Renegade Waiter

Pic from NYTimes.com.

People, after being seated, please do not touch any charge slips or guest checks which may have been left on the table by a previous patron! Such paperwork may contain vital information intended for the server’s eyes only.

Now I don’t know if one woman’s motivation was simply to pry into the tipping habits of another patron, presumably to pass judgment on the righteousness of the gratuity, but upon being seated a woman actually turned over the face-down guest check that she found on the table. The waiter whose section she inhabited saw her do it, and this led to a most unfortunate revelation on her part. I provide you now, dear reader, with the exact transcription of said communiqué, located on the charge slip:

Two words: P. U.

One can only imagine the horrible thoughts this woman now harbored about her waiter, whom she had yet to meet, as well as the previous customers.

It was not until after the woman’s waiter greeted her and returned to the kitchen that he discovered the message on the charge slip. His immediate reaction, surprisingly, was supreme confidence in his hygiene while jumping to the conclusion that this message was some sort of prank by some coworker, namely yours truly. Also he was none-too-pleased that the prank had gone dreadfully wrong. (Incidentally, esteemed reader, I did not write it. I would never do such a thing. In fact, I’m appalled that he or anyone would even suggest it!)

Prank or not though, suffice it to say that this waiter finally got what was coming to him since another waiter (who shall remain anonymous) received a similar message on his first week of employment stating:

Certs work. Use them!

Sal, the busser, approached me in the kitchen. “Booth 9 needs directions to the library,” he said, and walked off to the dish pit.

“Okay,” I’m thinking, “the woman sitting alone at Booth 9 had been reading, and it’s my table.”

“I’ll tell her,” I told Sal.

“Hi! Did you need directions to the library?” I asked her.

“Noooo,” she said, a smile forming, but stopping half way.

“Hmmm. Okay, must be someone else,” I said, and as I walked back to the kitchen I noticed a sudden sinking feeling, but couldn’t quite place it.

“Sal,” I said, mildly annoyed. “Booth 9 didn’t need directions. What table was it?”

“You actually asked her?” Sal said. “I was kidding!”

I stared at Sal, who was smiling, and Evan, another waiter present, spun around and our wide eyes met. “Oh. My. God!” I cried out. And the three of us busted out laughing.

After a minute or so of uncontrolled hysteria, I contained myself enough to peak out to the dining room and saw that the woman was already standing and packing up her things. Since I could think of no possible explanation to give her, I hid in the kitchen.

Sal, quiet Sal, was making a joke. And I had gone up to some unsuspecting woman, quietly reading her book, and in all sincerity told her, as one waiter put it, “Excuse me, but would you kindly get the hell out of here!”

“I feel so bad. She’ll never read a book in another restaurant again,” I whined to my coworkers.

“Well good,” Evan said. “So much the better.”

Last night as I was hosting a man asked me to come over to his table and join him and his wife.

I thanked him for the offer but told him that I could not since I was still on duty. He asked me if I was the owner. I said No. He then started complaining about the tequila.

I looked at the table, saw two empty shot glasses, two empty margarita glasses and two empty dinner plates. Since they both finished the shots in question, I couldn’t offer to take them off the bill.

He said the tequila shots were harsh, way too harsh, like fire. I asked him which tequila he had and he said he didn’t know but he had asked the waiter for our best tequila. Well, I thought, that did not sound like Paradiso, our best, which costs fifteen dollars a shot and is very smooth, like cognac.

I told him that I should go ask the waiter which tequila he served since we should know exactly what we’re talking about. Rather than let me do that though, he asked why we didn’t have Patron. Patron is an excellent tequila, he informed me, smooth like butter, highly marketable, and we should carry it.

I agreed, saying that customers do ask for it from time to time, and maybe it would be nice to offer more than just one high-end tequila. He agreed, recounting a restaurant he visited up north in Charlevoix that had wall-to-wall high-end tequilas, where, he said, people pay thirty dollars a shot. I feigned to be impressed and offered again to ask the waiter which tequila he had.

Back at the kitchen the waiter told me that he had served Tres Generations, a mid-level tequila. I asked why he didn’t give the man Paradiso since he ordered “the best,” and the waiter said that he doesn’t serve Paradiso unless the customer orders it by name – a good policy, and one that I follow as a waiter too since, in our enchilada palace, you don’t want to assume someone ordering a fifteen dollar drink. Saying, “Would you like Paradiso? It’s fifteen dollars.” can become an uncomfortable affair if they need to decline in front of friends.

So I went back out to the table to tell him that it was Tres Generations, not Paradiso. He acted upset at that and said it tasted “like that frat-boy poison, El Toro,” which I found funny because we used to use El Toro as our well tequila.

“You mean you don’t like the bottle cap shaped like a red sombrero?” I joked with him. He laughed and said that Cuervo Gold was the same way. Now he was pushing it because Cuervo Gold margaritas are our specialty and he probably knew it.

I asked if he’d like me to bring over a couple shots of Paradiso, since apparently that was what he intended. He and his wife looked at each other, and there was suddenly an awkward silence. “Or would you like one shot to share?” I asked, hoping to ease the awkwardness, move this thing along, and get on with my life.

“Sure!” they said in unison. But the overblown way they said “Sure” sounded as if I had just offered them something for free, rather than as part of my job. Nevertheless, I went back to the bar to make the drink.

I poured and asked the waiter to deliver it, which he said he would do only if I dropped the check afterward since they had already paid for everything else. He wanted less and less to do with this table and I couldn’t blame him.

Coming back from delivering the drink, he reported that the man told him that the first tequila “burned him from here to here,” motioning from his throat to his genitals.

I went back out and asked them how their tequila was. “Wonderful!” they both said. “So smooth. Like butter.” He kept saying “like butter.”

I said, “Great, well when you’re ready, we’ll pick this up,” placing the bill on the table.

To which he responded, “Well now I have a bad taste in my mouth.” Not quite sure if he was joking I laughed graciously, and alone.

“Are you serious?” I asked, accidentally stepping out of character as gracious host.

“Well after our talk, after telling you everything I did about tequila and marketing . . .” he said, injured.

“Well maybe we should pay you for sharing your expertise.” I joked, still assuming, for his sake, that he was joking too.

But instead of laughing in return, he and his wife exclaimed, “Oh no!” as if the prospect of paying him was actually on the table. Now I was certain it was a con.

“If I like a restaurant, I tell four friends. If I don’t like a restaurant, I also tell four friends,” he said.

“I hope you’ll be gentle with us, but as host I am not authorized to give away fifteen dollar shots. If it said “Mitch’s Café” on the awning, perhaps, but until then I just can’t do it.”

“So you’re actually going to leave that there?” he asked incredulously, starring daggers into the bill.

“It was a misunderstanding. I thought you ordered it. If you don’t want to pay, just leave the rest of the drink on the table. If you’d like to finish the drink, then you can pay for it, okay?

“Okay,” he said. And I walked away.

Whew! Thank the Lord that’s over, I thought as I walked back to the kitchen. I explained the situation to the waiter, looked back out to the dining room, but they had already left the restaurant, without finishing the drink, and without paying.

As if trying to con a free drink wouldn’t in itself ruin the taste in your mouth. There are certain norms for dining out in a restaurant, notably that you order the food, the waiter brings it, and then you pay for it. You don’t coax out an offer by a restaurant employee to bring you something, and then when the bill comes act shocked and refuse to pay.

It was toward the end of dinner when the waiter approached the table and the customer said, “This was barely edible!”

Noticing that this “barely edible” dish was now almost completely gone – save one last remaining morsel which she unceremoniously pushed across her plate with her fork, presumably to demonstrate its unfitness for consumption – the waiter pointed out the obvious. “Well where did it all go?” he said.

She stared at him in silence, her lips pursed, none too pleased at this response which lacked not only sympathy and an apology, but most importantly an offer to remove the offending dinner from the bill. He gladly broke the awkward silence. “Well, here’s your bill,” he announced nonchalantly and strode off.

She called another server over to the table. “Our waiter tonight was kind of, you know,” and at that she put her hand on top of her head, wiggled her fingers and, frowning, made a sound that can only be described a monkey suffering from severe indigestion. The waiter, not having a clear picture of what had occurred, apologized for her experience, and she left without leaving a tip.

Weeks later she showed up at the front door, apparently ready to give the restaurant another try. And who should end up being her waiter, but the very same one as last time. Recognizing the stiffer, he told her at the beginning that he would be adding the gratuity to the check this time.  She complained, but eventually ate her dinner, paid in full including a tip, and left.

It wasn’t long before she was back again and when the host asked her how many would be in her party she pointed over his shoulder to her previous waiter and proclaimed, “I don’t want him to wait on us. Last time I ate here he threw a plate at me!”

“I did not! You’re nuts!” he said. “I’m never waiting on you again!”

“Fine!” she retorted. And that was that.

That was years ago, and she still comes in regularly, and the waiter has never served her again. But it’s always interesting for the lucky waiter who does.

Customer #1: Is this your place?

Renegade Waiter: No. The owner was in this morning but isn’t here right now.

Customer #1: Well you’ve been here as long as we’ve been coming in.

Renegade Waiter: Yes, I’ve been here about five years now.

Customer #1: Is this all you do?

Renegade Waiter: This is my only job.

Customer#2 to Customer #1: Why can’t this be all he does? Why does there have to be something else?

She had no answer for him, so I walked away. Sometimes making an honest living and supporting your family isn’t enough for some people.

Renegade Waiter: Hi folks. How are you this evening?
Customer: Is there some reason we can’t sit in that booth?
R.W.: Not at all. By all means.
New Waiter At New Table: Hi, how are you this eve—
Customer: What’s good here?
N.W.@N.T.: Well I like the spinach and—
Customer: Do you have chicken quesadillas?
Customer: As I was saying I like the spinach and cheese enchiladas. Chicken quesadillas are not on the menu but we certainly can—
Customer: I need time to look at the menu.
N.W.@N.T.: Certainly.

As the waiter delivered the entrees. . .

N.W.@N.T.: Oops. I put this plate of rice and beans on your table by accident. I’ll just—
Customer: You’ll just leave those right there.
N.W.@N.T.: Well you see, you already have rice and beans on your entrée plate. These are someone else’s.
Customer: You don’t take away after you already set them down! Just leave those there.

Which he did. She did not pay for or eat the rice and beans, but took them home in a doggie bag.

If you were waiting on a table and, in the midst of performing your waiterly duties, you happened to eavesdrop on the party’s conversation, what would you think of the caliber of the conversation below, particularly Mr. B’s contribution. (Please note that Mr. B is not a small child, autistic, or mentally challenged.)

Mr. B: Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight. Go to the airport, get on the airplane and go home. How about you? Where are you going? Home?

Mr. H: Yes, I’m going home.

Mr. B: This is your neighborhood. It doesn’t take you long to get home. How long does it take you to get home?

Mr. H: Eight hours.

Mr. B: Eight hours? Me too. Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country.

Mr. B: [To Mr. T] It takes him eight hours to fly home.

Mr. T: Really.

Mr. B: [To waiter] No, Diet Coke, Diet Coke.

Mr. B: It takes him eight hours to fly home. Eight hours. Russia’s big and so is China.

Ok, so you may recognize this exchange. It is indeed a true waiting story, just not mine. It is between the American Mr. B[ush], the Chinese Mr. H[u], and the British Mr. T[ony Blair]. It occurred in St. Petersburg, Russia at the G8 Summit and the whole world eavesdropped via a microphone that had not been turned off when lunch began.

Here’s Cenk Uygur’s on the caliber of “Mr. B’s” conversation:

Russia’s big and so is China??????? This guy sounds like a third grader. Do you know anyone who would have a conversation like this with their neighbor, let alone a business associate, let alone a world leader? Who’s proud to know that Russia is big and so is China?

Can anyone now credibly claim that Bush is secretly working on a master plan behind the scenes and that he’s just playing cowboy for the cameras? I hope the master plan doesn’t involve figuring out how long it takes to get to China.

If someone is this ignorant, they’re usually embarrassed and try not to talk much. But this guy is so dumb he has no idea how dumb he is. This sounds like a conversation you might have with a child, a mentally challenged child. Johnny, do you know how big Russia is? How about China?

Why do some people feel the need to completely scrunch up their faces when communicating with a waiter? Scrunched-up faces can happen in any interaction:

“No <scrunch>, just water please.”

“I’m <scrunch> still eating.”

“We’ll <scrunch> take the check.”

It’s as if the communication is on the “down low,” or something uncomfortable, a necessary yet awkward exchange.

Listen people, I don’t care. Don’t feel bad for me, and I won’t feel bad for you. Order what you want. This is my job. Nothing personal.

So instead of scrunching, let’s try mutual graciousness. Minus that, let’s just get it over with, and beware my return scrunch!

Thank you!

R.W.

Wow, a regular person in office, and a waitress no less! From the Nevada Legislature Website:

MARGARET (MAGGIE) A. CARLTON
Democrat
Clark County Senatorial
District No. 2
Waitress

Watch out for those waiters and waitresses! From NPR:

Even among a colorful cast of Nevada lawmakers, Maggie Carlton stands out. Carlton continues to work as a coffee shop waitress while pushing legislation in the capitol as a state senator.

According to NPR’s audio:

“Senator Maggie” still punches a clock while working as a legislator at the state capital, and customers corral her at the toaster to get their views heard. Her coworkers say, “We got somebody speaking for us. Other senators… don’t know about the 9-5 work day.”

She was recruited to run by her union, the Culinary Workers Union, which was looking for one of its own to win a seat.

And I thought I was destined to the dead end job of slingin’ enchiladas and margaritas! Way to go Maggie!

‘Twas a cold rainy rainy night in Ann Arbor and (yippee!) it was time to punch out and go home. All I needed was my umbrel- oops! No umbrella.

Didn’t I see a stash of two or three umbrellas hanging on the dining room coat hooks earlier? Forgotten, unclaimed umbrellas? Going upstairs I discovered that lo and behold, there they were, still forgotten, still unclaimed. And it was pouring — the type of rain that soaks you even though you have an umbrella, but I still had to have one. But was it right? I had to get approval, a coconspirator.

I found a friend coworker and he too was umbrella-less. I explained the dilemma which it turned out was no dilemma at all for him, as he approached the coat hooks and selected his umbrella. So I did the same, and we decided that the umbrellas were actually part of a communal set that had no owners and just traveled from restaurant to restaurant for any needy traveler. In fact, we were certain that that was how they did it in Europe, and left the restaurant bemoaning the impractical, hyper-capitalist United States.

The next day a woman came to the restaurant asking for her umbrella. I explained to her how it was pouring the night before, how I had used a forgotten umbrella to get to the car, and how I had meant to bring the umbrella back today but forgot it (what is it about umbrellas that makes them so forgettable!). I described the umbrella and we agreed it must be hers, so I apologized and said I would bring it back tomorrow. I should at this point mention that this was not a jewel-studded umbrella passed down for generations, but the kind you buy for under five dollars at the pharmacy. Frankly I was surprised that someone had taken the time to try to retrieve it.

The next day when I entered the restaurant, I entered a firestorm. I quickly learned that the woman had already been to the restaurant twice looking for me, and would be back in a few minutes, and we weren’t even open yet. Realizing that I might have some umbrella fanatic on my hands, I pulled her umbrella out and brought it to the front door.

When she showed up looking none-too-pleased I gave her the umbrella, and she left. End of story? Not quite. She came back five minutes later.

Umbrella Lady, angry: This is not my umbrella. It looks like mine, but it’s not mine.

Renegade Waiter: I’m sorry. I guess since this type of umbrella comes a dime-a-dozen (oh yeah, I said it), it’s natural that you would mistake the two.

Here, why don’t you just take this one instead. People leave umbrellas here all the time and never come back for them. Maybe they think that someone in need has already taken it (trying to push onto her our European Umbrella Theory of the previous night).

She very, very grudgingly took it and left. And was that the last of her? Nope! She came stalking back, and by now I was busy with tables.

U.L., livid: You lied to me! You said my umbrella was here! I don’t want this umbrella. I want my own. It was given to me by a friend.

R.W.: I am sorry. Your umbrella is gone. I didn’t take it. I don’t know who did. I tried to help you, but that’s all we can do for you.

U.L.: Well then I’m calling the police!

R.W.: Go right ahead.

She never did call the cops, fortunately enough for me, and I never saw her again. And to this day, the case of the missing umbrella remains unsolved.

If you have any information as to the whereabouts of a small black umbrella with a brown plastic handle, please contact the authorities immediately.

Renegade Waiter: So how was dinner tonight?

Couple: It was great, thanks!

R.W.: Any room left for dessert?

Woman: No, we're gonna go home and have each other.

R.W.: Well good for you! Have a nice evening.

On a recent hosting stint, or renegade hosting, I watched two women sit down at a dirty table on the sidewalk patio as the previous party was leaving the table. Now at the time, I was managing a 45-minute wait for a table on the sidewalk and it was one of the busiest days of the year with the street closed for Art Fair. And unfortunately, the two women who just self-seated themselves ("selfers," as we call them) were not on my list.

So I, Renegade Host, walked over to them…

R.H.: Hi. I'm sorry for any confusion, but we have a 45-minute wait for this table and so, if you don't mind, you'll need to check-in and take a pager.

Selfer Woman: Oh no you don't understand. You see, we were with those other people and they decided to leave and now we're going to stay a while.

R.H: I see.

I walked away from the selfers and found the previous party on their way out …

R.H.: Excuse me, but are those two women with you? Are they in your party?

Previous Party Person: No, they are not. We were sitting there and they came over and asked if they could sit at our table. We said "Sure" because we were leaving anyway, just a bit sooner perhaps than we had planned.

Da Da DAAAAAAA [Astonishment!!]

R.H.: I see. Thank you.

Back at patio…

R.H.: I'm sorry, but there are people who have waited 45 minutes to sit at this table. You two are going to have to sign in as well, and wait your turn.

Selfer Woman: No we're not. We were here with other people who decided to leave and we're staying.

R.H.: No, you were not with them. I talked to them, and I watched the whole thing go down.

Selfer Woman: Well we're not leaving.

R.H.: Listen, you can sit here, but no one will come to this table — no waiter, no one.

By now the situation was attracting attention so I walked away and went about my business while keeping an eye on the offending table. I got involved in something else and before I knew it a woman walked right in front of me and in the midst of a crowd…

Selfer Woman:  LOSER!

Needless to say, they vacated the table and our restaurant. And I cheerfully called out after them…

Have A Nice Day!

Upon setting down the complimentary basket of chips and salsa…

Renegade Waiter: Hi there, would anyone care for something to drink?

Woman: No. Do you have cucumbers or something instead of these chips?

Renegade Waiter: No, I'm sorry. We don't use cucumbers in any of our recipes so there are none in the house.

Woman: Shame on you! God will punish you!

Was she joking? I think so. Was it funny? No, creepy. Can normal people who may indeed be religious but know how to act in public please sit in my section from now on? Doubt it.

Upon greeting a table of four and setting the complimentary basket of chips and salsa upon the table, the following exchange occured:

Woman: Do the different salsa cups contain different types of salsa? Is one hotter than the other?

Renegade Waiter: No ma'am, I just wanted to make sure you folks had enough to go around.

Table: Ahhhh! Thank you!

Man: You must be Christian.

The second it hung in the air was an eternity. His wife looked at him with a very nervous grin that failed to hide utter embarassment. All breathing ceased as they waited to hear how this waiter would respond. The response came immediately.

"No. There are other generous faiths."

Back in the kitchen where it is not only customary but required to repeat the stupid things customers say, a coworker said she would have said, "Actually, no, I'm not," and promptly taken the salsas back. Praised be.