A couple of weeks ago I wrote a column about people with no experience in the industry trying to get restaurant jobs. I received several e-mails in response. Most were of the "you got it" variety, however one shared an amusing incident:

"I want to tell you a funny one about an applicant who came into to (restaurant name deleted) the other day. She was well dressed, in fact the most professional I have seen in the past few years, she even had a resume typed up. She spoke to me about her experience; working in Tiburon and also in Sausalito restaurants. Everything seemed right. The only thing that did not match such experience was the fact that she came in at 1:10 p.m. Right in the middle of the lunch. Oops."

One of the most misinterpreted things about the restaurant business is when people are available. The other day I got a phone call at work at 7:55 p.m. Friday. I was concerned that it might be some sort of family emergency so I took the call. It went a little like this:

"Hi, is this the bartender?" she asked.

"Yes."

"The one from the other night?"

"What night is that?" I asked, hurrying the conversation along.

"Tuesday or Wednesday?"

"Yes, it is," I answered.

"How are you?"

"Good."

Long pause É

"What do you want?" I said as I watched the tickets on the drink printer begin to spool up.

"Do you make hot buttered rums?"

"In the winter time," I replied, feeling my patience wane.

"So you don't have them now?"

"No."

"Can you give me

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the recipe?"

"Not right now," I answered.

"Why not?"

"Because I've got about 100 customers waiting for me to make their drinks."

Time is money - for the restaurant and me - and that person had just cost both quite a bit, not to mention good will. People normally don't like to wait for drinks and certainly not while the bartender is on the phone.

I've seen this sort of behavior repeated over and over. The other day I was having lunch at a local establishment, when a new wine rep presented the owner with his business card at 12:20 p.m. and wanted to talk about his products. The owner was polite enough, but as soon as the rep left I watched him throw the card in the garbage. If people in the industry don't even know the basics, the odds are that they definitely won't know any of the intricacies. And it is the intricacies that make exceptional bars and restaurants shine.

In the case of the wine rep, his products won't even get in the door because the owner is going to assume that if the rep doesn't know better than to show up at lunchtime to discuss business, then the experience is probably going to go downhill from there.

In the case of the woman applying at the restaurant: No matter what she looked, acted or sounded like, nothing was going to make up for the fact that she didn't grasp even the simplest part of the restaurant business.

In light of these recent events I made a little list of no-nos for people trying to get a job in the restaurant business. It also applies to purveyors trying to do business with restaurants and bars.

- Don't try and ambush the managers. If they wanted to talk to you they would. Ambushing them will only make them want to talk to you less.

- Lunch and dinner are the times to make money in the restaurant business. It is not the time to look at a catalog of glassware, or the time to conduct a job interview. People who work in (or have worked in) the restaurant business usually know that. People who haven't, well they usually don't.

- There's a time to fish - when they are biting - and a time to cut bait - when they are not. Fortunately in the restaurant business the busy times are pretty well set. The times not to call are between 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. for lunch and between 6:45 and 8:45 p.m. for dinner. Funny but those also seem to be the times that reservations are hardest to get. Coincidence? Cutting bait, or calling, is usually best done somewhere in between, like 4 p.m.

- Phone calls to a restaurant during peak hours about anything except reservations, hours, directions or to-go orders are usually not very welcome and in fact are probably impacting the experience of a paying customer waiting. And someday that customer might be you.

Jeff Burkhart is an award-winning bartender at a Marin bar/restaurant and an author. His columns appear weekly in Here. Add your comments to the end of this story. Contact him at jeffb@thebarflyonline.com.