Flashback Friday!

I've been kind of remiss in updating this week, and will certainly write a proper entry sometime this weekend, but in the meantime, lets enjoy some stories from the past. Anything in quotes is verbatim from the notebook, without any embellishments.

Here are a series of guests requests from October 16, 2011.  Each of these requests was from a different person.

"If I buy an sandwich somewhere else, can I bring it in and eat it?"

Oh! Yes, of course! And remember to bring a frisbee to start up a game after you finish eating!  I only suggest it, because you seem to be under the impression that this is the fucking park.


"Can I have sunny side eggs....with egg whites?"

Sorry. WHAT?  Either you're too stupid to know what a sunny side egg is, or you actually expect me to have a sunny side egg cooked, and then take a delicate little knife and cut the yolk out of the center for you.

And finally, one for the geniuses:

"Does the frittata have eggs in it?"

I don't even have a snarky comment for this one, So I'll just leave this here:

Not so casual racism

     One of the most hilarious/cringe inducing factors of dealing with UWSiders is the blatant snobbery that seems to run rampant in the neighborhood, and subsequently in the restaurant.  Obviously, not everybody who comes in is a total dick.  Some people are awesome. Some people are weird but harmless. Some people are just kind of annoying. And some are fucking elitist babies who manage to tread the fine line between total snobbishness and an utter and complete inability to do anything for themselves.

     Anyway. A few weeks ago I was working with my co-worker B. He's a good dude. Really easy going, decent waiter, easy to work with. I'll describe his appearance because it's relevant to the story.  Tan skin, thick black hair, almond shaped eyes.  He's originally from Guam. I know this because he told me he's from Guam. However, if I didn't know, and somebody put a gun to my head and said "Yo, C: guess that guy's nationality" I would have said, Hawaiin, Pacific Islander, etc. I may not have picked "Guam" off the top of my head because I'm not that cultured, but I can guess the general global area.

   You know what I would not have guessed? Mexican. Or Ecuadoran. Or any kind of South American.  Seriously. He looks about as Mexican as our ambiguously gay Bengali food runner(hey, remind me to write about that guy.)

     But hey, I guess all brown people look the same to people in that neighborhood. They must, or this interaction wouldn't have happened:

A snotty woman was sitting at a table (my table actually) with her family. I was occupied at the moment, and she flagged B down.

B: "Yes?"

Woman: "MAS FRUTAS?!"

B: *stunned* "Um...what?"

Woman: Oh. More strawberries please.

At this point he walked into the wait station before the conversation could get any worse.  And to clarify, this wasn't some confused native Spanish speaker. We do get a lot of foreigners in our restaurant, and I've had times when I've had a guest who speaks only German or French or Spanish, and we have to figure things out through charades...this was not that situation.   This was a snotty rich old white lady who felt that it was appropriate to yell "Mas Frutas!" at a guy who doesn't even look Hispanic. Because all brown people must speak Spanish. (Fun fact: B doesn't speak Spanish, although he was able to discern that "mas frutas" did indeed refer to fruit.)

Also, our waiters have different uniforms than our support staff. B was wearing a waiter's uniform. Why would we have a waiter on the floor who didn't speak English?

So. To reiterate:

1)Don't be racist

2) Don't be stupid

3) "Frutas" doesn't even mean "strawberries," it just means "fruit."

4) Consider yourself lucky you didn't get punched.

Potato/po-tahhh-to, Prosecco/Progresso

     Today I had a woman ask if we sold "Progresso by the glass."  Uh....what? I waited for a moment to see if it had been a slip of the tongue, and wondered if she'd correct herself.

Nope.  Not happening. Finally I asked her to clarify, and she looked at me like I was an idiot, she snobbishly replied that it was "like champagne."  Oh really?  You know what Progresso is? Progresso is fuckin soup.

Mm mm, pour me a flute of that chicken noodle.

Prosecco is sparkling white wine.

cheers motherfucker

Once we got that straightened out, I told her that prosecco wasn't on offer by the glass, but we did have cava.  I explained to her that it's quite similar, and she wrinkled her nose as though I'd offered her a glass of cat piss.  

She was probably just disappointed I wasn't able to offer her a chicken noodle mimosa.

Flashback Fridays

So in between essays on restaurant life in general, and writing down things as they happen, I have about three years of backlog of stories that I've been collecting.  Some of these are straight out of a notebook that we used to have at work where we'd all anonymously write snippets of our day.

Every Friday will be Flashback Friday on the blog, and I'll post a few old snippets of conversation or descriptions of events.  Some of these are things that happened to me, some happened to co-workers. These are unedited, just copied from my notebooks:

October 13, 2011
Waiter Story
---I got home after work yesterday and fell asleep in my uniform. I woke up at 6:30 AM in said uniform, rolled out of bed without showering, and came to work.

October 14, 2011.
Conversation with a guest

Waiter: Hi! How are you?
Guest: I'm waiting for someone
Waiter: Anything to drink while you wait?
Guest: yeah....I'm waiting for someone.
Waiter:  Okay, so would you like a beverage?
Guest: I'm not eating right now.


October 15, 2011
Conversation with a guest

Waiter: Hi, how are you doing tonight?
Guest: No, no, no, no.
Waiter: Okay, but how are you doing?
Guest: Peru!

     That's all for now.  Plenty of stories where that came from.

Look, Don't Touch

A woman grabbed my ass on Monday.  Straight up.  I suppose it wasn't a full fledged ass grab (although I wouldn't blame people for grabbing my ass, because I have a hella juicy booty.)  It was more of a weird little poke.  Or maybe a pinch.  I just felt somebody kind of grabbing on my butt/back fat, and I turned around and this crazy old bat was staring at me.

Before I could say anything, she got a crazed look in her eye and asked me if there was a Radio Shack nearby.  I didn't even know how to respond.

I feel like there's certain shit that should be obvious, and one of those things is...don't grab my ass. I personally don't like strangers touching me in general, but DUDE! My ASS!

You should not be touching my ass unless I'm fucking you, or maybe unless we're in a theatre dressing room situation. Ass grabbing runs rampant in theatre dressing rooms. It just kind of comes with the territory.

 

But in public? At a restaurant? Because you need to know if there's a RADIO SHACK nearby?

Bitch please. If you're close enough to pinch my butt, you're close enough for me to hear you say excuse me.

It still isn't as bad as the time I was talking to a table and some old dude came up behind me, grabbed me, said "thanks for everything" and kissed me on the cheek. 

And this is the kind of shit that actually keeps me sane at work.

Now, by popular demand

I've been working in hospitality for the past decade or so.  When you're a writer/singer/pianist/photographer/comedian/post-suicidal college dropout/ general waster of potential, it sort of comes with the territory.

And somehow, I've stuck with it. I always tell myself that one of these days I'll get a "real" job, but the truth of the matter is, I kind of love waiting.  Especially since I've moved to NYC.

I'm originally from Akron.  When I lived in Akron I worked at a chain restaurant for a few years, and really, back then all I had to worry about was staining my shirt with making virgin daiquiris for prom kids, or maybe getting dicked over by a non-tipping Lebron James. (Seriously, the guy's a shit head.)

These days, I work in a café on the Upper West Side.  And somehow, the lunatics gravitate towards us. More so than any place I've ever worked in NYC, or any restaurant I've ever worked in in general.

So hop aboard the crazy train.

Let's get going