Diary of Dan Frank

Worn out and exhausted I made my way home from what had to be one of the worst nights I have ever had working at Axels Bonfire. When all was said and done I made $172, which is still good but I have made $250 closing the bar on a Saturday night.

The night started out much like any other. Because I was on the bar side we were pretty slow at the beginning, however once the dinning room filled up people started to filter into the bar/smoking section.

Suddenly I was being bombarded with new tables, every time I looked there seemed to me new people anxiously waiting for me to take their order. This was fine and dandy and the night progressed like this for quite some time.

As the list of people became fewer and fewer at the host stand I noticed a group of people waiting. There was probably one adult in the group and five children. This was not too bad but for some reason they just stuck out to me. When this party was seated they were placed in my section, but I realized then that the adult seemed to be missing and that more children joined the flock.

I went over to the table and noticed that they had split up a large group of people, Chris, another server working that night ending up receiving the "adult" table, while I was stuck with the children. This is not the ideal situation for a server to be in, but I thought to myself..."it's only five kids, how bad could it be?"

When I came back from getting the children their drinks I noticed that two more joined, so I got their drinks and the same thing happened! The amount of people sitting at this one table was expanding at an alarming rate; they were multiplying like rabbits!

At this point I started to get quite upset...when all was said and done there were over 15 children occupying three of my tables and running me all over the place. I have had numerous nightmares about this exact scenario occurring and now I was living it!

Needless to say I spent the rest of the night running around trying to be the best server I could possibly be, and failing miserably at it. I was practically in tears, simply because a group of prepubescent children were making my night a living hell.

After the children were sat many of my tables tipped me poorly because of the service they were receiving. This is not altogether bad seeing as how I probably deserved those tips, but the consequences of their presence did not end with me, oh no. The other person who was closing night ended up getting a three dollar tip from one of her tables who happened to have an $80 tab, simply because they were mad that these kids were sitting in the bar...They must have honestly thought that we WANTED them there; sorry think again.

I found out later on that the piano players who were providing our guest with the nights "entertainment” were connected to the group of kids. They were their children! This pissed me off to no end, and if it EVER happens again I will have no problem going up to them and telling them to fuck off!

The piano players were placed within our stores in the hopes that they would increase business, but from what I have seen they are able to successfully empty out a crowded bar in less than a half hour!