Anyone worked as a hostess at a restaurant ? How as your experience? What did you have to do?

Question

Anyone worked as a hostess at a restaurant ? How as your experience? What did you have to do?

Answer 1

Personality is everything. A willingness to please guest helps.

The ability to stand in heels and smile helps too!

Being able to "smile" over the phone is a plus.

Answer 2

I currently host in a fine dining setting. My day gets started long before service and there is a LOT more work involved than in casual dining facilities.

I start out by calling & confirming reservations for the days ahead. I make a list of reservations for the evenings service for the kitchen. I try to adhere to guests requests. Some folks may want to have a specific table, be celebrating a special occassion or have a food allergy, so I make up guest cards for the servers. I then plot my tables for the evenings service. Making sure my servers get an equal amount (or close too) of covers for the evenings service, that the turn times for the tables are correct and space everything out so my kitchen doesn't get a wicked spank. During service, I greet guests, seat them, then if they are one with a special occasion, I make the kitchen aware of what table they're on, what position number they are on the table and who their server is. When I seat a guest, I pull their chair out for them, hand off menus (beginning with the women first and on their right side whenever possible) and lay their napkin across their lap. I tell them the name of their server and tell them to enjoy their meal.

I maintain the flow of the restaurant during service. There will always be someone to throw a kink into the machine. You have to be able to recovery quickly. After time you find your groove. A guest will arrive late, or with less people than they had originally reserved for, or more (which really sucks,) guests will make changes to, cancel, or just not show up for their reservation (which I really hate, especially if a walk-in guest wanted a table.) I wish they would just have the courtesy to call and say they can't make it. I have to make sure everything stays moving in a timely manner, covers stay close to even and the guests stay happy.

During the course of the night, I will help run food, water, clear & reset tables. It's not required of me, but during the peak hour, it gets crazy busy and I want to help turn the tables faster, so no guest has to wait. When guests ask me where the bathrooms are, I take them there, I do not tell them where they are. That is the proper thing to do. I will also call taxi's, help folks with their coats, open doors (just regular mannerly things.)  During the night, I get calls for reservations and I take care of those also.

When guests are departing, I ask if they enjoyed everything. If they praise or diss something specific I let the appropriate people know.

Also during service, we have a bar area for walk-ins. Sometimes there is a case where I need a guest to wait there until their table is reset. When their table is ready, I carry their drinks for them (on a tray.) If a restaurant doesn't do this, a guest should feel insulted.

I also keep tabs on an in-house waitlist. This is for guests who didn't make reservations for a table, but want to have dinner with us. Be it for a dining room (if it's even available) or bar table. I try to over estimate the time a little bit then when I sit them earlier, they are a bit happier over their wait. When I see that a paid guest is lingering at a table for much longer than normal (up to 30 minutes over another guests reservation,) I nicely invite them over to the bar for a complimentary cocktail and let them know that a guest has been waiting quite a while to sit down for their reservation. Even though it's fine dining, we are a small popular restaurant and do a high volume and need to utilize our tables to their capacity.

At the end of service, I clean up my area, clock out, change, then hit the bar.

As far as my experience there, I think my jobs sucks rhino butt. It would be better if I got tipped out. There are some guests who will tip me for coats or for getting taxi's. There is one guy that comes in once & a while and always hands me a few bucks for getting him a nice table months ago. I'll get palmed a few bucks from people to get them a table. NEVER believe anyone who says "I'll take care of you." They won't. But I really like the atmosphere and my co-workers. I'm doing a bunch of extra projects on the side which keep me from quitting.

Answer 3

hostessing at a restaurant was my first job! i really really liked it. i worked at a seafood place so sometime it smelled funny but other than that i really can complain. i got to talk to alot of nice people. the really good thing about it is when they didnt enjoy there food or the experience there they usaully blame the waitress which makes you the "good guy".

Answer 4

i never worked as a hostess or anything of the kind but i know plenty of people who do/had

you have to stand inside of the entracnce and greet people and show them to their tables.

take their order and reccomend things.

the busser will clean the table once the costumers are finished and have already left

unless you are working at a buffet you will be responsible for taking their plates when they are finished and you know how people get a buffets so you will have to do that frequently

Answer 5

I have.

You greet people at the door, ask them how many, smoking or non, seat them at the proper table, hand out menus, tell them their waitress will be with them in just a couple minutes. In the mean time keep tracking of all the tables and which waitress is assigned to which table, and also which table is cleared by the bussers, and which table if about to get up if busy enough and hurrying up to get the bussers to clear to sit the people who have been waiting. lol I'm rambling. It can be hectic. But I liked being a Hostess. I would do it again.

Answer 6

You greet people, take them to their tables, and hand them menus. You need to keep track of which tables are open and what sections of the restaurant are being seated. You may be required to tell customers about daily specials. In some restaurants, hosts also help out with bussing tables, cashiering and to-go orders.

It can be fun if the restaurant is fun. You'll be on your feet a lot, but you probably won't be bored, and the time will go by fast. You need to smile a lot and be friendly :-)

Answer 7

I'm a waitress at a restaurant but I host a couple days a week. All I have to do is seat customers at their table, hand them menues and take away unused plates/silverware. Then I keep track of the tables on a dry erase seating chart to make sure each waiter gets around the same amount of tables. Not a hard job, I learned how to do it in a matter of minutes and the restaurant is always busy.