Served: Happy New Year
I blog by day and wait tables in a New York City restaurant by night. I'm excited to bring you Served, dispatches from the front of the house. Enjoy!
T., my friend from school, asked me if she should work on New Year's Eve.
“I don’t know,” I said, really not knowing. “Do you think you’ll make good money?”
Our friend Andrew, who graduated last year, now runs the front of the house at a newish East Village spot. It’s the kind of restaurant that makes great boozy drinks and often employs a DJ, so it seems like a natural New Year party setting. He recruited T. to play hostess and/or coat check girl for the night.
“I don’t know about the money,” T. confessed.
“Ask Andrew!” I said.
Andrew got back to T. with a guestimate, which did little to help her resolve her quandary. She’d probably come home with a reasonable (although not extraordinary) sum of cash. But did she want to battle the drunken masses to get back home to the Upper West Side at 4 AM? Did she want to miss out on her own New Year revelry?
My Restaurant: Closed!
J., the assistant fomager at my restaurant, faced a similar dilemma. My restaurant decided this year to close for the New Year—both the eve and the day. Last year, we opened for a night that made us significantly more stress and frustration than money or fun. So this year, we’re closing our doors and skipping out altogether.
J. and her husband have both worked at restaurants since they started dating. “I’ve never kissed my husband on New Year's Eve,” J. told me with a definite tinge of sadness. Since our place will be closed, this year she can kiss her husband, whether or not he will be working (if so, she will hang out at his restaurant). But as it turns out, he managed to get the night off.
“Awesome,” I said, “you guys can celebrate instead of work, for once!” But work-free celebtraion was not in the cards. J. has a friend who manages a popular, gigantic spot in midtown. They are in need of bartenders for the big night. J. and her man are both poised and savvy behind a bar. They can work together and make more than decent money. And come midnight, they can have a proper kiss.
Working on the Holiday
New Year's Eve is the best and worst night for New York City restaurants (and bars and clubs). I can only imagine the story is much the same elsewhere. People want to go out. They want to eat, drink, party, and ring in the year with style, or excess, or drunkenness. They will spend a lot of money to do so. They will tip, perhaps generously. Who wants to start out the new year with bad karma?
Many will also inevitably exude obnoxiousness. There will be a high ratio of amateurs unused to going out on the town to drink and/or eat and unversed in the associated etiquette. Seasoned diners will be keen to immediately forget such etiquette. After all, it’s New Year's! Throw all caution to the wind! Hurrah!
Why are J. and her man sacrificing this rare night off together to slave away behind a bar? New Year's Eve can be a great night to work. If your place of employment is not exceedingly cruel, they will probably let you pop some bubbly of your own and toast the new year. The mood will be festive, the drinks flowing. And, of course, everyone else is spending money while you are making it.
I am not a giant fan of New Year's. There is way too much pressure to have disproportionate amounts of fun. The whole ordeal feels forced. Some nights will be wild, wonderful, and memorable. Some will deliver a merely adequate dose of merriment. That’s just how it goes.
I look forward to neither going out and about nor schlepping to work this year. I am throwing a party of my own: there will be a fire in the fireplace, plentitudes of champagne, and awesome (I hope) food which I will cook up. There will be old friends—perhaps some of them from work—and new ones. And I won’t have to traverse the rowdy crowds, become poor, or attend to the perceived needs of the inebriated. Sounds pretty perfect.
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.
3 Comments:
I worked as a bartender in NYC from 1978 through 1993. I think I worked every single New Year's Eve during that time. The pace was about 15 times more hectic than any other night and about twice as hectic as St Patrick's Day. We made a lot of money--usually between $300-400--because we helped SO MANY PEOPLE, not because people were tipping well. People do NOT tip well on New Year's Eve, because most people who are out drinking are not regular bar-goers, and do not understand proper bar etiquette. This is why New Year's Eve is referred to as "Amateur Night." At least that's what we used to call it. People are rude, pushy, blind drunk, and vomity.
By 3 AM, when things slowed down, my right hand would be raw and bleeding from the hundreds of wire cages atop the hundreds of Champagne bottles I'd opened (no time to dry one's hands; wet hands are easily torn open). My left shoulder and upper back would be in agony from having lifted and poured those hundreds of [heavy] Champagne bottles.
After I quit bartending to come to grad school, I spent every New Year's Eve for the next 10 or so years gloriously alone in my apartment, ordering out Chinese food and going to sleep early. Recently, friends of mine and I have evolved a new tradition, where we all cook a sumptuous meal together and then fall asleep by about 11:30.
Tell T. to stay home. Tell J. and her husband that I think they're crazy. You, on the other hand, Hannah, are eminently sensible.
klg19 at 11:42AM on 12/30/08
Hannah, I think you've started a trend here. I saw in the newspaper for about two months now there's a very similar blog to yours!
ag3208 at 6:05PM on 12/30/08
I liken Amateur Night in the bar and restaurant world to Black Friday in
retail: those in the know do not partake. Outside of the city, the scariest thing about New Year's Eve is having to get on the road for any reason with all of the unexperienced drinkers.
Since you're off for two days, you should get someone from your job to host a brunch for New Years Day. Dinner party + holiday brunch > broke + hungover. You are certainly making the right choice!
liwinegirl at 1:11PM on 12/31/08