Some restaurants may give you a peek inside the kitchen, but that doesn’t mean you know everything happening behind the scenes. So we went straight to the people who do. For the latest episode of Travel, Unfiltered, Travel + Leisure spoke with waiters about what diners might not realize is happening at restaurants. “There’s a lot of stuff that happens behind the scenes at restaurants that I don’t think people are really privy to,” one server told T+L. “If you know, you know,” another added.
What Really Happens When You Send Something Back to the Kitchen
Sending back a dish doesn’t always mean the kitchen starts over from scratch. “They don’t make a new one,” one server. “They just put it on a different plate, and make it look a little different, and then give it back to you.”
According to the waiter, even a request as simple as removing cheese from a burger might result in the kitchen scraping it off rather than preparing an entirely new burger.
And food that does get replaced doesn’t necessarily go to waste. An untouched steak sent back for being overcooked, for example, could become a server’s dinner while the diner gets a fresh piece of meat. “If you’re a customer and you send back your steak and it’s untouched, I’m like, ‘Thank you.’ And I take it upstairs, and I wrap it up,” one server said.
“I took home like 10 boxes of ribs the other day,” another told us.
The Ick Factor
Some of the waiters also shared stories that might make you look twice at what’s on the table. “It’ll come out of the dishwasher sometimes with food on it, and then we pour hot water on it and just wipe it off,” one server told us.
Another warned about reusable water bottles left on tables. “I worked at a restaurant where the water bottles that we left on the table were never washed at the end of the night. We were refilling them for our eight-hour shifts. At the end of the night, the bussers would just dump all the water out and then put them in a cabinet,” they said. “Maybe ask for some bottled water instead.”
And maybe skip the bread. “I do reuse bread baskets,” one revealed. “Some people eat it, some people don’t.”
How to Score Freebies
There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but a free drink, appetizer, or dessert might be another story. “Manners go a long way,” one server said, explaining how easy it can be for staff to comp things like drinks and appetizers.
Being especially kind to your server could even improve your odds of getting a birthday drink or dessert on the house. “The comps are usually up to the managers, but if it’s like my friend or somebody that’s really, really sweet, I’ll like to take something off the bill or try to,” another server told us.