Ode to the Service Industry

There are few aspects of the restaurant business that are foreign to me. I have worked as a prep cook, pantry cook, and server in small family-owned places and for large restaurant groups. I have opened a restaurant (and will never do that again unless Thomas Keller calls me personally and offers me a skillion dollars a day), and I've worked for restaurants that have no business being open. Whether you work front of the house or in the kitchen, restaurants are sticky places. They suck you in. You think you're going to quit because your manager is a semi-psychotic beast and you are sick of coming home smelling like rotten food scraps. You can't mix another batch of peanut dressing, you'll scream if you have to wear those nasty work clogs one more time, no one will cover your shift, you have to work on New Year's Eve, you have a degree, a college degree, and you know there are tons of places just dying to pay you a salary and give you benefits and set you up in a nice little office.

But you can't quit. I know. I tried. When it comes down to it, if I'm not working for myself, I'd rather work in a restaurant. Nothing about it is easy, but once you master the menu, reacquaint yourself with the rudiments of good service, explore the wine list, and shine those godforsaken work clogs, it's fun. As a server, you work short shifts and walk with pockets of cash - plenty to live on, even in pricey cities. I couldn't stay cooped up in an office all day with the rest of the world, navigate a morning commute with the masses, live my life to the same rhythm as everyone else. Why go out on Saturday night and get in elbow fights at the bar? Mondays and Tuesdays are the nights to go out, when the bars are mellow and filled with other people who don't work 8 to 5. Plus, people who work in restaurants are often interesting and always the most fun. They take eating and drinking seriously, and share my idea that these are the finer things in life, not working your way up the corporate ladder.

You can't work in restaurants forever. By and large, they are the territory of young people. But while I'm young, why not?