- This is, "How to Make It",
and today we're at Medieval Times.
(bouncy medieval music)
Tory?
- Yes, hello. - Nice to meet you, I'm Katie.
- Nice to meet you, Katie.
- You are gonna be training me a little bit tonight.
- [Tory] I am.
- I'm basically shadowing you
- [Tory] Yes.
- All night, for the performance.
- We are going to be talking to the guests,
getting them involved in the show a little,
getting 'em really excited, of course-
- Are we a part of this show?
- We are a part of the show. - Oh my god.
- We have one part called procession,
where we are down in the sand, getting our guests amped up,
and it's fun.
- Oh my gosh.
And how many people are coming out tonight,
for this performance?
Think I heard 740?
- Wow, about.
- 740 people?
- So that's a good-sized show.
- Is that norm, that's like-
- That's a good-sized show.
- Do you ever do more than that?
- Our max is about 1350.
- 1350, well I'm here on a good night then.
Let's go put costumes on.
(upbeat music)
Tory, what are the difficult things about this job
beyond a normal restaurant server
without knights and horses and theater
happening at the same time.
- We're bringing all 28 chickens,
all 28 corns, potatoes, all at once,
all in one shot, so it is physically demanding.
- And it's faster.
- It's fast.
(upbeat music)
- Are there any pitfalls I should be avoiding?
- While I was training I made it all the way out there,
served my first two chickens,
my arm gave out, and I dropped the entire tray.
It happens, we've all made mistakes,
especially sometimes it's dark in the arena,
drinks spill, there are mistakes,
but we know how to take care of it,
we have seen it all.
- Confidence level waning.
- It should be going up knowing that I,
myself, have dropped everything.
- What happens when people ask for silverware?
- What is silverware?
- That's your response?
- We are in the 11th century,
if you can eat a cheeseburger you can do it,
it's fun, it's easy, it's great.
- So what does the welcome speech sound like?
- You're gonna wanna look at the two ends of the tables,
if you have their attention,
then you know you're good to go.
Welcome to the castle, my name's Victoria
and I'm gonna be your server today.
As you were guessing, cheering on
the black and white knight, yay.
You will also be cheering on the red knight
and the yellow knight.
We like everyone on this side,
they're our friends they're our allies.
However, the real ugly colors behind me,
we do not like them, you're gonna wanna
boo them the whole show.
As you will see, there are no utensils at the table,
it is the 11th century you will be eating
with these bad boys, it's easy,
it's fun, you can do it I promise.
We also let them know that we will be down
in procession during the show,
so please do cheer us on.
- That might hurt your tip situation.
- Nope, not at all.
- I'm giving that intro.
- So that's the thing, it's our time to
really get the guests engaged
and ready for the show.
- This is a lot of people interaction.
- It is.
- There's a reason why I'm normally holed up in the kitchen,
not dealing with-
- And you have to stay in character the entire time.
So my lords, my ladies, young squires, princess.
- What?
- Smiling, positive body language,
so it's just a constant stream of us giving them everything.
- So we're working the whole time.
- The whole time, yeah.
- Okay.
(cheering)
- Hello my lords and ladies, welcome,
what's our table number?
- Fourteen.
- Fourteen, we're gonna be right here,
just slide all the way in.
- Absolutely.
- You're gonna try and do the speech.
- Interject if I forget something.
- You got it.
- Cause I'm sure I will.
Welcome everyone, I'm Katie,
I'm gonna be your server tonight.
Just to let you know, we are cheering
for knights in all of these colors,
yellow, red, what's our colors, black and white.
And then we ask that you do not bang together
any of your plates, cups, it scares the horses,
we don't want that to happen, and-
- [Tory] Enjoy the tournament.
- Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.
(cheering)
(suspenseful music)
So normally there are three shows in one day.
I have never experienced anything like this.
- We only have maybe 30 minutes to turn over
for the next show, so we have to
pre-bus everything off of our tables
to get all the garbage and all the cups,
get everything away, so that basically
when the guests are getting up and leaving
our tables are clear, we're wiping,
we're resetting, and we're doing it again.
- I didn't even think about that.
This is an unbelievable operation,
like I just, I'm overwhelmed,
and I can't imagine doing this alone.
Look at the horses.
I don't want Tory to catch me.
- Let the feast now be served.
- This (censor beep) is no joke, like for real,
we have been running, I have so much respect
for you times 100.
- Yup, it's a lot of work.
- This is not like regular restaurant service, obviously.
There was just a falcon flying around.
(upbeat music)
So the thing I noticed the most about this
versus serving in a normal restaurant,
number one everything is heavy,
like so much heavier than you would ever be carrying.
You are bringing so much food out,
so fast and consecutively, it's just crazy to me.
- [Announcer] Medieval Times.
- How many chickens did we serve tonight?
- Arena-wide I would say we were about 800, 800 or so.
- And is that at like 3/4 capacity?
Half?
- Pretty much.
- Okay, in this same situation,
for this amount of people if I were in the kitchen
I'd be like oh I'm good, show me where the kitchen is,
but being out here, you know, front of the house,
part of the performance, in an arena, you are amazing.
So, we're looking done for tonight.
- Yes, so our station is pretty much done,
we're pretty much done here,
but we do have one last thing,
we're gonna go muck out some stalls
so care to follow me we're gonna go this way.
- If you liked this episode and you'd like
to see more, click here.
First time using a chainsaw.
We are in Astoria, Queens and we are at Locomotive Studios
and I'm about to go meet my friend Shintaro
who's going to show me how to make an ice bowl.