wellington. He'll be working there at least a month. It's the longest I'll have been parted from him in five years - the longest I've been alone too. I already feel his absence: his empty bed has been made up for the next guest. He won't be there when I get home from work tonight. It will be strange to cook alone, eat alone, sleep alone.
But it's Saturday, and it's time for work. De Bier Haus is going to keep me busy tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment