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Course Description
Whether you are looking for a part-time job, a summer job, work to help you through college, to supplement your family income, or a possible career, working in the restaurant industry as a waiter or waitress can be your answer. This course will discuss all the necessary information for you to learn what the job is about, how to prepare for it, what you need to know, and whether or not you have the personality to do the job well.
Waiting tables is a time-honored tradition that started long ago in England and Europe, and came over to America and continues to this day. At one time, serving others for money used to be viewed as a lower-class line of work. Today there are people who make an excellent living waiting tables, pulling in nearly two thousand dollars a week.
Interviews with waiters, waitresses, hiring managers, and restaurant owners provide the information that you need to supply what they are looking for in a good waitress. Whether you wish to work in a family-style restaurant, or you want to work in a fine dining establishment, this course will guide you through the information you need to have in order to make a good decision about your work, and possibly whether or not you can improve your situation by waiting tables. In this course you will learn who you work with and why, what your job is in different restaurant settings, the various serving methods that have their origin in other countries, etc. You will also get some insight into serving alcohol, learning the requirements of your patrons and how best to serve them and their desires. Lastly, the course will reveal the very great need for safety and proper sanitation in order to avoid contaminating food that you will be serving to your customers. Waiting tables will turn you into a student of human nature. By the end of this course you will be prepared to apply at even the highest end restaurant.
Course Lessons
Lesson 1: So, You Want to be a Waitress?
Becoming a waitress or a waiter is often as much an accident as it is a choice. Because most positions are on the job training, usually all that is required is an opening and a person to fill that opening.
Lesson 2: The Serving Staff
As a waitress looking for a job you have a fair idea the questions that will be asked during your interview and how to respond to them. What we will do now is turn the tables on you.
Lesson 3: Types of Service and Table Settings
Restaurants are categorized into three basic types: Fine, Bistro/Trattoria, and Family Style.
Lesson 4: Table Service
Contrary to the average American's understanding, table service is much more than food being brought to your table for a "sit down" meal.
Lesson 5: Taking Orders
Every establishment has a specific protocol for taking orders from the table and giving them to the kitchen and assembly areas. A new server needs to learn this protocol as quickly as possible in order to be an efficient team member.
Lesson 6: Suggestions and Suggestive Selling
As mentioned earlier in the lessons, one of your jobs as a server is to be a salesperson. You are in the business of selling food and service and the more you sell, the higher the check at the end of the night.
Lesson 7: Special Situations
Servers who intend to make a good living become students of human nature. Learning to read people is a skill anyone can learn.
Lesson 8: Other Duties
Side work duties are time consuming yet necessary to the efficient and smooth running of any restaurant. Most people are assigned specific duties so that no one waitress is responsible for every side duty that is necessary.
Lesson 9: Beverage Service
For waiters and waitresses who work in such an establishment, your tip can easily be doubled when your party orders alcohol.
Lesson 10: Team Work
Part of an effective establishment is the development of true teamwork and team spirit.
Lesson 11: Sanitation and Food Safety
Accidents happen anywhere, anytime. Your job, when you work in a restaurant situation, is to try to make sure that accidents have less of a chance of actually happening.
Optional Certificates Awarded
Certificate of Merit
Certificate of Academic Excellence
Certificates may be awarded by the instructor at his/her own discretion and are based on student merit.
To save your award and have a hard-copy delivered, there is a $30.00 processing fee that covers the customization, printing, and delivery of the award, as well as access to the UniversalClass™ Portfolio Service that documents your achievements online.
Official awards have a serial number that verifies the authenticity of the award (great for employers
to verify your achievement).
This is a non-credit course, and is provided for your personal enrichment.
This course is not intended to be a substitute for any state, government, licensing, or educational requirements.
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