Waiter's Rant

Read Waiter’s Rant on a recent business trip. Nothing like two sleepless four-hour flights within a few days of each other. Written by the guy who for a long time kept the Waiter’s Rant blog. He was a waiter/manager at a prominent restaurant in New York. Though he is careful to remain anonymous, the name of the restaurant, and the name of the author for that matter, are out there. I just can’t think of them at the moment.

There are some movies that would have worked beautifully as twenty-minute shorts, but sag hopelessly as feature-length films. This book is kind of like that. It would have worked better as a magazine article. Not to say that it isn’t entertaining – it is. Anthony Bourdain’s dust jacket blurb to the effect that the book is the front of the house version of his Kitchen Confidential is more or less spot-on. You start out really sympathizing with the guy. Losing his office job at 31 and needing money, he gets a job at a completely dysfunctional Italian restaurant in the ‘burbs thanks to his brother. Fast-forward seven years, and he is the manager of one of the most respected restaurants in New York – professional, loved by most his customers, expert at dealing with the difficult ones, and being the much needed buffer between the staff, who love him, and the semi-insane owner. Pulling down very decent money, too, and writing about it all with a great deal of wit. You really want to admire that at first.

But the book isn’t just about what goes on in the restaurant (it probably wouldn’t have been published if it was) – it’s about the author himself. He takes every opportunity to lament his predicament of being a waiter, and single, at 38. Of never having made anything of himself. He is completely infatuated with one of his waitresses – the twenty-three-year-old Beth – and that infatuation oozes from every page. He paints a convincing picture of his own burnout, but his downfall at his own restaurant just about makes you lose respect for him – you realize after a while that he is becoming the selfish jerk manager of the type he deplored in the early days of his restaurant career. His staff turns on him, and his exit is far from magnanimous. I suppose there is a point here, whether he makes it intentionally or not – the business will ruin anyone. In the grand American happy-ending tradition, however, he resurfaces at the end as someone who is finally doing something with himself – he is a writer now, you see, and is waiting tables at another restaurant, part time without any management responsibilities, to make ends meet. He even gets the phone number of a cute girl. How predictable. I was still pulling for him at the end, but only half-heartedly.

I don’t want to be too negative – the bulk of the book is worthwhile. It really does give you a sense of what you don’t see when you come to a gourmet restaurant for a meal. Moral of the story – if you lose your job and need money, drive a cab.