There is a strange little moment in every restaurant day when the building seems to hold its breath. Lunch is over, dinner has not yet begun, and for a few precious minutes the restaurant is almost peaceful. The cooks are finishing prep, the bartender is cutting the last few limes, the host is looking over the reservation book, and the dining room is sitting there looking far more innocent than it has any right to look. The kitchen printer is silent. Nobody is asking where their appetizer is. Nobody has complained about the temperature of the soup. For perhaps five minutes, nothing is actually wrong.

Naturally, this is when restaurants often decide to waste time. I have walked into plenty of operations during that little window and watched everyone doing something except preparing for service. One server is hunting for a pen, which is one of the great mysteries of restaurant life because establishments seem to purchase pens by the carton and yet nobody ever has one. Two cooks are arguing about who worked harder the night before. Somebody is eating a French fry over a trash can. The bartender is telling a story that apparently started during lunch and now has enough characters to qualify as a limited television series. Somewhere in the back, the manager is staring at a computer screen as though email might somehow prepare the staff for dinner.

Then six-thirty arrives, the front door opens, and the restaurant begins fighting back. I remember one night in particular when I watched an operation go from perfectly calm to completely confused in what seemed like ten minutes. The restaurant was not badly managed. In fact, it had a pretty good team. The kitchen was clean, the menu was solid, and the employees generally knew their jobs. What they did not know was what was happening that night, and that turned out to matter a great deal.