Waiter to the Rich and Shameless: Confessions of a Five-Star Beverly Hills Server (8 page)

Another
time Spector was leaving the restaurant with one of his girlfriends and just
around the corner from the valet parking booth, our head valet, Devin, heard a
girl yelp loudly.  He rushed to check what was going on and saw Phil in his
date’s face screaming at her and shaking her violently.  Devin boldly tapped on
Mr. Spector’s shoulder and asked, “Is everything all right here, Mr. Spector?” 

As
Spector turned to face Devin, he drew his gun from his shoulder holster and
pointed it at Devin’s stomach and said, “Mind your own business, kid.”  Devin
threw his arms up in the air and backed away slowly.  Devin would later have to
testify in the Lana Clarkson murder case regarding Mr. Spector’s habit of
flaunting weapons. As Spector did at an infamous session for Leonard Cohen’s
Death
of a Ladies’ Man
during which he’d stuck a gun in Cohen’s neck and said,
“Leonard, I love you.” 

Cohen answered, “I really hope you do, Phil.”
 Guess he did ‘cause he didn’t
kill him.

Of
course, the judge knew Devin by name long before the trial; the judge was also
a frequent guest at the Cricket Room and Devin had parked his car several
times.   Beverly Hills is a small town and it all seems to fit inside the
Cricket Room on any given night. If you work there long enough you will see
everyone who is anyone, and many who only think they are.

Regrettably,
Anna Nicole Smith was thrown out of the Cricket Room back in the late 1990s for
rude and obnoxious behavior.  My friend Joey in security had to subdue her as
she was screaming out obscenities after having too many pills mixed with
alcohol.  As she proceeded being abusive and swinging at the security guards, 
Joey threw the cuffs on her and made her sit on the edge of the flower-bordered
ramp in front of the restaurant by the u-shaped driveway.  She was still
screaming right up until the cops showed up.  Once the cops arrived, she
started crying and saying she was sorry.  People think she was a shitty
actress, but she could sure turn the tears on and off like a faucet.

Finally,
after she had apologized to the security staff, they unlocked the handcuffs and
it was agreed among all parties, including the Beverly Hills Police, that she
was never allowed entry again.  If she did show up, she would be arrested.  It
must have been one hell of a sight, the Beverly Hills Police pulling out of the
driveway with big ol’ Anna Nicole Smith in the back seat, with all of her
expensive eyeliner and mascara running down her face like a river of black
mud.  Drugs really do change people, don’t they? Hard to believe this story
about one of my favorite blondes.  It’s sad the way her life ended. I wish I
could have served her and gotten to know her. Something makes me think she was
a nice person deep down and was just changed by the pills people keep pushing
at her to control her. Such a waste of beauty and talent.

Speaking
of waste, Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston used to frequent the establishment in
the late 1990s too.  They set up a house account and Bobby would come up to the
bar and spend money like crazy. He didn’t make that money, so why not? One
time, after arguing with Whitney, he arrived in a fury and asked to buy an
entire bottle of Louis XIII Cognac.  Back then, it was a lot cheaper than
today’s prices – we charged only $3,000 for the full bottle.  Made by Remy
Martin, the Baccarat crystal bottle is 150 centiliters (a magnum) and bears a
fleur de lis crystal stopper.  If you’ve been to a nice bar, you’ve seen it. 
Brown asked to put it on their house account and then asked Don the bartender
to pour it on the rocks with Dr. Pepper.  Seriously. Dr. fucking Pepper. And
top-shelf cognac.

The
bartender could barely contain his laughter.  Bobby Brown will own that one
forever.  He remained at the bar for about forty-five minutes, and then asked
the Maître d’ to bring the bottle to his driver who was waiting curbside. Bobby
wandered aimlessly around the restaurant as if looking for someone to talk to
for a while and then he left, looking lost and estranged.  He was a douche but
you couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him.

Gore
Vidal came to my bar early in my tour of duty and spent hours with me telling
me all about his long history with the Cricket Room.  He described how his
mother, the infamous alcoholic, Nina Gore, used to frequent the restaurant
leaving him at the early age of six, for hours to run around the lobby and
play.   He also disdainfully recalled how she had dismissed a chance to buy
into the young establishment during a low period of diminished revenues the
owners were experiencing at the time.  “She declined, that stupid bitch,” he said,
much to my astonishment. He then said that I looked Italian and would fit right
in on the Amalfi Coast where he had a huge house built into the mountainside.
When I mentioned my dream of visiting Capri he expressed that he had enjoyed
many a good time there with friends, sipping prosecco under an umbrella by the
shore.

He
snarled and spat out: “You’d better wait until mid-September or you’ll be run
over by bloody tourists.” Sometimes it was hard to follow him; he was brilliant
and complicated, but always fascinating to listen to. Mr. Vidal would become a
frequent guest of mine later on.

Over
ten films have been made at the Cricket Room location including very famous
scenes from Eddie Murphy’s
Beverly Hills Cop
and Hunter Thompson’s
Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas
.  Countless movie and music deals have gone down
at Cricket Room tables, dating back to the golden days of Tinseltown.  Every
single day, I'd see famous producers or directors meeting with talent (onscreen
personalities), trying to woo them into working on their next project.  Today’s
Cricket Room is no longer private and restricted like it once was, and just
about anyone can get in.  Prestige has been traded for profit and bottom-line
numbers.

Yet
even by today’s standards, it’s still a totally unique culture – unlike any
other in the world.  Thanks to its strict, highly responsive security team,
today’s Cricket Room is still exclusive, buzzing with even more of Hollywood’s
brightest movie icons.  Its patrons are closely protected from paparazzi and looky-loos
hiding phone cameras in their shorts.  When you’re called to a meeting at the
Cricket Room, you know you’ve really arrived.

The
glow left by the Cricket Room’s storied past helped get me through now and
then.  When reality TV stars are whining, their fake boobs bursting out of
designer clothes they didn’t buy, and crotchety tycoons with over-whitened
teeth are hanging onto their youth, making fools of themselves with girls a
third their age, I close my eyes and imagine the whiners and perverts of the
good old days, and it warms my heart.

There
are a thousand versions of the old joke, “Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!”  Here’s
an old one I find hilarious, probably because at the Cricket Room, we’d
never
be allowed to respond to a guest in such a smartass manner:

5 February 1919, Ruthven (Iowa)
Free Press
, pg. 3, col. 1.

Lots of professional baseball players pride
themselves on their gift of repartee, but out on the road even the smartest of
them are beaten at that sort of game.

Ty Cobb, king of players in the business, smart
as he is, was tripped up by an ordinary waiter.

In a small New York hotel one day Ty loudly
called the attention of a waiter to a fly in his soup.

“Very true, my dear Mr. Cobb,” said the waiter,
“but why should you worry when there is not a chance in the world of your
catching it?”

More
than four years had passed and I was still the daytime bartender in the Cricket
Room. The glow of glory days gone by was still there. The stars still came and
went with regularity. Ghosts still haunted the premises, reluctant to leave
their famous “haunt.” But I was feeling kind of stagnant. I realize that might
sound ungrateful; I had really wanted this and now that I had it I was
grumbling.  But the rock ‘n roll animal in me was growling, getting restless.
Bottling up all that stage energy was getting vexing, even with the partying.

The
pay was more than decent - fifteen bucks an hour plus tips and great benefits,
unheard of for a bar salary anywhere else.  Tips from the big spenders could be
huge; big enough to really make a difference in my lifestyle.  I had bought
myself a beautiful BMW that turned heads even in Hollywood.  I took two long
vacations to Europe with my family, feeling more wealthy and successful than
many of my friends.  This is what I had imagined rock ‘n roll success would
have given me if I had gotten my big break.  Well, not quite, but compared to
where I was four years ago, this was the big time. Let’s just say that staff at
the Cricket Room was well compensated for our discretion. There are things I
will tell you here, but there are an equal number of secrets I won’t spill
because a bartender is the next best thing to a priest for confessing sins. I
take that seriously. Not much short of a subpoena will drag shit out of me
about my guests.  And Mr. P?  Imagine all the secrets he’s got bottled up in that
head of his!

I
visited New York City several times just for the change of scenery and to enjoy
the raucous nightlife you can only find there.  The choice of things to do and
ways to spend money was massive, especially compared to the torpor of LA with
its lazy, slow beach vibe.

I
was debt-free, enjoying life, accumulating a sizeable bank account, and
partying with Jens on a regular basis. Yet in my gut I felt something essential
was missing. I hadn’t written a single note of music in almost five years.  I
realized I wasn’t quite ready to give up that dream of being a recognized
songwriter.  Though I might have successfully turned off the creative spigot, I
couldn’t hold back the flow forever.  The artist inside of me was yearning to dust
off my microphone and howl again.

I
loved my job but grew to hate my schedule because the day shift was so tiring. 
No real time to do anything before work and by the time I finished and got home
it was eight o’clock and I’d be too drained and uninspired to write any music.
As a musician, I had found I could be most productive by working at night and
using my days to compose my music.  I liked that schedule; it always worked for
me.  I felt I needed to make a change and tried to figure out a way to work at
night again.  Unfortunately, it didn’t seem that Don, the crotchety old night
bartender, would be leaving anytime soon.  He really didn’t make that much more
than I did, maybe about two-fifty a week, but it was his schedule I was after. 
I didn’t see much hope, but then one day, like my arriving on the perfect day
to apply for the job, things fell into place.

One
otherwise normal week, three night-shift waiters all dropped out within a
ten-day period.  One waitress, Ann, took a job working as a stewardess for a
private charter jet company.  Another younger guy, David, went to work for a
financial investment company downtown.  (“Yes, sir, I’m qualified to manage
your billion-dollar portfolio. I’m a waiter. I know all about responsibly
managing vast sums of money.”)

And
then there was poor Álvaro, a hardworking immigrant from Spain, who had a heart
attack in the middle of a busy night shift.  Oh boy, did that ever cause a
scene!  He fell to his knees in the middle of the dining room, loudly yelling
out in pain.   The tray he was carrying crashed to the floor, baptizing several
horrified guests with wine, pasta, and our then-famous blue cheese bread. His dramatic
collapse seemed more like an actor in a bad movie than a heart attack victim.

Two
other waiters picked him up and took him downstairs to the changing room.  He
sat on the sofa for a while looking quite pale but refused to be taken to the
hospital.  Once he seemed to stabilize, they left him alone to rest and went
back to work.  When Mr. P wouldn’t allow Álvaro to resume working, fearing
liability, he tried to go home and collapsed again on his way to his car. 
Luckily, William in the security booth saw him on one of the surveillance
monitors and called an ambulance. 

Álvaro
ended up recovering fully after a peripheral arterial bypass but he was out of
commission for almost eight months.  He was our most senior waiter, in his
early sixties back then, and I know for a fact that he still works there.  He’s
a small man with glasses, built like a skeleton, and sporting suspiciously
strangely colored hair.  It’s a shade of burnt orange not seen in nature.  He
used to wait tables in his high-heeled Euro boots mostly because he was so
short.  At least with the boots he could almost reach five-six.  I guess he had
a complex regarding his height because even though the heels hurt him he
wouldn’t stop wearing them, not until after the vascular leg surgery, when the
doctor explained that he not only needed orthotics but he also needed to wear
special shoes from then on. With regular shoes, he was nearly face to face with
guests seated at tables. It was comical but customers loved him. Every night he
worked was like an episode of
Little People
, showing him overcoming his
height, age, and medical challenges. Little fucker worked hard, I’ll give him
that.

So
there it was before me:  a clear opportunity, my big chance to not only go on a
night shift schedule but also to begin working as a waiter in Los Angeles’ most
infamous restaurant.  Switching from bartending to waiting tables may not seem
like a promotion, but it was, and the main reason is that tips are much larger
when you wait tables. The checks are larger, thus the tips increase. It’s also
much harder work. And you put up with more crap because while you’re
responsible as a bartender for mixing the drinks, when waiting tables you’re
serving what others have prepared. You are dependent on kitchen staff, bussers,
and runners to help get the job done.

I
put to work all the training I’d gotten from my managers and all the knowledge
I had absorbed from watching Jens.  He was a master of his vocation; he turned
serving A-listers into sheer poetry.  He knew when and how to party, and when
to serious the hell up and get the job done. He was a class act and I only
hoped I could be halfway as good as him. I just wanted a chance to try.

Here’s
a little story about Jens:  one evening I watched in awe as Jens served a table
of four (we call it a 4-top) seated on the lush patio. He had taken one young
woman’s order and said, “Excellent choices,” then turned to the other woman in
the party. (It’s always ladies first). He took her order, said thank you, and
turned to take one of the gentlemen’s order.

The
woman interrupted and said, “Hey, excuse me, is my choice not excellent? You
said her choice was excellent.”

Instead
of becoming irritated as a normal waiter might, Jens said with a smile, “Madam,
if we might change your loin chop to medium instead of well done, and add
shaved pecorino and some fresh Alba truffle to your risotto, your selections
would also be ‘excellent.’”  She looked a bit startled and unsure about her
meat being cooked medium, but she agreed.

“Excellent
choice, madam,” Jens replied, and continued taking the orders.

Not
only had he turned an awkward confrontation into a win (and she would no doubt
love her juicy chop and fragrant risotto), he had boosted his check total by
about fifty bucks. Not just suave demeanor and grace under pressure, but
brilliantly disguised upselling. Did I mention he’s my hero? My porn star drug
using classy waiter hero? What a dichotomy; how does he pull it all off?

When
I asked to be transferred from daytime bartender to PM-shift waiter, Mr. P
asked me, “Is dis really what jew want?” in his thick accent.  I said that I
had been waiting for a night shift spot to open up behind the bar and we both
agreed that that wouldn’t happen anytime soon.  Once the Spanish Inquisition
(meaning questioning by the other department heads) had decided that this would
work well for the restaurant, there was just some simple paperwork to make the transfer
happen. 

I
was downgraded to a lower hourly wage of around eight bucks, but the tips were to
be triple what I was getting behind the bar because the checks and the number
of covers were much larger.  Best of all, it was paid out in cash by the
restaurant at the end of each night.  This could fuel my craving for a taste of
the Hollywood night scene for a long time.  If Jens needed another sinner in
his world of debauchery, I could finally pay the tab. Being a player,
babe-banging, chick magnet was expensive especially in LA with all the gorgeous
girls around.  It was an infinite sea of sin.

I
immediately found myself working with a much bigger team of employees.  Behind
the bar, it had been “My World,” run according to my rules.  Like Frank’s
anthem, it was my way. And I ran it tight, like a German train schedule, consistently
providing my guests the fine experience they deserved and the graceful,
personable service they expected.  People come to a bar to either relax or have
a good time, so tending bar becomes a balancing act between being efficient,
savvy, and competent, and making it look easy. You can’t look stressed or
tense; who wants to leave a bar more uptight than when they came in?

The
bar isn’t the main attraction at the Cricket Room, so none of the managers
really gave a shit as long as there weren’t any guest complaints.  I basically
had carte blanche to run it the way I saw fit. Sweet.

In
the restaurant, however, the waiters, the sommelier and kitchen staff are the
heart of the money machine, and the machine was pressed to the limit every day
and night.  Upselling was mandatory, turning tables without rushing guests was
too, and the bigger the checks the more a waiter was valued. No one gave a crap
if your mother just died or your dog got run over. You were expected to perform
on cue and smile doing it.

Mr.
P was our hard-working leader and he ran the floor the best way he could,
considering he was required to function as both manager and Maître d’. 
Speaking in his thoroughly mangled Spanglish, he was very straight and direct
with his instructions. My training as a waiter, I was told, would take two
weeks and I would first do the busboy job, then food runners’ job, and then
finally shadow a waiter for a week.  I thought that sounded great because I
would not only get to see what everyone did, I would also learn how to do their
jobs in case we were short-handed one night.  I prided myself on being a team
player, especially if the team consisted of two Victorias and a Susan.

I’d
also get to see what all the food looked like coming out of the kitchen and
become familiar with every item on the plate.  This was especially important
because of the high profit margin we turned on each of these very expensive
items.  They had to be world-class in quality and presentation.  Many guests
have been in again and again, so they know what to expect: a high level of
excellence and consistency. I was also excited to get a feel for how the
kitchen worked and at what speed certain dishes could be delivered.  This is
essential since it would be my job to time the firing of each dish.  Like the
blogging waiter I mentioned earlier, I also had to know the different cuts of
meat; wine pairings (even though there’s always a sommelier, you better know
your shit if a guests asks); the difference between Japanese Wagyu beef and
USDA prime cut steak (one steer has his own masseuse and gets sloshed drinking
beer, the other is corn-fed in his prison cell, and Wagyu is three times as
expensive); and the types of seafood on the menu or offered as specials. I was
up for it. At this price level, people love to show off to their companions and
often ask whether fish is out of the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, wild or farmed.
Seriously, who gives a flying crap? But they will ask and I better damn well
know and sound convincingly arrogant while doing it.

My
first day started with getting to know the staff, which I had interacted with
rarely as a bartender.  In the kitchen, we had the head sous-chef, Lola, whom I
already knew a bit.  She looked perpetually tired and unhappy to be there.  She
had never liked waiters, but then what sous-chef does?  (A sous-chef, by the
way, is an assistant chef.) Lola functioned as expediter at the line during
service, yelling at cooks and compiling the waiter’s orders as they come in.