Results tagged “waiters”

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:

There was a big "summit" meeting this morning at Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak restaurant to discuss the release of an interesting, albeit unsurprising, study highlighting the racist hiring practices at NYC restaurants. Commissioned by the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, the study enlisted 37 people to pose as white, black, Asian-American and Latino job applicants and visit restaurants looking for work. Grouped in pairs with different races (but matched for age, appearance and gender), they would arrive at restaurants within about a half hour of each other to apply for a job.

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."

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.

Restaurant workers seem increasingly ready to hit their employers with lawsuits over tips – Buddha Bar and Tao are two of the latest to have their Zen calm shattered. But owners are also fighting back even after they lose, as three waiters at the Old Homestead Steakhouse are finding out. After winning $36,000 in a lawsuit over ripped-off tips, they’re suing their bosses again for harassment. The main gripe is that they’ve been punished by getting assigned to tables with the worst tippers: Europeans. And on top of all that, the $81 hamburger’s been taken off the menu!