I sure hope no one from yelp! was at Danny's today....

Danny's is officially open. Danny's is officially running smoothly? Well, not so much....

I think we all knew it would be an interesting day; but wow, I had no idea exactly how interesting it would prove to be. When I walked in just before 7am, I was told to go downstairs and get my uniform--ah, this is why we never talked about what we needed to wear-- which consisted of a white chef's jacket and long white apron. Camille and I (the two waitresses for opening day) looked like the cooks, except that we didn't get to wear those cool tall white paper hats like they did.

Uniform, check. Pen, check. Paper..... Danny, do we have pads for taking the orders? "Ok, ok, I get you pads."

A couple minutes later, Camille approached Danny with the same question. He gave her the same answer. Camille and I looked at each other nervously. Danny disappeared for a few minutes and when he returned, thrust a stack of torn up paper at each of us. "Ok, ok, now you have pads."

First customer. Camille let me have the privilege of breaking in the system. I got the woman water, coffee, took her order, tried to give the ticket to the cooks. Blank stares. Oh, this is not good. I read it to them, then handed them the sheet I'd written on. They nodded and smiled; I felt relieved. Until I went back to pick up my order.

Wait, these eggs are supposed to be scrambled-- and they're supposed to come with bacon not sausage....

"No, no, you no say scrambled."

I showed them on the ticket where I wrote "2 eggs-- scrambled. Bacon. Rye toast."

The one cook shook his head and yelled at the other cook in Spanish. I continued to stand there, wishing I'd paid better attention in my Spanish classes. On second thought, maybe it's better I don't know what they're saying right now.

2 scrambled eggs + sausage + white toast. And then 2 scrambled eggs + sausage + rye toast. And then we got it-- the correct combination. I brought it to my table, apologized for the wait.

$1 tip. Can't say I blame her.

"It's the first day-- of course there will be kinks that need to be fixed," we kept saying to each other. But the system just didn't work. There's no way for the waitresses to enter the order in the computer; it needs to be handwritten and handed to the cooks. But then you need a bill to bring to the table. So you have your choice: write it twice, or remember what you'd written on the ticket that you'd given to the cooks so you can tell the cashiers and have them print you a bill. Somehow, I was able to remember all my orders-- and accurately. For those who know my memory (or lack thereof), this was definitely divine intervention. The other minor detail was that not all of the cooks are, shall we say, fluent in English.... and a lot was lost in the translation as we tried to explain to them what was wrong with the various dishes that came up.

Early in the day, I introduced myself to one cook, Mateo, who ended up saving my waitressing life. After we switched to the lunch menu, I took an order and gave it to the same cook that I'd been giving my tickets to all morning (breakfast is cooked on the main floor, where customers can watch their omelets being made, etc.). Apparently this was not the case for lunch. "Downstairs! This downstairs! No breakfast!" Bewildered, I turned to Mateo who explained that there was another kitchen downstairs, and that the real entrees would be prepared down there-- and that we had to run our tickets down to those cooks. I ran down, found the kitchen I didn't know existed, and told these other cooks my order. "Upstairs! They make upstairs!" Is it an option to make it myself? Cuz right now I think that would be the least frustrating option.

But they told me you do the lunch food! I'm confused!

"Upstairs! They no right-- they make upstairs!"

And back upstairs I go.... turns out half the lunch menu comes from upstairs; half from downstairs-- and no one, still, is quite sure which comes from where. After watching Camille and I go through this a couple more times, Mateo took matters into his own hands. "Annie [no one at Danny's understands the silent 'e'] I run food. You give me order, I get you food from upstairs or downstairs. You no run around crazy no more."

Deal.

We asked Danny along the way to clarify/explain/fix things; he was very reassuring with his "Ok, ok, I fix it"; but it stopped being comforting when he continued to stand there, smiling and nodding....

Camille and I are on again tomorrow; and we are determined to bring some order to the chaos. But I will say, even after working 9 hours today, I got straight on the train and went to Alice's to be trained as a barista, just in case this Danny's gig doesn't work out.....