The Center of the Universe

If you haven't been able to find it, I can tell you where it was tonight: the Center of the Universe came and sat at the bar, and I got to wait on her.

I tried not to make any snap judgments about her by her wildly dyed, attention-getting hair style. And I tried to suspend my interpretation of the air of self-satisfaction she exuded. And I gave her the benefit of the doubt when she first beckoned me over to her with an air of urgency even though I was already clearly on my way to tend to her.

She was nice enough. Almost too nice, though. The kind of nice that says I know how to act like I am nice though really I require your constant focus and if I don't get it, I will unleash the hell-on-wheels that I really am.

I set her up with a cocktail, and as she and her dinner companions waited at the bar for their table to be set, the C of the U continued to peruse the beverage menu (it's an interesting read) as I waited on other folks at the bar.

Excuse me, she said, extending an arm over the bar and toward me. As in the me who was talking to another person on the other end of the bar.

I glanced over my shoulder and signaled that I'd be right over.

I walked with a deliberate slowness toward her. Yes? I asked with an even more deliberate sweetness.

Oh, she started. If you're busy it can wait.

No, no, I say. I'm all yours. Please go ahead.

And I meant this because I wanted to know what was so pressing.

She smiles fake-sheepishly. What's Cynar? she asked, pointing to one of the ingredients on the cocktail list.

I am always happy to answer questions about the menu (it's part of what I do, after all), and this one is a common one.

It's an Italian liqueur distilled from artichoke, I began. It's kind of sweet and bitter and herbaceous and vegetal.

Oh, cool, she replied, looking back down at the menu, which I took as my dismissal.

I eyed another customer who needed to give me an order and headed over to him.

As soon as I got there, the call came in again.

Excuse me, she implored.

And when I say implored, I mean she wasn't just casually trying to get my attention; her tone was just shy of suggesting that there was a natural disaster about to befall the bar and that I must act with all due imperativeness.

I consider ignoring her, but I turned around, smiling.

Oh, it can wait, she bluffed again.

I ended up answering two more questions in this fashion of hers, waiting until I'm otherwise occupied before she decides she must talk to me right away and then acting like she's just suddenly realized that she was interrupting me and feigning politeness by deferring to the other bar patron.

I know this game.

I've played it before. With other Centers of the Universe.

The kicker? Turns out she works in a restaurant, suggesting to me that she should know extra better than to try to talk to the bartender while that bartender is talking to other customers.

You don't have to be an astrophysicist to know that.

Black Saturday

Valentine's Day this year fell not only on a Saturday but also on a holiday weekend, so we were good and braced for a long, busy day.

Sarah and Neki raised spirits with Winnie-the-Pooh and Strawberry Shortcake Valentine cards. And Johnny Cannoli (sort of his real name) set the mood for the day by showing his love through what he does best: cooking. Before the restaurant got too busy, out from the wood-burning oven came a heart-shaped pizza.



What about that pie doesn't scream love?

So this holiday is known as Black Saturday because, theoretically, it's one of those busy nights that will help put a restaurant "in the black." Restaurants are infamous for jacking up prices and offering expensive set menus and overbooking their tables to help achieve this financial goal.

I will hasten to point out that this is not the case where I work.

In the industry, Valentine's day is also one of those events known affectionately as "amateur night," a night when non-restaurant-going folks feel obligated to go out to dinner. It's up there with Mother's Day and New Year's Eve, when restaurants are crammed with dazed and overwhelmed diners who might or might not actually want to be there. They are notorious for ordering cheaply, socializing poorly with the servers, and leaving tips not commensurate with service.

But we try to look forward to these nights anyway. Like any other night, we remind ourselves. Only busier. More challenging. We'll sleep really well after.

I only worked lunch so was spared the mania of the dinner shift, which, from all reports, was one of the busier nights we've had of late. It was a night of controlled craziness, with the kitchen pumping out food at a furious pace and the floor staff scrambling in the most pleasant way possible, trying to appease a crowd of people who were competing for seats, food, and attention.

Me, I was home tucked into my recliner under a blanket with a big book and a big mug of tea while visions of festive pizza danced in my head.

All thanks to Jonathan for getting us off to a deliciously Valentiney start!

What We Like To Tell Ourselves

In my barista days, I made plenty of nonfat mochas with extra whipped cream. As a server, I've put in orders for pizza with extra cheese and bacon with a hot fudge sundae for dessert and a diet Coke to wash it down. I've heard men order fondue and steak in the same meal and say, Thank god I take Lipitor!

And now, as a bartender, I can say I did something that really, I never could have seen coming.

Saturday night was possibly the busiest night I've ever worked at the bar. From beginning to end, for at least six and a half hours straight, I was bounced from one end of the bar to the other, mixing drinks and taking orders and trying to keep clear in my mind the eighteen things I needed to be doing at every second. It was so intense that I swear the pressure I was under was making my hands shake as I poured drinks, my blood sugar plummeting and my adrenaline levels soaring.

It was way-super-crazy busy.

Anyhow, in the thick of the busyness, a woman waiting with her friends for a table watched me as as I built and shook a cocktail made from vodka, meyer lemon juice, and simple syrup.

That looks delicious! she gushed. Is it just vodka and juice? she asked.

There's also sugar in it, I said as amiably as I could while my mind frantically tried to figure out my next several moves.

Can you make one with Sweet 'n Low? she asked.

This question was enough to get me to stop everything I was doing.

Um, well, I don't know if that would work so well, I said, feeling protective of the cocktail recipe.

Oh, I make drinks all the time with it at home, she said confidently.

Well, I said. I only have Equal.

That should have gotten me off the hook. But the woman fumbled through her purse and fished out a tiny pink packet.

Oh look! she exclaimed triumphantly. I've got some Sweet 'n Low with me!

She carried it with her? Couldn't I be tested on some night when I didn't have seven cocktails that needed to be made right at that moment, not to mention the plates that needed to be cleared, the cash that needed to be rung in to the register, the orders that needed to be put in the computer?

I was going to have to throw the game, lose the battle.

For the sake of keeping the flow of the bar going, I took the path of least resistance. It would have taken far too much effort and time for me to explain the importance of maintaining the integrity of the drink.

And at the end of the day, it was clear this woman was going to love the drink made her way; it was what she really, really wanted, and it was obvious that I was physically capable of making it for her.

I took the pink packet and, cringing on the inside, made her that cocktail.

She sipped. She swooned. She expressed pleasure and gratitude. I had made her night.

She liked it so much, in fact, that over the course of her dinner she ordered two more sugar-free concoctions, employing the servers as baffled couriers shuttling the packets of saccharin from her table to the bar.

And what did she eat for dinner? Not one but two bowls of one of the heartiest dishes on the menu: pasta with pork sausage ragù topped with a rich dollop of whipped ricotta cheese.

If she ingested less than an entire day's calories in just her main courses alone, I would be surprised. I guess that forty calories of sugar in those cocktails would have just put her over her edge.

They almost put me over mine.

An, Um, Intimate Dinner

The three women at table 15 started off a little bit, well, challenging.

Hello, I greet them. May I bring you...

Do you have a bar here? a voice cuts in. Is there liquor here?

Yes, I answer. You have the drink menu right there in your hands. I'll give you a moment to look that over while I get you water.

I return to the table with the water, ready to take a drink order.

We know what we want to eat! seat 2 pipes up, to my surprise. I was sure the drink order would come first.

I jot down the order on my notepad.

I'll bring the octopus and the dandelion salad to start, and then I'll bring the soup as a second course with the pastas, I confirm.

But you'll bring the appetizers first, right? the woman in seat 1 asks.

Yes, I affirm, poker-faced. I will bring your appetizers first.

And now we need drinks! enthuses the woman in seat 2.

Seat 3 clutches the drink menu. Do the house cocktails have alcohol in them? she asks, looking intently at the selection of cocktails, which list their alcohol-based ingredients.

Yes, they do, I say.

I want something with a real kick to it! she says animatedly, making a fist and poking it through the air as she says "kick."

I consider what this statement could mean. Does she want something that was very high in alcohol, or is she looking for something flavorful? I can ask her, but I go with my hunch: that she's looking for the buzz.

What kind of cocktails do you like to order? I ask, trying to assess what she might enjoy.

She turns her head to look at me blankly then goes back to the menu. In the mean time, the other women at the table, trying to be helpful (I suppose), read off the names of the cocktails.

I go for another question. Is there a particular liquor you prefer?

There is absolutely no response. Suddenly, seat 2 gets very excited. Beet martini! Get a beet martini!

Okay, says seat 4, with a pronounced lack of enthusiasm.

So you like gin, I affirm, knowing that drink will be an automatic turn-off to anyone who doesn't.

As there is still no response, I mentally shrug, writing down the order as seat 2 looks at the menu. She is audibly mumbling, Hmmm... What do I want, what do I want? as she leafs through the menu. She stops at the beer page. She stops at the wine page. She stops at the non-alcoholic drinks page. She finally lands on the cocktail and aperitif page (which, ironically, is actually the first page of the menu).

The restaurant is rather quiet at the moment, but this does not mean that there aren't other things that I could be doing. Like not having to watch her read every word of the drink menu and think out loud.

Good thing you aren't busy! she observes.

Is it better or worse that she is conscious of her behavior? I don't know. But I stand there, a patient, captive audience, giving no hint that even though I am not busy, her behavior is no less annoying.

She finally settles on an aperitif, and I go to send the orders through the computer. It's late afternoon when the shifts change over, so I sit down to eat family meal while the other servers take over the tables.

When I'm done eating, I stop at table 15 who is now at the end of the meal. Seat 3 now has now turned so she's leaning her back against the wall and has both legs draped over the chair next to her, feet sticking out into the aisle.

I am so drunk! she barks good-naturedly at me as I begin to stack empty plates on my arm.

I smile a small smile of acknowledgment. Clearly in my absence, someone had had another martini.

But approval of their dining experience was not just shared with me.

We want to kiss the chef and owner on both cheeks! they gush to my co-worker Sarah.

That was amaaazing! they howl, slapping their on the table for emphasis.

Eating here is like getting fucked! they whoop at my other co-worker Morgan, who conveys this story with the assurance that this is, in fact, praise-- and with a look on her face like she's not sure she's working in a restaurant anymore.

Not to toot our own horn, but we are used to hearing the generously positive comments that comes from our diners who make happy faces and tummy-rubbing gestures to express their content.

But really? Like getting fucked? I can't quite imagine expressing my contentment in this way to anyone, really, but especially not to my server, but then again, I can't imagine a more entertaining start to a Saturday night of waiting tables.

Judgment Day

I was three seconds into arriving at the restaurant for the dinner shift when I saw Sarah, who'd been working lunch that afternoon. Before she could even say hello, the first words out of her mouth were Oh boy do I have a blog entry for you!

Knowing how easygoing Sarah is, I thought This is going to be a doozy.

Turns out that aside from a generally hectic service that included parties of people that were really too big for the restaurant all coming at the same time, one party asked for Diet Coke to be put in their children's sippy cups-- you know, those little plastic cups with lids for kids who are too uncoordinated to manage a regular glass.

And if they're too young to manage a glass you might think that they're too young to be drinking diet soda. But apparently not.

The reaction to this request by the staff was one of visceral disgust. One of us was inspired to run to the office to use google.com to research why it's so awful to feed diet soda-- or any soda, actually-- to a small child. (If you think about it, really there is no human being in the whole world who should drink Diet Coke.) Mostly it seemed the staff was aghast at the message that giving a toddler a diet drink gives, and that made us simultaneously angry and sad.

We often (invisibly) raise our eyebrows at odd requests. Ice for a glass of wine, a non-fat (Be sure it's non-fat!) mocha with extra whipped cream. But more than one co-worker called that family's behavior child abuse. And I can only agree to some extent, only if you're sure to include feeding kids McDonald's ever and exposing them to the reactionary, sexist programming that is the Disney Channel, which is to say that there are plenty of questionable moves that could stand some scrutiny. Amongst our food-conscious, source-conscious, and (mostly) health-conscious staff, this Diet Coke incident just really hit a nerve.

Abuse? Eh, probably not. Mind-numbing ignorance? Oh, you betcha.

So what do we servers do when confronted with a request such as this one? We do our jobs: we smile extra big to cover up the horror on our faces that would come bursting through if we didn't, and we follow through, pouring little cups of Diet Coke for children too small to know their taste buds are being ruled by completely artificial flavors that don't even sort-of exist in nature.

And then we lay the story our co-workers as soon as we get a chance.

A Conversation

Nice Customer at Table 1: Are two desserts enough for four people?

Me: Not in my family.

A Conversation

Bar Customer: I bet you're voting for McCain.

Me: That's the meanest thing anyone has ever said to me.