Dirty Deeds

For those about to rock

grill salutes the musicians who put bums on seats in New Zealand’s public establishments.

"What I want to know,” says Mister Bones with a wry grin, “is how come the sound guy gets paid more than we do.”

Dunny diving and other treats

When the party’s over.

Sarah Habershon reports on cleaning up the aftermath.

It’s been a great night, and at long last the punters have all been escorted home by a convoy of imperturbable, long-suffering cabbies. As the doors swing shut, the manager flicks a switch and the wait staffs’ pupils contract as subdued mood lighting gives way to a fluorescent glare, revealing the true horror of the night.

The party is over, the cleanup begins. Tables must be wiped and smeared with Neopol, the bar washed down, the floors swept and mopped, greasy splatters scrubbed from the skirting, the grills degreased, lurking spillages located and dissolved, gunk scooped from the plugholes and frozen flies picked gingerly from the bottom of the beer fridge – and then there’s the bloody toilets.

The post-prandial clean-up tends to be the job of the floor staff in many smaller establishments, but in larger facilities the task is usually beyond what any boss can reasonably expect of staff. This is a job for the professionals.

It's a war and they're our frontline

Sarah Habershon takes a very personal and navel eye-level look at our doormen.

There is a war going on outside every decent bar, club, live music venue and cocktail lounge on K’Road tonight.
It is a war that has been quietly waged every night for as long as I can remember, and losses on both sides have been huge. I’m talking about a war between Auckland’s drinking public and our fair city’s hospitality security staff. War is hell, though the fight seldom gets all that violent.
The days of bouncers emptying a room ‘spaghetti-western-sheriff’ style are long gone. Instead, the victims of this conflict – the often poorly-paid but critical frontline foot-soldiers, and the punters they protect – suffer mostly income and reputation injury.

Diary of a dish pig

Down at the very bottom of the food chain, Sarah Habershon is wedged between the grease trap and the sterilizer.

She's up to her knees in garbage and grime with astringent residues coating her fingers and the general appearance of an escapee from a zombie wet t-shirt contest the dish pig scrubs, sorts, sprays and stacks to the hypnotic mantra of the waitress' constant demands for more steak knives and the head chef's wails of discontent.
Thankless, demanding and almost invariably underpaid, the dishie's task is to spread a one-person support net beneath the goings on of the entire kitchen operation. The best dishies are multifunctional, capable not only of completing almost every kitchen task but also of identifying what these tasks are and when they must be done. An alert dishie will be running tables, waiting and plating between loads of the sterilizer whilst keeping an eye on the levels of every salt and pepper shaker in the place. Installing a bad dishie in a fast kitchen (a tragic yet common phenomenon) is the surest way to drive chefs into fits of fanatical fury and wait staff up the wall. Just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, the speed and efficiency of any kitchen is dictated by the speed and efficiency of its dishie.