While I was in college, I was a "star" server at a number of different restaurants. Some of my credits include Joe's Crab Shack, Houston's Restaurant, Bonne Terre French Bistro and PF Changs (for three days). Throughout my miserable journeys, one thing always remained pretty much the same: the cast of character that make up a restaurant's staff. I found that, no matter what kind of restaurant you work in, there are certain archetypical figures who are as ubiquitous as toothpicks on the hostess' stand.
The Head Waiter Common Aliases: Preston, Ty, Jason, Cody
Vital Stats: If a Restaurant were Hollywood, the Head Waiter would be the movie star (I know, the irony is not lost on me, either). While not necessarily most powerful in title, the Head Waiter is the most recognizable and connected member of the restaurant community. He's the restaurant's face to the public. He's who the rest of the staff looks up to and emulates. He's the bright constellation around which everything else revolves. Important decisions about where to go out drinking after work, and who gets to come along, are usually made by the Head Waiter. He's worked at the restaurant for at least a year and, despite being the laziest and most irresponsible member of the staff, somehow manages to make about 3 times as much as everyone else does in tips, which is something he makes sure to brag about at the end of each and every shift. The Head Waiter has had sex with every female employee at the restaurant, except the fat ones, who he only allowed to blow him when he was drunk. The Head Waiter is usually out of college, and is just working at the restaurant until "the whole acting thing" or "the whole band thing" or "the whole DJ thing" finally works out.
Is Sleeping With: Everything With a Vagina
Wants To Be Sleeping With: Men
The Bitchy Waitress
Common Aliases: Nikki, Lizzie, Rachel, Tanya
Vital Stats: While not as powerful as the Head Waiter, the Bitchy Waitress is still his female counterpart. Overworked, perpetually stressed out and pissed off, the Bitchy Waitress would usually be pretty cute if you cleaned all the food and desperation off of her. The Bitchy Waitress is always complaining that she doesn't get enough hours (even though she seems to be ominpresent at the restaurant) and is convinced the rest of the staff is out to get her. She needs the extra shifts so she can pay the note on her leased Camaro (which is yellow). After work, she continues being bitchy until she's had 8 or 9 Smirnoff Ices, at which point she looks for the lucky guy who's going to give her her next abortion. The Head Waiter nailed her a long time ago, which is an unspoken point of contention between them. She always has her drinks paid for by the Cocktail Wannabe or The Party Dudes (see below). The Bitchy Waitress is waiting tables until she decides whether she wants to go to Beauty School or audition for American Idol ('cause she's way better than those sluts).
Is Sleeping With: Whoever Bought Her Last Drink
Wants To Be Sleeping With: Brian the Manager (so she can get more shifts)
Brian the Manager
Common Aliases: None, its always some dude named "Brian"
Vital Stats: This guy enjoyed waiting tables so much, and had such a rocking time working as the Head Waiter at a TGIFridays back in the 80's (you should have been at Fridays in the 80's, dude - it was nuts), that he changed his major to Restaurant Management and devoted his entire life to working in food service. He's since become an anal-retentive/obsessive-compulsive, determined to pay so much attention to details that the boys in corporate will recognize his commitment to excellence and make him a General Manager at his very own restaurant. He spends the majority of his day walking around and asking patrons "Is everything ok?" or standing by the food prep line to make sure the waitstaff isn't pilfering dinner rolls. Also, he actually believes in the corporate slogans found within the company training materials.
Is Sleeping With: The Aging General Manager at TGI Fridays, Which He Still Frequents After Every Shift
Wants To Be Sleeping With: The Aging General Manager at TGI Fridays, But Back In the 80's When They Were Young and She Wouldn't Give Him the Time of Day
The Party Dudes
Common Aliases: Eric, Matt, Tim, Brandon, Trey, Joe
Vital Stats: These dudes live to party and wait tables to live. They are steadfast in their dedication to the Head Waiter, the restaurant, and getting wasted. Their lives - and their tips - are spent in an endless haze of sex, booze and self-loathing. While at work, the Party Dudes spend most of their time trying to figure out where the Head Waiter wants to go drinking, then convincing every chick in the place to come along, too. Usually still in college, these guys always think waiting tables is just a temporary way to subsidize their partying ways, but are later confronted with the reality that they've become 30 year-old alcoholics who've spent 10 years working at a dead-end job and have nothing to show for it other than a couple of DUI's and an ever-expanding beer gut. Most of their modest mental faculties are expended on devising ways to convince underage Hostessluts to have to sex with them. When all else fails, they turn to thier plentiful supply of date-rape drugs and cheap hooch.
Is Sleeping With: Whichever Hostesslut Passes Out First
Wants To Be Sleeping With: The Deluded Bartendress
The Deluded Bartendress
Common Aliases: Becky, Nina, Shannon, Kim
Vital Stats: The Deluded Bartendress is a decent-looking woman in her mid-to-late twenties who has become so used to the worship and adulation from the drunks she serves, that she has actually come to believe that she is The Most Beautiful and Desirable Creature On the Planet. Whether she's taking a drink order or waiting for her tipout from the waitstaff, she treats everyone she encounters like they are lucky to be in her presence. Despite the fact that she's still living under crushing debt and a hasn't had a relationship longer than 2 weeks, she persistently buys into the illusion of her own Royalty. The Deluded Bartendress has come to expect nothing less than a 100% tip, and she likes to casually mention to the lowly waiters that "one time this business dude left me $1000 on a $10 tab". If she is not tipped her customary 100%, she simply skims the register for the difference. The Deluded Bartendress rarely socializes with the other members of the waitstaff, instead choosing to hang out in expensive nightclubs, where she mistakes everyone ignoring her for deferential respect.
Is Sleeping With: The Staggeringly Naive Notion That Being a Semi-Hot Bartender Will Take Her Far In Life
Wants To Be Sleeping With: Tom Cruise
The Cocktail Wannabe
Common Aliases: Jerry, Jack, Jimmy, John
Vital Stats: Ever since seeing Tom Cruise in "Cocktail" when he was 13 years old, this guy has aspired to be one thing and one thing only - a total douchebag who throws shit around behind the bar without realizing that it ceased being impressive or cool about a month after the movie "Cocktail" left theaters. This guy really believes that the patrons of Chili's in Little Rock, Arkansas want to see him throw rum bottles around before making their Frozen Fruity Freezer Fruits. He pisses off most of the waitstaff, who are constantly subjected to his libation trickery before being given the drinks they need to serve to their increasingly impatient customers. Despite having dedicated his life to the art of bartending and being able to juggle a bottle, a glass and several pieces of citrus fruit at once, the guy can't mix a drink to save his life. But he gets everyone cheap coke, so they keep him around.
Is Sleeping With: A poster of Tom Cruise In Cocktail
Wants To Be Sleeping With: Tom Cruise In Cocktail
The Hostessluts
Common Aliases: Kelli, Cassie, Tiffany
Vital Stats: The Hostessluts are usually in high school, which makes them naive enough to be easy targets for the lecherous ways of the Party Dudes and other predatory male restaurant workers. Usually somewhat attractive, these girls typically have low self-esteem, which is amplified by their insecurity about being in social situations with older guys. The most tragic aspect of these waiter groupies is how young they have to suffer the misfortune of contracting various sexually-transmitted diseases. This usually turns them into bitter, jaded man-haters by the time they get to college, where they eventually become lesbians, in their final effort to forget the disgraces of their past.
Is Sleeping With: Whoever Happens Across Their Nubile, Inebriated and Completely Unconscious Young Bodies
Wants To Be Sleeping With: The Head Waiter
The Mexicans In the Back
Common Aliases: Juan, Jose, Jorge, Speedy Gonzales
Vital Stats: Despite having to spend their lives in the slop of rich white people's uneaten, wasted food, the Mexicans In the Back have a startlingly positive outlook on their lives. As long as they can send most of their below-minimum wages back to their starving, impoverished families, they don't say much or complain about anything. Their one true pleasure of the job is using their native tongue to make fun of the waitstaff, who are oblivious and generally ignore them.
Is Sleeping With: The 84 Other People Living In Their 1 Bedroom Hovel
Wants To Be Sleeping With: Heat
And there you have it - an intimate look behind the scenes of about 95% of the restaurants you're eating at. So next time you sit down and order that Chilean Sea Bass, remember - these are the people who are preparing it for you.
LATE TO THE GAME Posted: 4/26/2006by: paully Wow, I was thinking about trying to submit something to this site, which I discovered about 6 months ago. An article like this was a potential idea until I found it in the archives. "The House Party, Examined" inspired thoughts of "The Average Suburban Restaurant, Examined." This was dead on and couldn't be much better than what was festering in my head.
Elements I'd add: --The wiry, drug-addled dishwasher who's so strung out from his early days that even the cocksure Mexicans in the back leave him alone. --The daily drama and the people who can't live without it. Most people have the common bond of not being able to sit still, which is why the only TV they watch is soap operas before their night shift and they can't go a night with out posting up at the bar and gossipping or at least trying to elicit sympathy for some "tragedy" such as a 10 percent tip.
Anyway, the two-cent tip for those arguing about the job status and theme of the essay: This was about chain restaurants in average towns. All references to "hotspots" are therefore moot. We're all glad that some of you are in the Lucky Gene Club and parlayed it into $400/night jobs in clubs that cost $20 to enter. Name a Bennigan's, Friday's or BW3's with a cover. We're not necessarily talking about you in particular. Careers are made at big, fancy places, but the requisite Chili's in the new shitsplat of urban sprawl isn't really the big time.
Bottom line is that, with a few exceptions, most average suburban chain restaurants are basically co-ed fraternities for those who don't want to grow up or face their old friends who have insurance plans or risk having to actually try to have sex with a stranger. Instead of ATO or Chi-O, it's TGI and O-G (Olive Garden) or whatever. What other job can you fully perform at with a hangover and a criminal record? That's called immaturity and unprofessionalism.
To comment on recent posts, "Waiting" is a decent portrayal of these elements, but no one who has significant experience in the restaurant industry needs that or even an obscure flick such as "In the Weeds" (2000) or "Restaurant" (1999) to pirate for observations. It's the truth, and the author puts it well. Great read! chicken or egg Posted: 3/30/2006by: Waiting Sucked This was published in April 2005. Waiting may have been in production, but you, JMO are an idiot. yeah i saw waiting too... Posted: 3/30/2006by: JMO seriously rip off "Waiting" a little more. Im sure your descriptions are dead on point but come on, the movie just came out on dvd a fuckin month ago, ya unoriginal prick! haha funny article tho seriously...thought-provoking actually...in fact I thought about renting "waiting" again. Restaurant Manager Posted: 3/17/2006by: TB Anyone who works in a restaurant at any given time, finds this offensive, GET OVER IT! This article is so funny and accurate!, except for the Manager profile @ least for me... Thanks for the laugh! SOLID Posted: 2/1/2006by: PB now THAT was funny shit! Well done!
Side note: who are the absolute losers wasting time arguing on a board meant for comments on the article? what about the hippies? Posted: 1/21/2006by: ex cook/waiter I dont know where you come from, but where i worked, almost every cook in the restaurant were a bunch of dread-locked hippies, punk rockers or party dudes. it was amazing how well everyone got along back there. the rest of the article was perfectly accurate though, so my advice to you Danny a nd Christian is to swallow your frat-boy pride, take off the nametag and the gay sweatbands on your fore-arms and get a real job that pays better than $3.25 + tips. CMFTB Posted: 1/11/2006by: CMTFB I work in a restaurant, we drink, we smoke, we party all the time, underage hotessluts.....ya, it's an alcoholic haze, but if you work in a restaurant, and done live in an alcohlic haze, you are on drugs, cuz there is no way in hell you can deal with that many stupid fuccin people, that you will go to work the next day, unless you are half cocked on your way there... Great Stuff!! Posted: 12/15/2005by: Rippage I worked in the food service business through out high school and college. It is a great place to work during those years when you are young and partying all the time. This article is right on in SO many ways. If I could do it all over again I would still work waiting tables. The truth is however once you hit 26 - 27 and are still working waiting tables or whatever(especially if you went to college) you are a loser. The whole world revolves around people who work 9 to 5. Who the hell wants to work Friday nights and weekends when everything(concerts, sporting events, ect.) are scheduled around those days. The truth is if you go in to a restaurant and the person waiting on you is 27 or older. There is an 90%chance that the person is an alcoholic and a 70% chance that he or she is a coke head. But it was fun while you are 16 to 25 years old. production assistant Posted: 12/9/2005by: j Wow..what a great desrciptive stlye of writing. You hit home on many areas!! Good for you..And for all you that are angry...maybe you need to learn to handle the truth! Ex Bartender Posted: 11/9/2005by: Tyler Great article, fairly accurate and rather hilarious. By the way, bartending is great..... for a bit. But by all means get the fuck out when you can. Dress it up all you want, you are still a drink servant.
