Are You Ready for the Summer?
Posted by: snowcitycafe at after hours.
We’re ready! Last year, we were just finishing up our remodel construction and not ready for the crowds, which came in record numbers. But this year, we are staffed up and ready to go. We’re going to start off with a bang—the International Whaling Commission is taking over the Captain Cook Hotel for the month of May. This a huge deal for Anchorage—most of the downtown hotels are sold out. K Street will be closed the last week of May to handle media tents and conference overflow. Greenpeace will be here. They’re having a family oriented parade on Sunday, 5/27—walking twice around the Captain Cook Hotel and then heading to the Park Strip to form a whale by all holding hands. Anyway, we hope to be busy this May. But don’t worry, we always have room for you!
Great weekend!
Posted by: Laile at lunch time.
Ever since I had kids, I usually work Mon - Fri, but once a month I work a weekend and this was it. I really enjoy the energy of the weekend; it’s very different than the rest of the week. We were very busy—it almost felt like summer busy. Lots of great compliments on our staff which is really nice. I always get a little anxious when I hear that someone wants to talk to a manager, but this weekend I had a number of people pull me aside to say what a great server they had or how the host really helped them out. Also, I had a server say that he’s worked at probably 13 restaurants and he thinks our food expediters are the best. Yay Lisa and Jackie!! (The food expediter is the person who gets the food that the kitchen is putting out all organized and ready for the server. She makes sure that the toast is ready, the soup is on the right plate and all food modifications are done to order. She is the liaison between the servers and the kitchen. It can be a very high pressure job!)
Our Call Ahead Wait List system seems to be working but it still causes aggravation for some people. This is how it works—you call ahead and we put you on our waiting list. We try and give you an estimate for how long it’s taking for people to be seated so that you know when to come in. Once you come in, you check in with the hostess and we’ll give you a pager. If we’ve estimated correctly and you’ve shown up when we told you, you will most likely be seated within 10 - 15 minutes. Sometimes our estimates are wrong (people are sitting longer than we anticipated or we got a sudden surge of people come in) and sometimes people show up earlier than we estimated. So it’s not an exact science but it does work most of the time. Try it next weekend! (Call 272-3233 instead of 272-2489 if you want to avoid the long automated voice message.) It’s usually not necessary to call ahead during the week, only weekends, but starting in May it will probably be busy enough, so call ahead Mon - Fri too. Waits for a table were about 45 minutes this weekend. Worth the wait, I promise!
Well it’s 7:11 PM. Time to head home. Fun while it lasted but I’m ready to go back to Mon - Fri for awhile. —Laile
roomygown1 from Here, USA