by Laura Conaway

Jon Warner writes:

There's a local restaurant here in Goshen, IN called [...] that my coworkers and I frequent. Typically we're seated fairly quickly, though it's busy enough that lunch always takes awhile. Today we went and were confounded, because instead of someone to seat us and a server, there was one lady up front taking orders and one waitress delivering food.

Because of the economy they got rid of servers and seaters, and now sell food a la carte. You place and pay for your order up front, then sit down with a number card waiting for someone to bring out your food. You get your own drinks. They also switched to baskets from plates, so you get less of things like french fries. And there are fewer items on the menu, and the meal deals are gone.

Counting up employees, around 11:30 I saw the order taker and one waitress, which is down from a greeter and 4 waiters over lunch in better times. I assume there was a cook wandering around somewhere, still.