Front of House: The Unsung Heartbeat

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been giving our front of house team a hand. Not in a token, "I’ll just carry this plate out" way, but properly getting stuck in: greeting, seating, resetting, running food, trying to stay calm while a million tiny things unfold at once.

And I have to admit: I thought I’d be better at it.

But wow. What a humbling experience.

I’ve always appreciated a FOH team during my career but I don’t think I really understood just how much they do, and how hard it is to do it well, until I tried to do it myself. The balancing act of being present, charming, alert, fast, observant, discreet, assertive- but not overbearing. It’s an art form. It’s also performance. You are “on” the entire time.

I’ve started describing the start of service as being like planning a wedding. Every day. You prep, polish, light the candles, line up your team, not quite sure what’ll go wrong (but something will) and then it’s 3, 2, 1… GO. The guests arrive and you’re off.

There’s no rehearsal. Just showtime baby.

And while I’ve been on the floor, I’ve noticed a few things I think are worth sharing, especially for those of us who’ve ever sat in a restaurant wondering (inc me):

“Why didn’t I get what I asked for straight away?”

Because your waiter probably has a mental queue of 6 or 7 urgent tasks already: a bill to print, a drink to grab, a table that needs resetting, a birthday candle to light. Maybe they passed your request to a teammate who also has their own queue. Or maybe…honestly, they just forgot. It happens.

“Why isn’t my food exactly how I asked for it?”

Like the time I ordered avocado on toast with no sugar (yes, this place I love puts sugar on my avo toast I don’t know why but i always ask to omit). It arrived sweet anyway. Why? Because the chef didn’t read the note. Or didn’t see it. Or saw it and thought “no way matey” and sent it out anyway. FOH can take the order perfectly and still be let down by the handover.

“Why is my food taking so long?”

Sometimes it’s because something genuinely went wrong. Sometimes it’s because you ordered a 1.5kg T-bone that takes 45 minutes to cook and rest, and no one warned you. That one’s on us. We should be better at communicating that starters are your friend for an order like this!

“Why isn’t this person fully clued up?”

Because they might be on their first week. Or covering someone else's shift. Or just back from two weeks away, and things have changed. They might be running on adrenaline because two team members called in sick that morning, and there are no backups left.

“Why isn’t everything perfect?”

Because nothing in restaurants is ever truly perfect. And the people running them definitely aren’t either!

But most of us are trying, genuinely trying, to give you a good experience. We care. We’ve got the best intentions. We’re trying to make it feel smooth, calm, easy… even when it’s absolutely not.

Sometimes that means my mate is helping out on the floor. Or a chef’s pulled on a waiter’s jacket and come in on their night off. Or my brother’s behind the bar, just quietly getting on with it. (All of these things have happened here.)

It’s not ideal or the plan. But when you’re one team member down and you’ve got a 120-cover dinner service ahead of you… what are you meant to do? The food’s been prepped. The bookings are in. Everyone else is ready. You don’t just close the doors. You kinda gotta go for it, with grace.

The bigger point I’m making here in all of this is: