Waiter Rant (4 page)

The morning after the myocardial event Sammy held an emergency staff meeting to tell us the news.

“Caesar’s in the hospital,” Sammy says, close to weeping. “I want all of us to remember him in our prayers.”

It soon becomes obvious the waiters aren’t besieging heaven with requests to speed up Caesar’s recovery. In fact, they’re probably asking the Almighty for the exact opposite. Rizzo’s biting his hand to keep from laughing. Most of the waiters are openly smiling.

“You guys think this is funny?” Sammy says, his voice rising.

“No, of course not,” Rizzo says, his laughter starting to get away from him.

“You’re a bastard, Rizzo.”

Rizzo’s laughter’s contagious. I find myself smiling, too. I remember the Russian Jew. I remember how Caesar called me a peasant. Fuck Caesar.

“It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” I say.

Sammy looks at me in shock. “What’d you say?”

“You heard me.”

Sammy storms off, furious. Caesar’s the source of his power. Without Caesar, Sammy’s just a tubby, impotent leech.

“Oh man,” Rizzo giggles.

“Like no one saw that heart attack coming,” I mutter.

“You think Caesar’s blowout with Ralph had something to do with it?”

“A piece of arterial plaque or something must’ve dislodged when he was screaming his head off,” I say. “It floated around for a while, then—whammo!”

“It wasn’t arterial plaque,” Rizzo says.

“What was it?”

“It was karma, man,” Rizzo says, shaking his head. “It was motherfucking karma.”

While the Dali Lama might disagree with Rizzo’s theological interpretation of events, karma or no, Caesar survived his heart attack and came back to work several weeks later. During
this time, unbeknownst to us, Fluvio had been sneaking around trying to open up his own restaurant. He was being covert because Caesar—with his Wagnerian,
Godfather
-esque notions of loyalty—would view Fluvio’s desire to have something for himself as a betrayal deserving of death. If Caesar couldn’t control you, he hated you. Then again, he hated everyone.

But Fluvio made the mistake of advertising for waitstaff in the Help Wanted section three months before his restaurant was scheduled to open. My brother, who never liked Fluvio, answered the ad, discovered what he was up to, and ratted him out. Caesar fired Fluvio soon afterward.

Now, a restaurant without a chef is a problem. Fluvio was experienced, and his services didn’t come cheap. Being a tightwad, Caesar decided now would be a good time to increase his profit margin by going with a less-expensive and less-experienced chef.

The first guy Caesar hired, Ray, was a disaster. His management style was to let the kitchen guys do whatever they wanted—so they had no respect for him. Sammy even caught Ray on the phone asking his mother how to make risotto. Ray was a dead chef walking. Caesar took away his spatula after two weeks.

After Ray an assortment of con artists and criminals pretending to be chefs waltzed in and out of the kitchen. Considering what Caesar was probably paying them, the substandard applicants were no surprise. Without a firm leader in the kitchen, things started to go awry. The health department issued Amici’s a summons for unsanitary conditions. When Caesar didn’t remediate the problems quickly enough, the health inspector quickly publicized that we were a dirty restaurant. Business took a nosedive.

Caesar finally hired a no-nonsense guy named Jeff. He wasn’t going to win any culinary awards, but he was a good manager. The kitchen got cleaned up, and the health department got off our backs. Business started to pick up. But Caesar wanted Jeff to be a world-class cook for less than world-class wages. That would be my undoing at Amici’s.

The end comes on a beautiful June day. I’m enjoying my only day off when the phone rings. It’s Sammy.

“Two of my waiters called out,” Sammy says, panic rising in his voice. “I only have one server on for lunch.”

I consider suggesting that Sammy’s problems retaining waitstaff might be symptomatic of a broader systemic problem. Amici’s is dysfunctional because the owner is dysfunctional. A well-run restaurant putting out a good product usually attracts good staff. But dysfunctional restaurants tend to retain staff with less-developed professional skills. A few months earlier I’d had the chance to dine at Gramercy Tavern. I was dumbfounded by how
polished
the waiters were. As I watched the restaurant’s elegant servers gracefully navigate the crowded dining room floor, I felt like a bush-league player watching the Yankees take the field. Compared to Gramercy, Amici’s seems like a hot-dog stand. Why the difference? Simple—quality flows from the top down. Gramercy’s owner, Danny Meyer, is a driven, classy guy who, unlike Caesar, treats his employees with respect. Sure, he has problems like every other business owner, but he deals with them professionally. Meyer and his staff’s attention to detail and customer service is tremendous, and that’s a large reason for their success. And the reason Meyer’s staff can stay so focused is because they’re basically happy and secure in their jobs—most of the time.

But in a restaurant where the manager’s shaking down waiters and the owner’s pining for the glory days of the Third Reich, you shouldn’t be surprised if the service and the food are below par. Not only does all that negative energy result in horrible staff, it attracts crazy customers like a moth to a flame. The customers at Amici’s are awful. Granted, you may get evil customers at Gramercy, too, but you get more déclassé (that’s French for “trailer trash”) customers at a place like Amici’s. Since the owner and manager treat the staff like slaves, it’s no surprise that many of the customers display similar attitudes toward the hired help.
A restaurant gets the customers it deserves
. I feel like telling Sammy
all this but decide against it. He wouldn’t understand what I was talking about.

“So you want me to come in on my day off?” I reply. “I have plans tonight.”

“But I just need you for lunch,” Sammy whines.

“I know you, Sammy. You’ll make me stay for dinner, too.”

“I swear on my children that you’ll leave at three o’clock.”

I sigh deeply. As much as I don’t like Sammy, I was raised with a good work ethic.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Thanks,” Sammy says. “I owe you one.”

“Don’t forget it.”

I hang up and drive into work. When I get there, it’s a madhouse. As I race around taking orders I notice Caesar is sitting at his customary table, sucking down red wine, oblivious to the fact that he should be helping to keep
his
restaurant going.

“Come over here,” Caesar barks, waving me over to his table.

“What’s up, Caesar?” I say impatiently. “I’ve got fifteen tables to take care of.”

“Tell the chef I want the fish special for lunch.”

“Okay, no problem.”

“But don’t tell him it’s for me,” Caesar whispers.

“Why?”

“I don’t want him to know it’s for me!” Caesar snaps imperiously. “Don’t question me!”

“Okay, Caesar,” I reply, rolling my eyes.

“Don’t be a smart ass.”

I put Caesar’s order into the POS computer. Then I go into the kitchen and tell Jeff it’s for the boss. The reason I’m disobeying the owner’s instructions is because I’m following a cardinal rule for waitstaff—always stay on the chef’s good side. A chef can make or break a waiter. He or she can make sure everyone gets their food but you. If the kitchen staff turns on you, it’s all over.

Jeff thanks me for the heads-up. After a while the owner’s top-secret striped bass gets plated. I drop it off at Caesar’s table.

“Jeff doesn’t know this is for me?” Caesar asks, his breath reeking of onions and red wine.

“He doesn’t know a thing,” I lie.

“Good.”

I dive back into the lunchtime fray. Things are so bad Sammy’s taking tables. I run up to a couple eating with small children, apologize for taking so long, and get their order. As I’m punching the kiddie meals into the POS a hand grabs my upper arm and almost yanks me off my feet.

“YOU COCKSUCKER!” Caesar screams, his face an inch from mine. “You lying piece of shit!”

“Wha—” I reply, stunned.

“YOU’RE FIRED!”

“Why?”

“I told you I didn’t want the chef to know the food was for me!” Caesar screams.

I look over at the kitchen. Jeff’s standing in the doorway. He shrugs innocently and walks back into the kitchen.

“Caesar—”

“Get the fuck out!” Caesar screams. “GET THE FUCK OUT!”

“Do you mind?” the father at my table says. “There are children here!”

Ignoring the man, Caesar grabs my shirt with both hands. “Get the fuck out, you cocksucker!” he shrieks, shaking me.

Caesar’s hot spittle sprays onto my cheek and lips. I raise my hand to wipe it away. Caesar knocks it down.

Sammy comes running over. “Caesar,” he yelps, “let go of him.”

“You want to get fired, too?” Caesar yells, the veins popping out of his neck. “I’ll fire you next, Sammy!”

Sammy slinks off with his tail between his legs. Caesar’s pulling on my shirt. My vision starts to tunnel. My hands ball into fists. A red haze starts to surround me. I’m seriously considering picking up where Caesar’s heart attack left off.

But years of working with psychiatric patients kicks in. I realize I’m thinking about pummeling an alcoholic septuagenarian. Caesar’s not worth going to jail over. I disentangle myself from his grasp and head for the door.

“GET OUT!” Caesar yells, chasing me. “GET OUT!”

I race onto the sidewalk. Caesar follows me, screaming. I don’t want to leave because I have some of the restaurant’s money in my pocket. If I take off, I could be arrested for stealing. I’m not giving Caesar that opportunity.

“Caesar,” I warn ominously, “if you take another step closer, there’s going to be trouble.”

A reptilian wariness creeps into Caesar’s eyes. He backs up, sputtering obscenities. After a few tense seconds he heads back inside. Sammy pokes his head cautiously out the door. When he realizes the coast is clear, he comes out to talk to me.

“Thanks for not killing him,” Sammy says, genuinely shocked.

“Something’s seriously wrong with that guy,” I reply, handing over the restaurant’s money. “I come in on my day off, and he treats me like that?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I’m outta here.”

“I’ll talk to Caesar,” Sammy says. “Maybe I can get you your job back.”

“Tell him to shove it up his ass.”

I walk to the back of the restaurant to get my car. My hands are shaking. As I round the corner I see Jeff standing on the back staircase having a cigarette.

“Jeff, man,” I say, “what happened?”

“Caesar asked me if you told me the fish was for him,” Jeff says. “You did, so I told him.”

“Dude,” I reply, flabbergasted. “I was trying to help you. Why’d you rat me out?”

“I’m taking care of number one, man,” Jeff says, taking a drag off his smoke. “And I don’t give a shit what you think.”

For the second time in two minutes I think about strangling someone with my bare hands. That walls-are-closing-in-around-me sensation starts pressing in on me again. A cold sweat trickles down my back. My heartbeat and respiration go into overdrive. I feel like I’m having an anxiety attack. I forgo throttling Jeff. In my current mental state discretion is the better part of valor. I get in my car and drive home.

Later that evening my brother calls. “What the hell happened?” he asks.

I tell him.

“Caesar’s crazy,” my brother replies, a weariness creeping into his voice.

“Thanks for getting me into Amici’s,” I say. “But you need that job there more than I do. I’ll just go quietly.”

“Maybe Sammy can work something out for you. He’s grateful you didn’t punch Caesar out.”

“Believe me, I felt like it.”

“Let me see what I can do on my end.”

“Okay.”

“Later, bro.”

Sammy calls me a few hours later. He tells me he can get my job back for a hundred bucks. After a few choice words I hang up on him. He forgot his gratitude real quick.

The next day I’m out looking for another job. When applying for these gigs, applicants should always show up in person and never pester management during service. That just screams you’re inexperienced. Hopeful waiters should apply before lunch or during the lull before dinner, preferably with an appointment. As I’m driving to my next interview my cell phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Ah yes, hello, is that you?” a vaguely familiar voice says.

“Who is this?” I ask.

“This is Fluvio.”

“Fluvio,” I say, “how are you? How’s the new restaurant?”

“It’s okay,” he says. “But my manager disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“He do drugs, you know?” Fluvio says, his voice pushing through the cellular static. “He don’t come to work for three days. I have no idea where he is.”

“That sucks.”

“So you got fired, eh?” Fluvio asks.

“News travels fast.” The restaurant grapevine is faster than Reuters.

“Sammy’s a piece of shit,” Fluvio says. “Listen, come up by my new place. We’ll talk.”

“You need a waiter?”

“I need a manager,” Fluvio says. “I don’t know you well, but from what I’ve seen I think I can trust you.”

“Even though my brother got you fired?” I ask incredulously.

“Don’t you worry,” Fluvio says. “Why don’t you come see me tomorrow and we talk.”

“How about two o’clock?”

“See you then.”

I hang up the phone. A smile creeps across my face. I know Fluvio will hire me. I chuckle softly to myself. I’ve been a waiter for only eight months, and I’ve already ended up with an offer to manage a place. I’ll work at Fluvio’s bistro for a couple of months, a year tops, and then move on to something else. I crumple up my list of restaurants and throw it into the garbage.

W
aiter!” my customer, an expensively dressed Wall Street type, whines. “Why can’t I have the Pollo Cardinale tonight? I have it here all the time.”

“Because it’s New Year’s Eve, sir,” I reply patiently. “We have a special menu tonight.”

“So I can’t have anything off the regular menu?”

In a few hours it will be 2006. I’ve been working at Fluvio’s restaurant, The Bistro, for six years. No longer that Padawan waiter from Amici’s, I’ve developed into a full-fledged Waiter Jedi. Along the way I even started a popular Web site, called Waiter Rant, to share my restaurant war stories. To millions of people I’m the anonymous Internet writer known only as “The Waiter.” The experience I’ve gleaned over the years tells me to answer this customer carefully. When people go out to eat, they don’t want to hear the word
no
.

“Pollo Cardinale’s usually served in autumn, sir,” I explain. “To celebrate New Year’s, the chef’s offering the traditional winter foods he grew up with as a child in Tuscany.”

“Oh,” the man says, his face brightening, “that sounds wonderful.”

My explanation is complete and utter bullshit. Pollo Car
dinale, a chicken dish made with roasted peppers, mozzarella cheese, and mushrooms, doesn’t have a seasonal niche. I lied.

I lied because if I had to explain to every customer that the owner limited his holiday offerings to a small selection of items guaranteed to deliver a high profit, the unpleasant smack of cold, hard reality would start exerting a downward pressure on my tips. Since I couched my reply in foodiespeak, however, the gastronomically seductive language of Big Food Media, the guy bought my line of bullshit hook, line, and sinker. My tip is secure.

“The wild boar is very good tonight, sir,” I continue. “This evening we’re offering it in either a porcini mushroom truffle sauce or a preparation of white beans, goose confit, and rabbit sausage.”

The man stares at me, his mouth slackening with desire. A good server can make a customer order anything he or she feels like selling. It’s an old Jedi—I mean, waiter—mind trick.

“Oh my God,” the man breathes. “I think I’ll have that.”

“I recommend you have it medium rare, sir.”

“I’ll take your advice, waiter. You seem to know your stuff.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Will that be with the mushroom sauce or the goose confit and sausage?”

“With the goose stuff.”

“Very good, sir.”

My next table orders a $300 bottle of Brunello. I fetch it from the wine cellar and present it to the host. After he examines the label I take out my expensive black horn Laguiole wine opener, flick open the blade, make a quick vertical incision in the foil, score it below the bottle’s neck, and remove the cap in one fluid motion. Folding the blade, I open the corkscrew one-handed, place the stainless steel spiral into the center of the cork, and screw it in, careful not go in to far and push bits of cork into the wine. I brace the lever on the lip of the bottle’s mouth, pull the handle upward, and slide the cork out without a pop.

As I’m executing this maneuver I’m not paying attention to what I’m doing. I don’t have to. I’ve done it twenty thousand
times. It’s all muscle memory by now. Instead, I’m listening to the young couple at the table behind me. They’re talking about having a baby.

I pour out an ounce of the wine, gently twisting the bottle so I don’t spill a drop. The host samples it. He likes it, so I pour out some more. I wipe the lip of the bottle with a napkin and start answering questions about the holiday menu. The rehearsed adjectives tumble out of my mouth with practiced ease. Fooled by my mask of feigned interest, the customers think my attention is riveted on them. It isn’t. I’m still listening to the couple behind me. The girl’s afraid to have children. She’s afraid she’ll abandon them like her mother abandoned her. Her husband tells her not to worry: She’s not her mother. She’s a different person. She’ll be a wonderful mother. They’ll be happy.

My four top’s host thanks me. His wife compliments my memory. How can you remember so much stuff? I respond with a witty stock answer. They all laugh. I tell them I’ll give them time to consider their choices. I turn and look at the table behind me. The girl has tears in her eyes. The boy’s holding her hand. For the thousandth time I marvel how much people reveal about themselves inside a restaurant. I shouldn’t be surprised. When people are stuffing their faces, they often let their guard down. Eating is a primal activity that triggers an array of emotional responses. Think of all the arguments that erupt around family dinner tables. Food and the human condition are inextricably linked. Because of this, waiters often get to see the unpleasant sides of people. Yet, amid all the petulance, anger, and entitlement, the occasional crumb of human grace falls from the table. I look at the boy and girl. They need their privacy. This is an important moment. Do not disturb. I walk way.

The Bistro’s a small fifty-seat restaurant nestled in an artsy neighborhood somewhere in the New York area. A long rectangle tucked inside an old building, its walls are painted off-white, and the high ceilings and exposed ductwork are terra-cotta red. The kitchen occupies most of The Bistro’s left-hand side, pushing the
tables running parallel to it against the restaurant’s right wall, forming a narrow aisle connecting the tables clustered near the front window with the three semicircular banquettes in the back. Impressionistic Italian landscapes hang on the walls while large wooden ceiling fans gently stir the air overhead. Votive candles flickering in the center of the linen-covered tables provide a warm counterpoint to the subdued lighting, allowing shifting patterns of light and shadow to play against the walls and polished hardwood floors. The Bistro’s cuisine is northern Italian—Tuscan to be precise—lots of game, wild boar, fowl, fish, dried legumes, and the ever present porcini mushroom. Zagat rated and
New York Times
reviewed, the restaurant enjoys an excellent reputation and is patronized by many of the famous celebrities who live nearby. When you combine supersized incomes with high menu prices and an expensive wine list, it doesn’t take long to realize that, for a waiter, The Bistro’s a goldmine.

As my fingers glide along the POS computer’s touch screen inputting an order, I look at how the other waiters are faring on the floor. Toward the front door I spot Inez, our Peruvian waitress with the expired student visa, struggling to keep pace with the other waiters. Tall, blond, and built like an athlete, Inez is a disaster as a server; she’s slow, argumentative, and always trying to scam out of work early. Yet Inez and I are the type of people who hate each other on the job but get along after work. When Inez sheds her mannish waitress uniform of dress shirt, black pants, and badly knotted tie, it’s like she transforms into a different woman—pretty, exuberant, and a delight to be around. Right now, however, I want to throttle her.

“Louis,” I ask the waiter waiting for me to finish with the computer, “how many customers has Inez had tonight?”

“Not many,” Louis grunts. “I can’t believe we’re gonna divvy up our tips with her.”

I understand Louis’s feelings. For most waiters New Year’s Eve is the biggest money night of the year. Last year I made most of my month’s rent in ten hours. Because of the amounts of money
involved, Fluvio makes us combine our tips into a “pool” and divides the money evenly among the servers at the end of the night. Normally waiters at The Bistro are lone operators, keeping only the tips they earn from tables they personally work. New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s Day are the few times a year when we abandon the independent-contractor model and act as a “pool house.” Pooling tips is okay—as long as everyone pulls his or her own weight. Inez’s slowness, however, makes it certain that she’ll make same amount of money as the rest of us but serve only half the customers.

“Goddamnit,” I say, “I’m already up to four hundred in tips.”

“I’ll bet she hasn’t even cracked a hundred yet,” Louis mutters.

Standing over six feet tall, Louis is one of most experienced waiters ever to work at The Bistro. Having worked everything from diners to exclusive French restaurants, if every restaurant has to have at least one gay waiter, then Louis is gay enough for two. Alternating between the polar extremes of being flamboyantly gay and staunch Republican, Louis is a schmoozer and a favorite with the customers.

“Look on the bright side,” I say. “She’s moving upstate in a couple of months.”

“Going back to school?”

“That’s what she tells me,” I say. “She said she’s gonna get a restaurant job up there.”

“They’ll kill her the first day.”

I log off the POS computer and let Louis in.

“How you doing?” I ask, patting him on the back.

“Hanging in there, brother.”

“Only five more hours to go.”

“The moment I get home,” Louis says, grinning, “I’m gonna smoke a major bowl.”

“Whatever works for you,” I chuckle.

Marijuana seems to be the waiter’s drug of choice. Tonight, stressed-out servers worldwide will smoke up 20 percent of the global supply. Me? I’m more of a vodka man myself.

New Year’s Eve shouldn’t be a stressful holiday. Because customers are restricted to ordering a small number of holiday entrées, taking orders is a snap. There are no complicated menus to navigate or impossibly long lists of specials to memorize. Since The Bistro offers only three seatings on New Year’s Eve—5:30, 7:30, and the last and most expensive at 10:00
P.M.
—we’re able to hustle the patrons along in a nice orderly fashion. What makes New Year’s stressful is that customers are spending large amounts of money and expecting a superb restaurant experience in return. I don’t blame them. But any waiter will tell you holidays are the worst time to eat in a restaurant. The sheer volume of customers guarantees that most kitchens will be pushed beyond their ability to produce a high-quality product. Think about all the orders of rubber chicken Francese you’ve eaten at two-hundred-person wedding receptions. Combine this phenomenon with harried waiters and owners cutting corners to milk profits, and you’re looking at a very expensive and disappointing night out. Since shit rolls downhill, customers, in turn, usually vent their displeasure on the waiters.

Of course, every restaurant is different. The Bistro’s kitchen is crazy busy, but food quality hasn’t suffered—portion size has. When I delivered the plates to my first table of the evening, I noticed the salads had shrunk by half and the rack of lamb was missing a few pieces. The regular customers noticed and weren’t afraid to bitch about it. I felt like telling them. “What did you expect? It’s the same story all over the world tonight.” Savvy customers avoid eating out on busy restaurant days, namely holidays and Saturday nights. Hey, the greatest meals I’ve ever had in a restaurant were on a quiet Tuesday or Wednesday evening.

Suddenly I feel a finger tap my shoulder. It’s Saroya.

“There’s a problem,” she says.

Saroya is the longest-serving waiter at The Bistro after me. A curvy twenty-seven-year-old Nicaraguan woman with a winning smile and a pile of lustrous black hair, Saroya is mother to a very smart and friendly seven-year-old girl. In a bit of romantic restau
rant drama, Saroya recently moved in with Armando, the Bistro’s sous-chef. Since Armando is the owner’s cousin, Saroya’s acting like she’s gotten some kind of promotion. These inter-restaurant romances are always problematic. I like Saroya, but I’ve always been aware that her sweet, smiling exterior hides a tough-as-nails personality. I guess you have to be tough to travel to America at nine months pregnant so your daughter can be born a U.S. citizen. I give her credit. She’s taken excellent care of herself and raised a well-adjusted kid. I’m almost forty, and I’ve never come close to having a kid myself.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“There’s a man and a woman in the ladies’ room,” Saroya whispers, her Central American accent barely noticeable, “and they’ve been in there a
long
time.”

“Lovely.”

“Ladies are getting pissed they can’t use the bathroom.”

The Bistro has two small bathrooms that each can accommodate only one customer at a time. Occasionally a drunken couple let horniness get the better of them and try doing the wild thing in the restroom, often using the sink as a less-than-sturdy platform for their coital maneuvering. (I know a restaurant where a couple’s amorous thrusting snapped the bathroom sink right off the wall.) Since the ladies’ room is slightly bigger and nicer than the men’s room, most customers have their alcohol-fueled trysts in there.

“I’ll take care of it,” I sigh. When did making people stop having sex become part of my job? I thought I had quit the seminary.

I walk over to the ladies’ room and find several women anxiously waiting for their turn to get inside.

“They still in there?” I ask one of the women.

“Yes,” she says unhappily.

I lean in close to the bathroom door. I don’t hear the sounds one normally associates with sexual congress. Maybe they’re finished. I knock on the door authoritatively.

“Is everything all right in there?” I ask through the door.

“We’re fine,” a tremulous female voice answers. In the background I swear I can hear a zipper being pulled up.

“We have several people who need to use the bathroom,” I say, letting my words hang in the air.

“I’m coming,” the woman replies. I’m sure no pun’s intended.

A few seconds later the door opens and a man and woman stumble out. The lady’s face is flushed, and her cocktail dress is rumpled. The boyfriend’s pupils are red pinpricks floating on top of the whites of his eyes. He’s high as a kite. The couple bow their heads, mutter embarrassed apologies, and take the walk of shame back to their table. Before I permit access to the ladies’ room I take a quick peek to make sure everything’s in order. Sometimes people forget to clean up after themselves. Noting with satisfaction that the bathroom sink’s still attached to the wall, I reopen the commode to the female dining public.

“Can you believe that?” Saroya asks.