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Served: This Is Not a Dating Column

Posted by Hannah Howard, March 10, 2009 at 9:00 AM

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!

When we first opened, our restaurant was perpetually full of friends and friends of friends. One of these friends had waited tables with one of our servers at an Upper West Side spot. Now, he was working for an Italian wine importer.

Almost two yeas ago, on a sticky summer night, I poured him a glass of Italian wine. We chatted about it. This was my first gig waiting tables, I was not yet 21, and I was proud of my new ability to partake in oenophilic conversation without making a fool of myself. He asked what he should try next. The Zweigelt from Hungary, I thought. He was into it. Then, a glass of our Argentinian Bonarda. I was on a roll.

Me and the Wine Guy

He returned a few times, and we got to know each other a little. One night, he joined the Upper West Side restaurant crew for an after-work trip to my place. “We’re going downtown!” he said by way of goodbye, “you should come when you finish work!” Six hours later, he and I were buzzing with wine and gin, making out, and watching the sun come up over an empty Mott Street.

We had a brief fling and a bounty of wonderful wine. He left work each night with gorgeous, expensive, half-full bottles that needed to be consumed, lest they go to waste. I hung out with his model cousin and the cousin’s personal trainer wife. We made pasta and pesto and walked his dog everywhere.

Then, he broke up with me over an eloquent text message: “Hey, I think it’s just not going to work out with us for whatever reason.”

Whatever the reason, he still felt compelled to visit my restaurant sporadically. He’d sit at the bar, drink the Bonarda, and eat our chipotle pulled pork sandwich. “I just had a craving for that sandwich,” he insisted. Or, “The line at Whole Foods was way long, so I thought I’d pop by here.” That seemed like as silly a statement as his break-up text—Whole Foods was ten blocks away and there were a plethora of more Whole Foods-esque options between there and my place.

“I can’t believe I have to wait on him,” I’d fume to my sympathetic colleagues. “Why is he here?” Then I’d smile and pour him his wine. I had no other options.

I have my occasional admirers, but my wine guy affair has served as a warning. It’s fun serving friends or lovers, ex-friends and ex-lovers are a different story.

Man in a Suit

A year and a half later, I am setting up the dining room before service: polishing glasses, folding napkins. T, the fromager, and I are talking. “Oh!” she interjects, “A man came by to see you last night!”

“A man?” Who ever could my visitor be?

“A black guy in a suit.” After much thought, she remembered his name.

I had waited on him last week. Here’s what I knew: the black guy in a suit was stunning, read The Economist, drank “whatever’s good,” and happily devoured truffled mushroom spaetlzle, a flight of cheeses and an open-faced braise short rib sandwich. I knew his name, and that he flirted with me profusely, and that he worked a lot (while sporting a suit), and that he was smart. Too bad I had missed him.

But a few weeks later, he was back. We talked a lot, him leaning over the bar. I got all butterfly-y. I considered that he might ask me out, but he paid his check and said goodnight.

Now, he’s officially a regular. Everyone at my place knows him and loves him. What’s not to love?

The Ballsy Waitress

Last night, he was back, reading at the end of the bar. I turned to S., our new and lovely assistant fromager, for advice. “He’s always super flirty, he calls me gorgeous. And he seems so cool. But he’s never asked me out!”

“Well,” she said, “Go for it!”

“Ok!” I said, deciding I actually meant it. “Why not?” I knew I would hate myself later for having wussed out. I had never done this before, and certainly not at work. But S. assured me I looked “perfectly sexy,” a small ego boost to buffer against possible rejection. And more importantly, I liked him.

“I’m exhausted,” he yawned, “I’m heading home.”

I brought the check, a goat cheese truffle (he “loves goat cheese!”), and said, I’m afraid completely unsuavely, “So when are we going to hang out?”

He perked up, “Oh! Now I’m awake! Well, soon. Very soon.”

The couple sitting next to him at the bar were chatty and friendly. “Did you hear me ask that guy out?” I wondered, certain that they had witnessed the whole endeavor.

“No! I can’t believe we missed it,” the guy said. “We were trying to decide if he was into you or if he, you know, plays for the other team.”

Well, I guess I might find out. I await a phone call. And if not, then at least I know I can handle serving someone who has rejected me. They will still want their short rib sandwich and their wine—two things that needn’t fear rejection.

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