The Restaurant 4-19

[KidCharlemagne]

Dewey took notes! My blood started boiling as I reflected back on the show with help from your list of grievances. I think it particularly chaps the ass of men who can’t stand the fact that some chicks actually like this guy. I know I can’t.

[bordelond]

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

I’m amazed anyone could consider Rocco a sympathetic character based on the first run of “The Restaurant.” Consider:

• This is a guy who apparently has never heard of worker’s compensation law – when an employee slips and badly hurts his arm, he makes him keep working instead of sending him to the hospital. Turns out that employee broke his arm. Rocco’s lucky his waitstaff are every bit the reality show famewhores he is, or he’d be fending off a nasty lawsuit.

I missed this episode completely, I guess … don’t remember the details at all.

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

• Same employee is told by Rocco’s manager to show up in a suit, and told he could work the front desk instead of waiting tables. Employee laboriously dresses in a suit (tying a tie is tough with a broken arm) and makes the commute to the restaurant. Rocco sees him and sends him home because he’s wearing his sling and Rocco “doesn’t want to remind his customers of life’s tragedies.” Asshat.

I remember this happening … in this case, Rocco was wrong.

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

• Rocco lures back a disgruntled bartender with a motor scooter, without any regard for how that might affect the other employee’s morale.

I saw this one. While Rocco was ham-handed about it, IMHO, the other employees needed to MYOB. Life is like that.

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

• Rocco blames his best waiter for fucking up in front of a table of that waiter’s friends. Coincidentally, that one waiter is the only Rocco employee who isn’t a total famewhorey douchebag.

I liked Topher, too … but I think he overreacted wildly. I don’t remember Rocco really dressing down Topher. Was Rocco really that hard on Topher, or did he just embarrass Topher? IMO, too small a thing to quit over. However, I wouldn’t mind seeing the episode again for a memory refresher.

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

• Oh, the groping! Is there any set of customers Rocco won’t try to cop a feel off of, or make lewd and suggestive comments towards?

Can’t recall anything particularly out of place with his shmoozing. I don’t notice this kind of stuff much in real life either, though.

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

• If Rocco paid as much attention to what’s going on in the kitchen as he did with schmoozing with customers, his opening might not have been so difficult.

Agreed. Rocco could be a neglectful kitchen manager. Somehow I never really held it against him.

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

• Rocco keeps a totally incompetent, whiny, bitchy waitress for far too long. I think it’s because she had a nice ass. And I suspect he was hitting that ass – watch the footage when she’s eventually (finally) fired, it plays a lot more like a lover’s quarrel than a business termination.

I thought he was trying to stem the attrition when he was dealing with this waitress. Therefore, Rocco was putting up with more than he might have normally. Didn’t catch the “romantic” overtones.

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

• If Rocco isn’t hitting it with his employees, he’s prone to fire them at the drop of a dime, rather than addressing their deficiencies and trying to get them to improve.

Not a bad point. Still, my memory is telling me that Rocco was right in most of these cases, but I’d really need to review a few episodes.

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

• Rocco hires with his dick, too. In the last ep of the first season, he hires a new waitress who was a customer in the restaurant the night before. And not because she’s a great waitress who coincicentailly was eating there – she showed up for work in heels. Presumably, she was hired because she was a blond hottie.

Didn’t see that one.

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

• Rocco hides behind his 70-odd year old Mamma. Every time there’s a complaint from a customer, he wheels her sad old carcass out, essentially saying “see, here’s the nice old lady who made your meatballs; you don’t want to hurt the nice old lady’s feelings, do you?”

I’m of two minds about this. Rocco needs to take the heat for his kitchen’s screw-ups – his mother doesn’t. On the other side of the coin, Mamma was a far better ambassador for the restaurant than Rocco. Rocco needed to be in the kitchen … and maybe Mamma should have been doing the shmoozing.

[BiblioCat]

I watched the Bravo marathon last Sunday, so some of this is still fresh in my mind.

With regard to bordelond and dewey’s posts:

Gideon and Rocco: Gideon got hurt, and it was Laurant who basically said “Too bad, keep working.” I think someone else went to Rocco and told him how badly Gideon was hurt and Rocco put him in a cab and sent him to the hospital. Yes, in the days following, it was Rocco who didn’t want a host in a sling seating people (because it would remind them of life’s tragedies - lame-ass excuse, IMO). IIRC, they called Gideon in to work several times with the promise of working the phones or something, and each time he got himself dressed and there on time, and then they sent him home. They treated him like shit.

Topher: Something at a table got totally screwed up (it was the kitchen’s fault) and Rocco blamed it all on Topher. The people at the table knew it wasn’t Topher’s fault and told him that Rocco was blaming him. I think Rocco called him an ass or something. He humiliated Topher and made him look like a totally incompetent jerk. Topher was the ONLY worthwhile waiter there.

The bartender and the Vespa: The bartender quit over the shitty treatment, and when Rocco called her in to just talk, and said they’d go for a ride on the Vespa, she jokingly mentioned him giving her the Vespa. He quickly agreed, saying if that would get her to come back, then she could have it. Not really a MYOB issue, IMO. You just can’t run a business like that. It’s blatent favoritism, and if Rocco had any kind of management experience, he would have known that would cause SERIOUS hard feelings on the part of the other employees. IIRC, that’s what caused Topher to just give up and quit.