The hospitality industry, restaurant and bar culture, service industry folk... it sometimes all begins to feel a little cliche.
The cookbook section of any bookstore now has a platonic bedmate in culinary non-fiction. The descendants of Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, a battalion of novellas and rock operas offering a glimpse all that goes on behind the scenes, of the private stories of the community that serves you brunch on Sundays, your anniversary dinner, and humors you from behind the bar when you're a few drinks deep. One thread that weaves through these tales is Us, and then there is Them: the diner, the patron, the guest, and generally the reader. They are the faceless reflections of our hard work. They are numbers, covers, rushes, theater pushes, and the masses that follow a good review.
In the kitchen, They and Us is easy. It's harder in the front of the house. We meet hundreds in a night, face to face. Some come and go with light banter, faces forgotten while I'm still repeating their order in my head. Others make themselves remembered for being difficult or for being fun. I have been told personal stories and asked personal questions, I have also been ignored and snubbed.
A server's job is many parts and anyone who disagrees can try out one of those restaurants where you place your order by a small computer at the table. Servers create the experience, they are the dividing line between eating and dining and they are the bedrock of the definition of what dining is in each establishment. They are the a large part of the difference between three stars and four stars, as any review will detail. Which brings me to New York Times blogger Bruce Buschel's list of 100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do. I think it's important to note that this article is in the Small Business section of the New York Times, not the Dining section. The article is for the purpose of restaurateurs, not diners or even the servers it barks at. I believe, it is meant to be an example of how to train your staff, the types of details that you should charge your servers with.
Instead, the 47 pages of comments is a chorus of shots fired from either side of the table. "Bravo!" from diners who feel they have been wronged in the past, decrying being upsold, sold short, or insulted. There's pages of server's requesting similar rules for diners, and offering transparency on the multitude of rules in this list that are issues completely unrelated to the server's duties in most restaurants (note # 4. “If a table is not ready within a reasonable length of time, offer a free drink and/or amuse-bouche. The guests may be tired and hungry and thirsty, and they did everything right” – few smart restaurateurs give their staff, specifically hosts, free reign on awarding free drinks and food as they see fit)
The point entirely missed is the opportunity for the role the server plays in fine dining, the possibility for them to enhance the dining experience with knowledge of the menu, the cuisine, the product, the establishment and with warm, genuine service. The pessimistic attitude of the throngs of wronged commenters is evident often in restaurants when servers are looked at sideways as co-conspirators with the kitchen to sell you old fish and get you out of the restaurant fast so they can sell more and then go home. Good restaurants employ good servers who know and care about food, it is their imperative for you to have a good time, and, hopefully, an exceptional time. This is how we as servers make money, but it is also where we find joy in our job.
Each table is different and many of these rules are good staples for fine dining, when not attempting to strain the personality out of a server. I will never interject my favourites while describing the favourites - but I am asked my favourites on the menu many times each night and will respond. I never say my name - but jokes? cuteness? I will not dumb myself down or de-carbonate my personality. The restaurant where I work is upscale and expensive - yet casual and comfortable. This paradox means that some parties come for a casual meal and some have saved up all month for a fancy meal. A good server, as I hope I am, is adaptable to each guest and each party. Rules are meant to be broken.
Behind the scenes stories from the service industry make good reading for the same reason that airports make good people watching - the sheer diversity of people. As a server I encounter all sizes and shapes of people and personalities and I greet each table with the same goal - to give them an enjoyable fine dining experience. Things go wrong in restaurants, there are too many cogs to assume that every thing will always be perfect, but it is always my goal for it to be perfect, or do my best to correct it in any way possible.
I think the expose nature of culinary non-fiction paints guests as the Other and that causes some to hold their wallet high and remind all who are listening that they are the center of the dance that is dining. This isn't necessary. From the moment you walk in to our restaurant you are the center of our concern and we want nothing more than for you to have a jaw dropping experience - this is how we make tips, how we get and maintain business, and why we are in the industry. Please just keep in mind that we create dining experience for hundreds a night and thousands a week and we are merely human, but trying our hardest.
