My experience in the food service business lasted only 9 months. My mother told her friends I was a professional chef. The Pancake House called me a fry cook and paid me 15% less than the minimum wage. In those days the kitchen was a male domain and the front was run by women, Front and back it was a tough way to make a living. But on its worst night it was nothing like the place my wife and I nicknamed the Desperation Cafe after dining there last week.
The intense competition in the industry makes restaurant owners try hard to distinguish their establishment from others and provide a unique experience. That can be hard on the staff.
Prior to last week, the worst I'd seen was a barbeque joint on SW 102 Ave in Portland where the wait staff was shod in cowboy boots and the manager periodically cranked up Isaac Peyton Sweat on the PA system and the staff had to drop everything and do the Cotton-Eyed Joe.
But neither my wife, Susan, who was once the project manager for a company that created theme restaurants in the midwest, nor I were prepared for our experience in Kent, Washington, at a place I'll call Bobby's.
As we approached front door of the restaurant the hostess practically leapt over the reception counter to jerk the door open it for us, as if she was afraid we might veer off at the last minute. Bobby's was billed as a sports bar with a difference. The difference was that it didn't look like a sports bar, have hot wings on the menu or a selection of beers that compared favorably to the average convenience store.
The wait staff was uniformly young, female and dressed in black outfits that left no doubt that they were young and female.
Our waitress, Hannah, rushed to greet us as we were seated. “Is this your first time at Bobby's?” She asked, bright eyes flashing. Yes, we were just overnighting and catching an early plane out of SeaTac.
“So you've never had our ahi tacos?” She touched us both with her young, beautifully manicured fingers and told us she would was going to put her considerable charms to work on the chef to see if she could convince him to slip us a couple of free ones. She came back a couple of minutes later wearing a worldly smile and reported that she'd been successful. I half-expected to see her straightening her clothing.
Because we were new, she leaned over the table and insisted on giving us a “tour of the menu”. The menu itself was large and unwieldy, but there was a lot of white space and the print was as large as the “E” on the first row of an eye chart.
Susan ordered salmon with grilled veggies and crispy mashed potatoes. I ordered the featured salad – mixed greens, goat cheese, chicken and savory croutons. Hannah moaned and gushed over our selections until I could almost hear her taste buds writhing in sympathetic anticipation.
The tacos arrived, with two pairs of chopsticks and a vat of what appeared to be wasabi sauce. Not quite sure what to do with the chopsticks, I used one to smeared a little wasabi on the tuna and bit into the taco. Then I dipped a chopstick in the sauce and licked it off. It tasted like Miracle Whip ™.
“Isn't that incredible?” Hannah asked. Yes, incredible.
Hannah went to take care of another table, and we relaxed and admired the place. It had a nice, dimly lit décor, though the multiple TV screens near the bar seemed a little out of place.
After a few seconds a smiling young man with short hair, a white shirt and black tie appeared and stood by our table. He had very good posture. “I understand this is your first visit to Bobby's,” he said. We confessed that the rumors were true. He took some time describing what a joy it was to have us dining with them and how he hoped we would make Bobby's our headquarters whenever we were in town. We smiled and tried to minimize eye contact.
Our food arrived in good time. It was fine, but uniformly bland. I couldn't detect any vinegar in the vinaigrette. The croutons in my salad were the size of small hamsters, so I had to break them up with my fork before they became food. Susan said her salmon was a little dry, the crispy mashed potatoes were plain mashed potatoes stuffed into a thin rice wrap and fried a bit. Her grilled vegetables were rubbery.
Hannah returned. “How is everything, perfect?” We were both chewing, so we nodded and broke eye contact as quickly as possible.
Just as we began to chew more easily, the hostess who had endangered life and limb to open the front door interrupted our conversation to tell us that word had spread that we had never eaten at Bobby's before and she wanted to make sure that we had gotten our complimentary ahi tacos. She'd ratted out Hannah. But after the hostess left, we talked it over and decided that since Hannah had said she was new at Bobbies, perhaps she really thought that she had to give it up for the chef in order to score appetizers for a couple of virgins.
“Is your salmon exactly right?” Hannah was back and she looked like she really, really needed positive feedback.
It made me want to say, “Relax. You are young and beautiful, you have great smile and dark eyes that reflect the candlelight. Just make eye contact from time-to-time, we'll let you know if we need anything.” But I didn't.
“And everything else is perfect?” She asked.
That was one step too far. I started to feel like we were in a wine press and some ungodly force was pressing down on the staff, trying to squeeze superlatives out of us.
“Hannah, nothing is perfect,” I said. “And that's okay. We just want a place where we can relax and eat and drink. Good – better yet – nice is all we want. Comfortable, not perfect.” Hannah smiled, but she looked a little panicked, and left quickly.
As we were leaving, the hostess rushed past us to open the door and she begged us to come back soon. It felt like she was handing us a to-go bag full of stress.
I tipped somewhere between 15 and 20 percent. I probably should have left more. They were all working hard. Too hard.
But I can't write about wait staff without mentioning a neighborhood pub in St. Louis that was famous for its disinterested servers. The servers were so unintrusive you wondered if they were paying any attention at all, except that somehow someone would appear when you were ready to order, your drinks got refreshed and your food arrived before you started to get restless.
They never offered conversation; and unless you asked, you never learned their names. It was a small, intensely comfortable place in an old neighborhood. Susan and I went there the evening after I'd walked out of a nasty meeting at work and given two-days notice.
After I'd finished my shepherd's pie and a bottle of Newcastle, and Susan her burger and Chardonnay, she asked me I was going to have dessert. I said, no, we'd better economize since I was going to be out of work.
A few moments later our waiter appeared with a slice of hot apple pie topped with white cheddar. He nodded toward the host at the front of the restaurant who was smiling back at us and said, “If it's okay, Joe and I would like to buy you dessert tonight.”
That was nice.
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