With unemployment still a dismal 9.1 percent, and your boss continually giving you the stink eye in the break room, all signs point to you donning an apron and asking "how about starting with some ramp-wrapped jalepeno poppers?" very soon. But Tim and Nina Zagat aren't sure that you're qualified enough to wait tables, so they propose "degree-granting hospitality programs." Brilliant! Why didn't a million colleges think of this already?
Zagat Says Waiters Should Go To Server School—Here's What They Should Study
Padless Miscreant Waiters Use "Memory" To Diners' Dismay
Just as your server doesn't barge into your cubicle to tell you that you should be using more Outlook reminders so that you won't forget those pointless meetings you attend, restaurant patrons probably shouldn't demand that their servers take their order with a pen and pad. Today's Post describes the practice of waitstaff memorizing their customers' as "all the rage," and describes the effects of such lawlessness on diner psyche, as one tells them "Every time a waiter doesn't write anything down I think three things: One, she or he is definitely going to forget. Two, since when does being a good waiter mean having a steel-trap memory? Show me the pad! And three: I feel anxious." Wait, could you repeat those last two? We weren't listening.
Waiters' Secrets Revealed: They're Not Just Spitting in Your Food
Hot on the heels of "100 Things Restaurant Servers Must Stop Doing!" and "64 Things Restaurant Patrons Must NEVER Do!" comes "30 Secrets Your Waiter Will Never Tell You," compiled from two dozen servers nationwide. It's hardly a secret that servers do unspeakable things to your food when you complain (or just for fun) and silently judge you when you make an unsophisticated request, but there are some new insights here, such as:
64 Things Restaurant Patrons Must NEVER Do
Sheesh, now there are all these rules! A week after would-be Hamptons restaurateur Bruce Buschel published his list of 100 things restaurant servers must never do, longtime bartender and restaurant manager Patrick Maguire has fired back with some rules for people who eat at restaurants. Apparently, snapping fingers, demanding perfection, and starting a sentence with Gimmee or Get me are all frowned upon. But there are all sorts of other no-nos that come with paying strangers to serve you food. To wit:
100 Things Restaurant Servers Must Stop Doing!
Ugh, servers. After they bring your food they're always butting in asking if you're "still working" just as you're reaching the punchline of your most well-rehearsed anecdote! Weren't we supposed to eliminate the human element from the dining experience with computers and conveyor belts by now?! While the world waits on that technology, would-be Hamptons restaurateur Bruce Buschel has completed his list of 100 things servers should never, never do. For instance:
LI Restaurants May Have to Reveal Prices of Specials
Long Island waiters who provide a tantalizing description of the daily specials while omitting such vulgar details as price may have to change up their patter if a proposed law in Nassau County gets passed. Of course, resistance is coming from the New York Restaurant Association, which in recent years has failed to block regulations on calorie info and bans on artificial trans fat. The executive vice president of the group maintains, "It’s good business to give the prices, but it’s beyond the purview of a legislative body to get that far into managing restaurants." But Harvey B. Levinson, a champion of the proposal, tells the Times: "I’m sure that at one time or another you have been enticed by a waiter or waitress into ordering the special of the day, only to discover that it was really the price that was special."
Waiters' Horror Stories Range from Spit to Sex
A waiter who turned his service industry lemons into publishing lemonade with his blog Waiter Rant has unmasked himself for the Post today, just in time for the release of his tell-all book. After years of anonymous venting about his miserable experiences serving swells at an unspecified restaurant in “the city's affluent suburbs,” Steve Dublanica has outed himself as the man who “prefers more elegant methods of revenge" than spitting in diners’ food – though he assures the Post this does happen often enough.

