Served: Irregular Regulars
I blog by day and wait tables by night. I'm excited to bring you Served, dispatches from the front of the house. Enjoy!
Some guests pass through our restaurant fairly anonymously. The exchange is routine: a glass of wine, a plate of cheese, maybe a few friendly words. But many customers make an impression: good, bad, and everywhere in-between.
Our regulars, our friends, make the place what it is. They love what we do and who we are. We love them, too.
Other customers have a more offbeat relationship with our establishment. Here, a few of the quirky characters who color my nights:
A Slice of Cake To Go
I'm giving last call when the Cake Man walks in. I know just what he wants. He orders the same thing every night--a slice of chocolate cake, to go.
Ours is an awesome cake: incredibly dense, bittersweet, layered with ganache, and studded with cocoa nibs. Reportedly he eats it for breakfast, with a cup of coffee and one of O.J. I approve. Totally a breakfast of champions.
It is undoubtedly a cake worthy of a trip next door for (he is our neighbor). But there is reason to believe Cake Man is, or was, motivated by more than cake alone.
When Cake started making appearances, B. cooked on the line. It is an open kitchen in a tiny place. B. is a very cute girl. Cake made it clear that he noticed and appreciated this fact. He flirted away. Big time.
Cake Man was not deterred by her complete lack of interest. We wondered whether he suspected or cared that B. was into girls. And more importantly, that she was utterly uninterested in his relentless advances.
But when B. left her job, Cake continued his nightly cake-procuring ritual. Our new cook is a fine-looking gentleman, but our cake-loving customer remains indifferent to his charms.
My Turn
As for me--I have brought this man cake countless times, but he has had eyes for B alone. Until last night.
"Tell your boyfriend, the cake is perfect for breakfast."
I played along with the me-having-a-boyfriend scenario.
"Waking up next to you and a piece of chocolate cake," he paused for dramatic effect. "What could be better?"
Where did he conceive of such a line? I failed to stifle my laughter.
He left, but not before urging, insistently, that I be a "face model." Does such a profession exist? Was he implying fault with my body? He is perhaps insane, so I will try not to belabor the implications of his suggestion.
Hot Guy
Hot Guy's predominant feature was his egregious hotness. (Thus, we did actually refer to him as Hot Guy.)
His beauty, we at first assumed, explained the fact that he had an impressive number of dates with an endless catalog of women. Nearly every night, he sauntered in with a different woman on his arm.
The situation is familiar to anyone who works at a restaurant. The man you know as part of a couple comes in with someone who is clearly not his wife/girlfriend. You play it cool. It's none of your business.
But this circumstance was exceptional. A different date, every night! Ours is a small place with a small staff, so we obviously knew who he was and wondered what he was up to.
To make matters weirder, we noticed that his date picked up the check without fail. He never once paid. Who were these women? Was this some kind of scheme? A business? An experiment? Was he an escort? A prostitute?
We'll never know. Hot Guy, after a remarkable run, went cold turkey on our restaurant. I wonder if he has a new haunt. Maybe another waiter is running a credit card from his date at this very moment, thinking, "Who is this good looking guy? Who are these infinite women who treat him to dinner?"
The Late Night Chef
I have only seen the Late Night Chef a few times, but I hear he makes semi-regular appearances. The Late Night Chef is, of course, a chef. He works at a restaurant that is part of a hotel and lives nearby. That's what he tells us, anyway.
He comes in after we have closed, while we are doing paperwork, blowing out candles, and stacking chairs on tables. His appearance is dramatic: unfathomable Simpsons character-esque hair, baggy baggy clothes.
He bursts in, says hello, and immediately launches into a fantastic story involving third world countries, unusual cuts of meat, and exotic drugs. Sometimes he brings props and visual aids, like stained-up cookbooks or photographs. His stories make minimal sense (to me, at least). They involve countless plot twists, unrelated tangents, and wild gesticulating. I am often left wondering which drug, or drugs, are fueling the Late Night Chef.
Maybe he is just a little loopy and likes to share his loopy tales with his restaurant neighbors. I'm all ears. I can think of worse ways to end my night.
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
10 Comments:
After spending 12 years in the restaurant biz, this was a welcome post. Looking forward to the next one...
taofood at 9:11AM on 08/12/08
Were the women that 'hot guy' came in with generally older? Maybe he's a gigolo?
sarahdlr at 9:32AM on 08/12/08
I'm definitely thinking HotGuy is some sort of male escort.
lexophile at 9:55AM on 08/12/08
Late Night Chef definitely sounds like an Anthony Bourdain wannabe!
cambriana at 10:15AM on 08/12/08
I lived in an apartment complex and my best friend lived a building away. We gave names (as you do) to people we'd see every day, but never meet. There was the bull dog man, who looked exactly like his dog. The BMW lady (the rest of us were in our 20's and too poor for a fancy car like that). And many others. Sometimes we would acknowledge each other with a wave. When I brought home my first baby, a neighbor came to the sliding glass door to get a glimpse and I said (well I stopped myself before all the words actually came out of my mouth), say hello to the hairy nose picker. It had become his name! I was more careful after that, and luckily, he didn't hear me.
PerkyMac at 10:30AM on 08/12/08
My money's on escort for hot guy.
I think you have material for a semi-autobiographical piece of fiction.
CanadianFoodieGirl at 10:59AM on 08/12/08
Late Night Chef sounds like a guy I cooked with briefly before going to cooking school in the late 80's. He used to pick stray fries out of the hot oil with his fingers and eat them. He was fun, until the drug use got a little out of control.
BrianPrestonCampbell at 11:11AM on 08/12/08
I enjoy your blogs. You have a book or reality tv show in the making. You really only get the full flavor of the quirkiness of people when you are doing business with them.
eatorama at 11:28AM on 08/12/08
I enjoy this story too, makes me think of college. When you're around 20K people you make up random names for them too, there was one my roommate and I called "Heaven" or "Heaven on Earth" he was an Abercrombie model and nice to look at anytime of the day.
One night I drank a bit too much in a bar we were all at and let him know what we called him. Naturally I had the perfect timing to share the elevator with him the next morning where I thought my face couldn't get any redder and the elevator couldn't move any slower! Fortunately he was very cool and we formed a nice friendship after that.
I sure wish I had the "job" of Hot Guy!
bobcatsteph3 at 12:13PM on 08/12/08
This is like an excerpt from a good foodie novel.
jdshd at 12:13PM on 08/12/08