Christy Lorio: Confessions of a fine-dining waitress

Christy Lorio (photo by Leslie Almeida)

When I was in college I got sucked into the world of fine dining. I started out looking for a job, one that would work with my class schedule and provide me with enough cash to pay rent, buy books for school and leave me with some extra spending money.  Being a waitress was the perfect fit: Just like any career, the profession certainly had its pros and cons, but I can’t think of any that are quite so colorful.

With Anthony Bourdain now a household name and shows like Top Chef dominating cable television, it’s no wonder diners are so fascinated by the inner workings of restaurants. Or take Kitchen Nightmares, a program that transforms train wreck staff and delusional owners into successful operations. The show really exposes the sometimes seedy underbelly of this supposed glitzy gourmand industry and it’s fun to watch.

At a fine-tuned restaurant, the service will appear flawless, with everyone harmonious and in sync like an orchestra. The busboy clears plates at the precise moment, the sommelier pairs the perfect bubbly for your first course, and the hostess thanks you on the way out the door.  What you don’t witness is the back-of-the-house madness. Waiters are trampling each other to get orders in, managers freaking out that a food runner dropped the last scallop order on the floor and chefs yelling at the cooks to hurry up. I even had a friend that reported servers getting into fist fights on a routine basis after their shifts.

That easy college job isn’t so easy anymore, right? During my tenure as a fancy hash slinger my longest job held was at this restaurant I’ll call “Le Frou Frou”. Located in the tourist zone, our moniker for it was the “fine dining cafeteria” based on the lack of quality food and the rate that the kitchen churned it out. There was one dessert so impenetrable with a fork that we nicknamed it the “cryogenic” pie. I always coaxed patrons to sample other options, going so far as to call the chocolate brick by its nickname once or twice. I once overheard a lunchtime conversation between the owner and a banquet sales manager as they discussed the unimportance of the sub-par meat we served because it was drowned in enough heavy sauce that diners wouldn’t know the difference. Now that’s the way to take pride in your restaurant!

The antics didn’t stop at the food choices. Diners at Le Frou Frou were serenaded by a three piece Dixie land jazz band, but there was one banjo player that hit the bottle hard and was so drunk once that he fell off his bar stool but kept playing with his feet in the air. Tourists loved it and egged him on, thinking it was part of the act. The waiters knew his secret was really taking set breaks at a popular gentleman’s club on Bourbon Street. But the entertainers weren’t the only ones behaving badly. A few years back the Superbowl was hosted in New Orleans which meant lots of inebriated out-of-towners would fill the dining room post game. One diner, wedding ring prominently on display, hit on me and tried to feel me up. He proceeded to comment on how “hot” I was to another waiter when I stepped away. “Actually, that’s my sister” the waiter replied. Oh yes, my brother and I were quite the duo. I’d usually schmooze the men and my brother would get the tables full of ladies. This worked pretty well, but I never crossed the line like another waitress did. She’d flirt her way into a 20% tip, and then when the table full of buzzed patrons asked her to join them for a night on the town, she’d complain she didn’t have enough cash for a cab ride or cover. They’d give her enough to cover the gratuity and the lagniappe she coyly asked for but she’d never see her once they left the restaurant.

Add to all of these antics the insurmountable pressure of errors beyond your control and
the heat is on. Try telling the guy that just blew $200 on a bottle of wine that you ran out of wine glasses, or that the kitchen printer got jammed and all of your tables’ tickets got lost. My favorite was when the kitchen was so backed up with orders that you’re sending out an amuse bouche or a comped drink between every course just to distract from the fact that they’ve been waiting an hour for their entrees.

Suddenly the drunk waitstaff sort of makes sense. Of course you’d never know the guy in the tuxedo setting fruit on fire table side (Bananas Foster) was doing it under the influence because he was a seasoned pro. He might have even chased his last table down the street and cursed them out for not leaving a big enough tip but hey, you are here to enjoy your meal, not watch drama unfold, right? Save that for reality TV.

Christy Lorio, a native New Orleanian, writes on fashion at slowsouthernstyle.com and is also a freelance writer whose work has been featured online and in print magazines both locally and nationally.