edit: it's the customers, as expected, but now I have a better picture of how they can slow things down this much.
i arrive to find two people in line
car at front: sits at window for 15 literal minutes. receives single drink
car after them: sits at window for 15 literal minutes, receives single drink
me: pulls up to window, places order, receives drink within 2 minutes
what could they possibly be doing up there? there can't be a beverage that takes 15 minutes to prepare, I would think, and it can't just be "they're busy" because then I would have to sit at the window for 15 minutes at least once in a while, but this has happened well over fifty times, and not once have I ever had to wait more than 2 minutes for my order, even if there's 10 people in line and only one person working. It has to be something these other patrons are doing to slow down the process, but I can't fathom what it could be.
may have some clarity on this. I was aware, of course, that people order drinks with 30 things in them, and I had no doubt that was stressful to prep, but I just couldn't figure out how you could fill 15 minutes doing it. I've never heard anyone actually give wall-clock figures on how long those actually take, only how irritating they are, and I couldn't figure out how the processes could add up.
by my math, fifteen minutes would require at least thirty operations at thirty seconds each. i could see how a trip through a blender or milk foaming could cost that much time, but that only accounts for a couple operations, where do the other 25 come from? those absurdly long drink tickets always seem to be mostly syrups and toppings, which should only require a couple seconds each, I would think.
@chirasul advises me, though, that those are capable of ballooning into much larger time sinks due to many things, including cross contamination control, which I had not considered. I have not worked food service but I have talked to many people who have, so I'm aware of the sheer amount of ones shift that is spent washing your hands. It didn't occur to me that that would apply to drink making as well, but of course, right?
It's also just tough to imagine that this is so consistently the cause of the problem unless pretty much everyone other than me orders these baroque things, but... it is a common complaint, so maybe that's just all there is to it: I'm the only person in seattle who just orders a mocha.
I notice this phenomenon at every joint im at, from Dicks to Taco Bell to every coffee shop. I am in and out in 30 seconds because I decide what to get immediately and dont ask for alternatives or anything complex. I just think other people are subconsciously incompetent at ordering things
Hello!! My Other Job is basically doing this!
A customer has ordered a single complex milkshake, a reese's pb shake, and has added other flavors and candies as well. There's a timer on the work screen, when it hits six minutes, it turns a scary red. They're in the drivethrough. I remove my gloves, walk over to the window, and ring them out. Another order has just come in behind them, and it's similar enough to be complicated, but made of different things. I have two orders on my screen. I walk back to the work station, wash and dry my hands, put on new gloves, and begin the first drink. A third drink order pops up on my screen. It's much simpler, a hot mocha latte, and i breathe a sigh of relief.
The first drink contains peanuts, so i have to get out the peanut tools, a seperate blender and things that are labled (PEANUT ONLY!) from below my station. The special blender is missing! I walk back to the dish area and find it in shambles from a drink previous. I remove my gloves and wash it properly, by hand. I return to the drinks station, set it down, wash my hands, and put on another pair of gloves. The timer reads 5 minutes now.
I get out the right size of cup and fill it with ice. Ice goes in the special blender. I retrieve the rest of the ingredients from the fridge below. Hmm, there's not enough reeces in here. I go into the walkin and grab another tub of reeses. It's not coded since i just pulled it, so i remove my gloves and print a timecode for it. I set the new tub down, wash my hands, and put on new gloves. I scoop the ingredients into the blender, carefully using the assigned peanut tools. The barspoons are missing. I ignore this, and use a half-cup scoop and eye judgement for the rest. Toss the blender in and set it. It chugs for a predetermined amount of time, about a minute and a half. Ive gotten peanutbutter all over my gloves at this point. I change gloves. Pour the drink, set the peanut blender off to the side. Whip cream. Toppings. Lid. The timer now reads 7 minutes on the first drink. Bump it. I walk it over to the customer. Ring the next one. Walk back, wash my hands, put on new gloves.
There's peanutbutter everywhere. I clean the pb blender and put it's tools away, as well as all other nonrecurring ingredients for the next drink. Its a brownie bite raspberry shake with caramel swirl. I remove my gloves, wash my hands, and put on new gloves. I fetch a barspoon from the dish area, a halfcup isn't going to cut it for this one. Can't spread a cup swirl without a barspoon. Go back out to the drink station. Gather ingredients, put them in the regular blender. Blend. Swirl cup. 12 minutes on the current drink timer, 11 on the next one i haven't started yet. Whipped cream is empty. Get a new one from the cooler. Gloves. Wash. Gloves. Whipped cream, swirl on top, brownie on swirl, lid, walk it out. Apologize for the delay. Ring next customer. It's not the next drink customer! It's an online order. Ring them out, fetch their order, give it out.
At this point, the one simple mocha latte order has sat without even paying for 15 minutes. They pay, i return. Wash. Gloves. Empty the old grounds from the espresso machine, wash the steamer wand. Milk goes in the steamer, wand goes in the milk. New grind pod goes in the spress. Measure chocolate syrup into the bottom of the cup. Turn on the spress. Begin steaming milk. Spill some. Remove both from machine. Stir chocolate into the coffee, pour in foamy milk. Lid, cup sleeve, serve.
From the customer's perspective it took me almost 20 minutes to make that drink. I am not getting a tip.
EDIT: it's worth noting that
- I actually do enjoy my job! It gets stressful, but many of the regular customer interactions are worth it. The place I work for is very nice, and they take care of us workers.
- I work night shift, and we're the only place open after 11 in my town that isn't a bar or the hospital, so the usual customers I see are either blankly inebriated or just spent five hours in the ER for stitches. The hospital staff all order online in bunches and send a security guard to pick up their lunches. 1am is usually when the hospital staff orders come in. 2am marks the barfly rush, which lasts until about 3, whereupon we're left to clean up and get ready for the next rush of construction workers at 4-4:30, then normal breakfast from 5-7.
- this is a normal, non rush description. During rush periods, or AHOD hours, it's rare to have one person stationed at the drinks like this. Workers are expected to hop from one station to another as needed. So that drink that does take 5 minutes on a dead night might be waiting 20 minutes before someone even gets to the station to start it. I'll play expediter and keep track of food orders going out while ringing out on front, hopping over to drinks based on the timer on expediter, so that most orders are waiting the same amount of time to go out. It's a game of timing, and I fuckin LOVE RHYTHM GAMES.
As a former cook of 10 years, exactly this.
Something that changed for me, oddly enough, going to live in another country made me realize that we Americans have absurd expectations for customer service.
Food just ... takes time. And it becomes fractally more difficult when you're doing food for a stream of people and orders and there are so many things that go into trying to make that even a little possible, even in a sit down restaurant, let alone anything "quick service" as the industry term goes now.
One fuck up, one wrinkle, one complicated order, or special request, can set you back for hours. I had shifts on the line where it felt like I was still digging myself out of a hole when we closed. Where even the "not busy" periods were spent frantically catching up on unfinished prep or restocking mise or cleaning up from the last spike.
And this is all doable if you're given time ... but you never are. Everything needs to be done yesterday, or someone is getting yelled at. Customers demand service, waitstaff want their tips so they can pay their rent, management thinks you're gold-bricking if you so much as stop to breathe, and if you've got a packed house that means every order needs to go out quick as you please even despite that, because the knock-on effect of missing one order means every other order will fall behind too.
That mentioned moment of relief of "oh thank fuck, a quick order" is very real. Sometimes you even prioritize those just to get them off the board as fast as possible, if your workflow lets you do it while everything more complicated is on the boil.
Life as a cook was constantly racing impossible timelines and then being punished for failing.
Service in Finland was so much slower than it is here sure, and As an American, I initially bristled after years of expecting "customer service" to mean "the customer gets everything they want and NOW and with a forced smile" ... but also until the advent of widely available delivery, foodservice in Finland rarely as prone to fuck-ups or inconsistent delays as it is here in the States. Because cooks mostly just ... have the time to do the job right.
And now after nearly a year back here, I've found myself slipping back into that American impatience, and maybe I should reflect better on that and remember that this job is hard, and how nothing made me happier as a cook than an easy customer.
