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Served: Friends at Restaurants

Posted by Hannah Howard, June 16, 2009 at 8:30 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!

One of the best parts of working in the New York restaurant biz is getting to visit my friends at work. I’ve met wonderful people, seen great new (and old) restaurants, and been inspired by creative dishes and badass cocktails.

Having a complimentary arctic char tartare with basil and trout caviar or a glass of champagne sent your way is never not awesome. I always feel like the cool kid at school when I get to tour the kitchen or when the chef pulls up a chair and chats. And once in a while the best surprise comes at the end of dinner: a free meal.

Company

Likewise, I love having friends come in to eat and drink when I’m waiting tables or working behind the bar. It’s great seeing people who I love, and cool having the party come to me.

The hospitality industry is about making people feel welcome and taken care of. It’s about showing them a good time. This is a fun role to play—it’s why I like my job. And it’s even more fun when the customers are your friends.

“I’m coming in at 7:30 tonight,” J., one my best friends, texted me before service. She had been the chef of my restaurant when we first opened. She had left soon after, and we had grown close. She had been back only a handful of times, and I was excited for her to come by and hang out.

In the next few hours, we got busier and busier. At 9 p.m., I felt a hand on my shoulder. We gave each other a giant hug. “I’m so happy you’re here,” I said, a dirty glass in my hand.

She squeezed in at the end of the bar, the best position for me to talk with her. Of course I had not much time to talk or listen. The bar was abuzz with people who needed drinks and questions answered and waters refilled, stat. I had to help with the door, which was a messy tangle of people wanting in and waiting for parties of mysterious sizes to join them.

But when I got a second to bounce back to J. and refill her wine and send her over a plate of fava bean pesto crostini, we had snippets of conversation.

“What? He’s getting married?? No way! Hold on,” and off I was to talk about cheese and drop a check.

J. had to go before we ever got the chance to have a conversation a whole minute long. But she got to try our new parsnip cookie cakes with honey goat cheese and cinnamon milk (obscenely good!). I got to look across the bar and see her making faces at me. And she made my otherwise hectic and unexciting night a gazillion times better.

Out on the Town

“Lunch Thursday?” S., my friend and our assistant fromager, asked me.

“Of course!” It was a stressful, long night and I needed something fun to look forward to.

“Let’s go to Soho Spot,” she said. ‘My friend M. is the chef there and he’s a total sweetheart.”

“Oh, I’ve read about that place,” I remembered. “It got some pretty harsh reviews.” Pretty harsh was putting it mildly. The place opened with much fanfare but was promptly panned.

“I read those too. But since M.’s taken over the kitchen the food’s much better. And it’s a really fun place.”

“I’m in.” Lunch with S. was always a good plan.

So there we were Thursday afternoon, celebrating our day off, drinking bubbly rosé and waiting for the chef to say hi before we ordered. He was indeed a total sweetheart. S. and M. gossiped about people they used to work with and caught up with each other’s news. Then he had to get to work.

He sent us out little lobster rolls with sweet meat and feathery buns, and tuna tartare with avocado and green fish eggs. “Yum,” we crooned to each other.

Then came the rest: a salad overdressed and soggy with overly acidic goop, fried meat sticks that tasted only of grease. M. had bragged about his new dessert, an olive oil cake with strawberries, so we ordered it. “This is why restaurants should hire pastry chefs,” said S., herself a trained and accomplished pastry chef.

But the grapefruit cocktails were good and strong, and we were with each other, with friends, and basking in a luxurious day off. Bad food and all, we had fun. Luckily, M. had to run to a venue where he was catering a party that night, so we missed the awkward “What did you think?” conversation. (There is always the genuine but obvious dodge: “We had a great time.”)

After lunch we walked around Soho and talked about all the other friends we had to visit at work. It was a long list. I can’t wait.

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