Should You Panic When Your Server Doesn’t Write Anything Down?

Have you ever given your server your order in a restaurant and noticed that they weren’t writing it down and then found yourself with a sense of dread that everything was going to come out wrong? You hope their memory is that of an elephant, one that never forgets. You want their mind to be a steel trap that keeps everything securely in its place, but you can’t help but worry their brain is as mushy as a bowl of peas and your multiple special requests will be gone with the wind.

Most servers who choose to memorize the orders as they are given are confident in their ability to do this, or they wouldn’t do it. Believe me, it’s very embarrassing to say you don’t need to write anything down and then crawl back to the table three minutes later to ask again how they wanted their steak cooked.

The secret to my steel-trap memory

When I first started waiting tables, I wrote every single thing down exactly as it was said. I didn’t want to run the risk of the wrath of the kitchen for mis-ordering something. That was in the days when I actually handed my ticket to the kitchen and someone had to decipher the chicken scratch scrawled on it. I soon learned how to write more neatly for the benefit of those who had to read it. I worked in one restaurant for 10 years and by the end of that run, I didn’t need to write anything down. Customers were impressed by my ability. 

Little did they know that after 10 years, I pretty much dreamed that menu. It was imprinted on the back of my eyelids. It wasn’t that impressive to keep an order memorized until I could walk the 12 feet to a computer to ring it in. A four-top was no problem but anything over five people meant the pad and pen came out of the apron. 

Once, when I went to that restaurant after I no longer worked there, my server was a complete newbie, a baby waiter. I watched him write everything down in neat handwriting like Miss Beadle had just taught him how to write on a slate board with Laura Ingalls. When I asked for water, he wrote down the entire word. Not a W, not H2O, but W-A-T-E-R. 

It’s a badge of honor not to pull out the pen

Some servers look at memorizing orders as a badge of honor. It’s a challenge and we want to succeed at it. For me, it might have something to do with a one-minute cartoon I remember watching on Sesame Street when I was a kid. There’s a little girl who goes to the grocery store for her mother to pick up a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter. Her mother offers to write it down, but the girl is positive she can remember it. She repeats the items over and over again as she walks to the store, and when she comes home triumphantly with all three items her mother says, “You have a good memory, honey.” 

That little girl is so proud of herself and that’s how I feel when four customers tell me what they want and 15 minutes later, I show up to their table with everything they asked for. Every once in a while, someone will compliment my memory, but I don’t leap in the air with joy, like the little girl does in the cartoon, even though I want to.

Thanks to technology, memorization may be a dying skill

Nowadays, it’s less likely that servers need to memorize much at all because so often they have a tablet in their hand, tapping the screen as the customer says what they’d like. The order zooms through the ether never having had a chance to be memorized, in one ear and out the fingertip.

There are still restaurants where servers have to write down everything, and maybe even memorize it without the use of pen and paper. If your server does do this, fret not. I know for a fact, they would only attempt it if they know they can succeed. Three appetizers, three entrées, and three beverages is just as easy to memorize as a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick  of butter. Feel free to tell your server they have a good memory and know that in their mind, they might be leaping for joy, grateful for the praise.