Unlimited

Description

Every waiter has nightmares. Mine were always the same: My section is dead, so I slip into the back to devour a hardened finger of chicken and a few soggy fries. When I return my co-workers are frantic. Instead of being gone two minutes, I've been gone two hours, and the restaurant is packed. Inexplicably, every table is mine and every patron is livid with hunger. I'm like Sisyphus, but instead of lugging a heavy rock up a hill, my sentence is to serve tables. I can't keep up. There are variations of the nightmare. That order for, say, Kung Pao chicken inexplicably disappears from the ordering computer and you helplessly scroll down the screen like a tourist lost in a foreign country. Or you head to work without pants, but only notice the cool breeze when you start talking with your first customers. Or you're saddled with the spawn of Satan, who's cruel and berating, and surprisingly particular about his chicken wings. However absurd, each nightmare is rooted in the dark reality of waiting tables: it's stressful, it's abusive and it's constantly demanding. Perhaps paradoxically, the restaurant industry has never been more lucrative or appealing. You've got British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay barking at newbie cooks on his show Hell's Kitchen and New York restaurant maverick Mario Batali hitting the Spanish highway with Gwyneth Paltrow and a few other foodies to film his new series Spain"¦ On The Road Again. Superstar chefs like Thomas Keller, of French Laundry fame, have parlayed their successes with spinoffs (the popular Per Se in New York, in Keller's case), and everyone who can tell broccoli from gnocchi seems to be writing a cookbook. Add to that the growing elitism when it comes to food. (You know you've hit a new gourmet high when the downtown Sobey's in Edmonton has a bulk section of artisan dried mushrooms.) At some point in this culinary revolution, waiting tables didn't just become respectable "“ it became a viable career choice. The serving industry is oddly habit forming. If you work in a high-end spot and you're good "“ good-looking doesn't hurt, either "“ you can make hundreds of dollars a night. (Tax-free, for some; more on that later.) Fast money and fast nights can be a trap. Cash and time to spend it. Freedom. Then there are the social perks of a busy restaurant. A long-time hostess at Joe Beef, one of Montreal's top restaurants, put in six months at a desk gig and knocked off three shifts a week at Joe Beef before the early mornings and late nights got to her. She loves people, loves food and loves the lifestyle. She left the boring day job but still waits tables. I understand why. I served for six years and I miss it: the money, the attention, the rush. And I wasn't anything special, just an average waiter at a casual dining restaurant that used to have a thing for parrots. Now it prefers attractive girls. Order Up 1,086,300 "“ number of Canadians the food service industry employs 50 "“ per cent of that number who are between the ages of 15 and 24 (including your local burger flipper and pimply faced dishpig) $6 billion "“ how much the Alberta food industry rakes in every year 6.

Products & services

Similar companies nearby