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Served: (More) Lessons Learned

Posted by Hannah Howard, June 30, 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!

Almost a year ago, I wrote about some of the lessons I learned while waiting tables. Since then, I like to think I’ve acquired some more waiterly wisdom.

Ask for Help

Maybe I am running to fill up Table 6’s empty water glasses, but there is no water in the pitchers and Table 9 needs some bread and a crowd rushes through the door. When I walk by Table 6 a few minutes later, their glasses are miraculously full. I’ve thanked my fellow waiters a million times for saving my ass.

“Do you need anything?” is a mantra we repeat often when we’re all slammed. A moment of my free time might keep a fellow server from falling deep into the weeds.

But when nobody is offering, or reading your mind, I’ve learned I can still speak up. “Do you have a second to pour Bar 3 some Lambrusco?” Sometimes the answer is, “Sorry, I have negative seconds”; sometimes it’s, “No problem.” We’re a team, and we have each others' backs.

Meet People

I’ve often said that the people I’ve gotten to know are my favorite job perk. My coworkers are immensely cool, and a few of them I hope will be my friends for a long time. They’ve taught me a lot about rosé and raw milk and how to carry three glasses and three bottles of wine across the dining room and not look ridiculous or drop everything.

We’ve spent a lot of time laughing so hard it hurts. J. could always be counted on to pour me a glass of wine when I’m sad; S. will tell me to wear “that dress from Zara” on a date. We spend a lot of time together being bored, exhausted, excited, grumpy, happy. We’re family.

And then, every night, there are customers old and new. Friends, regulars, friends of friends, strangers. Many have stories and updates and just had the best dinner and want to show you a picture of every course. There are people you initially think you'd rather stab yourself with a cheese knife than talk to—that end up being fascinating. And even the creeps and the meanies, I tell myself, make for good material.

The Mysteries of Business

Why was last sticky, drizzly Tuesday the busiest Tuesday we’ve ever had? The early server, who is supposed to finish up at about midnight, was just starting to close out at 2 AM. There wasn’t a second to breathe, to eat, to pee. We made bank. The next night was nearly as crazy.

The other Sunday was painfully slow. So slow, we folded towering piles of napkins and cleaned out all the shelves and got coffee from next door and then sat there, bored. S. made a pilgrimage to buy some trashy magazines with which to pass the time. Just as we flipped open our glossies and began to learn how to have sexy summer hair, the guests started pouring in. It got genuinely busy, and stayed that way all night.

Time passes fast when you’re busy, and hardly at all when you’re deciding between Allure and Cosmo. A magazine purchase is a sure way to bring in business, though. Sort of like not carrying an umbrella is good insurance that it will rain. Other than that, though, it’s impossible to predict when we will be slow and when we will be unendingly busy.

Don’t Let Them Get To You

Some people are determined to have a bad time, to not like the restaurant, to not like you. They’re the people who always want a different table, even if the first one you offer is the nicest in the room. They want more bread when their basket is still full. They’d like to offer you a helpful hint: The music sucks, the acoustics sucks, the tapioca goat’s milk pudding sucks. The pinot blanc is no good. There should be figs with the cheese. Their pour is too small. Way too small!

I can do my best to help people out and make sure they have everything they (think they) need. That’s it. I can’t work miracles. I have to accept that people will be jerks and people will be jerks to me and not take it personally. Clearly, these people are jerks to all their waiters. I feel sorry for their often harmless and powerless dining companions.

If you can laugh about it, right after they leave or better yet, right after they pull something awful, it helps a lot.

It’s Just a Burger

My first restaurant boss, at the Wolfgang Puck Express, liked to berate his employees. “You’re fucking up my restaurant,” he would tell me each time I committed a perceived offense. One time, I stormed off angrily. He came after me.

“Listen,” he said, “I yell because that’s my style. But don’t take it too seriously. It’s just a burger. You shit it out in a few hours. None of this is life or death.” It was prime restaurant advice.

Eating and drinking is supposed to be fun. We take it seriously, those of us who work in restaurants. And those of us here on Serious Eats. But it’s not a grave matter. When it seems like the world is going to end because you sent the white anchovies to the wrong table, it’s good to remember that it really won’t.

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