The Bells, the Bells.

Well it was more like the sirens actually, last night the fire alarms sounded half-way through a busy friday night service. Every chefs worst nightmare, luckily for us most of the guests were between courses or finishing them off. You see these days most kitchens have safety valves that shut the gas off when the alarms sound. Quite sensible really, as you dont want the kitchen blowing the building into matchsticks as the gas mains goes all Buncefield on us. So after persuading everyone to evacuate the restaurant and hotel (not really all that difficult when people realise that the kitchen with its gas main is next door), we spend the next ten minutes standing in the cold watching pissed up folks meandering up to the chefs with their inevitable "funny" comments - " Hey Gordon (Ramsay) did ya burn the toast again!!". After getting the all clear from the Snr Fire Officer we can re-enter the building and try to get the service back on track. Three things worked in our favour last night. 1) It wasnt too cold - the ladies that stood outside in their fancy dresses didnt freeze too much. 2) It wasnt raining 3) We had a really nice crowd of folks in last night, who were understanding, patient and didnt try to screw us for "compensation". That said we did a bit of pre-emptive striking and offered everyone a wee glass of champagne on the house to apologise for the inconvenience and disturbance to their meals. The kitchen got their groove back quite quickly and all was well that ended well. I love it when it all comes together nicely.