Undercover Waitress
Our new columnist divulges tales from front of house. "It takes a whole lot of caffeine and a sort of cognitive dissonance to forget the girl you once were and submit to service."
The kitchen gets all the attention, but what about FOH? That’s where worlds collide. Our new anonymous columnist suffers the tribulations of table service for your entertainment, and perhaps enlightenment, too.
THURSDAY
3:18 p.m. I arrive at _______ barely late and in a fantastic mood. It’s raining which means we will not need to arrange the sadistically heavy outdoor furniture our Chef/Owner’s wife purchased from Anthropologie along the dirty street.
I’m feeling far too beautiful for that hellscape, luckily my co-worker on his third shift in a row would much rather deal with that than you all.
5:01 p.m. The doors are open. At the beginning of service I usually have to decide what vibe I am going to entertain that evening. Am I: A) Threatening suicide right off the bat? Or B) Throwing a Joker-style smile on, slapping my coworkers on the back and telling them “It’s just another beautiful night at the restaurant.” The mood is light, I go with option B.
7:33 p.m. I amend that, the night has deteriorated and I am pretending to slit my wrist with a bread knife at the Server Station. This is following an interaction I have with Table 58, one of whose members has handed me a printed business card outlining her food intolerances: soybeans, sunflower seeds, gluten, and raw alliums.
Raw alliums is the season’s hottest new aversion. Many West Village Girlies will not be caught dead consuming uncooked garlic, shallots, onions, or chives. If you think you may suffer from this affliction, please go to a doctor and not to a restaurant.
She goes to order the cod, a seasonal dish served on a beautiful bed of late summer vegetables, an excellent choice. But before I can scribble it down in my notebook, she disarms me, clarifying, “But can I just have the Cod with olive oil on the side?”
I ask her to repeat herself, in hopes she hears how insane she sounds ordering a 6 oz. piece of plain Cod and a side of olive oil for upwards of $40 at a restaurant.
“I’ll go talk to Chef and see what we can do.” I smile, the corners of my mouth twitching with contempt. I hold that smile all the way to the kitchen. Chef looks like he could open hand smack me across the face. At first he refuses, so I just have to stand there cucked until he relents.
I head back over to their table and sigh out “absolutely” before heading to the wine station, where I’ve resolved the only way out is through and I’ll need to be drunk for the rest of the shift. I take large gulps of each of our white wines and pray I get cut soon.
9:15 p.m. After retreating to the bathroom to sit down to post an Instagram Create Mode story, I gather myself bravely to go pout by the host stand. It works. I am free. I will get very drunk after this.
SATURDAY
11:00 a.m. In a desperate attempt to pay my rent and punish myself for the subsequent bad behavior that followed Thursday’s shift, I take the brave initiative to hit up the staff group chat in our scheduling app: “Who’s hungover and wants tonight off?”
4:27 p.m. I arrive to line up two minutes late and cannot clock in. Morale is at an immediate low due to the scene in front of me.
One thing about restaurants is that it is an ever-shifting landscape of alliances and opposition. I am dismayed at the lack of friendly faces about to embark on this service with me and even more nauseated by the ones leading the charge: Tonight’s manager is my greatest foe and they are accompanied by a worthy sidekick, our B-Team host, an incompetent twunk from middle America.
Aforementioned manager proceeds to overexplain the simple process of doing our job and holds us hostage across the street from the restaurant — meanwhile I’m getting paid zilch for this.
5:15 p.m. I’m thrilled something exciting is happening at the top of service. A Zoomer in a tight red dress and platform loafers shows up to join a man of a certain age at table 52, and it’s time to play one of my favorite games ‘Dad or Date?’
Their server brings up an excellent point, dinner with dad before hitting the town with the ladies. She orders wine, so does he, they are going by the glass. A sugar daddy always goes for the bottle.
But I can’t help but disagree. I place myself at the server station directly behind them and begin to investigate. There I clock the girl’s hands neatly folded in her lap. White knuckling. No way in hell she ain’t being paid to be here.
8:00 p.m. With that mystery solved, I sink into service. We all agree the evening has a “spooky vibe.” Maybe it’s the way the dinning room is dark by 7 p.m. now, but more likely it is the lifeless eyes of the clientele who seem to have no idea what the fuck they want to eat for dinner.
Eight tables in a row now have asked me what to order. If I have to utter the prescribed line about the tuna one more time, I might throw up.
If you’re lucky enough to eat at a restaurant and have your whims and wishes catered to, please for the LOVE OF GOD have the autonomy to pick what you want to have for dinner. We servers rarely actually have favorites. The smartest ones will just tell you the most expensive things on the menu.
8:15 p.m. Table 9’s turn. I crack. Without any light behind my eyes I respond, “Well what do you like to eat? I don’t know you, I don’t know your flavor preferences, I just met you.” Luckily they laugh and I pour them extra wine to keep my tip average at 22 percent.
10:40 p.m. Twunk host seats a 5-top in my section. I stare him dead in the eye and say “Death upon you.” He looks blankly at me and says “what?” I repeat it and walk away. I realize how aggressive this is 15 minutes later when I am mercifully cut and forced to be alone with him folding napkins in the server station. I apologize.
SUNDAY
5:50 p.m. If I didn’t want to be here yesterday, I sure as hell don’t want to be here today. On top of that I’m closing. Closers come in at 5:50 p.m., it may seem like I am just looking for another thing to complain about, but hear me out: starting a shift after a whole day of life has already happened to you? No bueno. It takes a whole lot of caffeine and a sort of cognitive dissonance to forget the girl you once were and submit to service.
The Closers are rounded up and introduced to the new surveillance state: The Break Log. Smashing glasses is par for the course in restaurants, we’re moving fast, we’re trying to carry too many and we are usually drunk. But from here on out there will be consequences.
My nemesis (The Manager) informs us that going forward after we drop a glass, we will report to the host stand and write down our name, the date, and the casualties shattered. Also: no staff coffee tonight.
6:10 p.m. I linger in the coffee station out of protest and spite. I must be visibly downtrodden because a bartender getting off their shift shoves a bag of HighChew in my face while giving me a “it gets better” smile. We decide we are all just going to write the name of the Manager in the break log. The bartender suggests getting a stamp so we can get it exact.
7:00 p.m. I am flying autopilot on average mode. I am not charming, I am straight forward and I am not telling you any of the specials. Someone tells me they didn’t like the cheesecake, I just respond with “oh well”.
My body hurts, neither me or my beaten down flats have it in us to walk the six miles this shift demands. I figure I must be starving, so I begin to desperately scour the floor for lightly nibbled-on plates to scoop off tables and stuff my face with on the way to the dish pit. This is not dignified, this is not who I am, nor a reflection of my values, it is simply what must be.
7:45 p.m. This ribeye has been sitting on three girls’ table for over 30 minutes. I tell myself they look stuffed. I start to walk over to their table, when one picks up a fork, I turn away. I repeat this dance several times before they ask me to pack it up for them. Devastating.
10:30 p.m. The end of the night is teasing me when the bartender bounds over excitedly to inform me that the solo diner who’s been alone at the bar for an hour-and -a-half happens to be ‘one of the most famous dick suckers of all time’. He’s known by his stage name Dickthroatership and he ordered 10 raw clams, a full cast iron skillet of paella, and a filet of dover sole.
One of my favorite coworkers has apparently gone up to him to assert that she knows him from somewhere. This is a bright light in the darkness that is this reality.
10:33 p.m. I go to find said coworker, as she has been in charge of the outdoor section all night and I’ve barely seen her. When I peek my head out to see how close we are to getting out of here, she’s sitting on the back of a motorcycle and has a bottle of Soju in her hand. Feels like we are almost there.
11:01 p.m. The night is complete. The Floor Manager turns the lights out on us as we take turns ripping the Motorcycle Soju out of the bottle.