Keith Rant

Read from Tuesday, March 22nd to Thursday, March 24th.

Waiter Rant, by Steve Dublanica.  This was a very interesting book that caught my attention one day in Borders.  It is a non-fiction account of a waiter's life at a high end restaurant in New York City.  I am also a waiter, and this book at first glance seemed like a humorous and light glance at the industry.  For most of the book it was like that; horror stories about customers, terrible tips, terrible owners and managers, kitchen/wait staff interactions.  It was all very true, but then the similarities between Steve and I became even more apparent.  Steve struggled to finish putting the book together, and at The Bistro he became increasingly upset and frustrated with the management.  He finally gathered the strength to quit and pursue what he loved, the writing.

In the beginning Steve was a seminary dropout, and kicked around a few jobs until he started waiting at age 31.  He didn't know what he wanted to do with his life, but he got sucked into the restaurant life and found it hard to leave.  He left the first restaurant and became a waiter/manager at the Bistro, an upscale Italian place in Manhattan.  Steve describes many things about a waiter's life in different chapters, each one with a certain example to illustrate his point.  He talks about the types of people that become waiters, hygienic practices, immigration issues with the kitchen, drinking and drug abuse on the job, the different types of tippers, the paranoid delusions of the owner, Fluvio, snobby foodies, celebrities at the restaurant.  Steve had been writing a blog, and he was anonymous, and this blog led to a book deal.  For most of the book, he acknowledges the process of writing it. 

Once the deal is confirmed, many of the staff start to resent him for taking the good tables still.  There is a lot of open dissent, and finally Steve cracks and leaves the Bistro.  It is all very similar to how I see my own life.  I started waiting tables earlier than he did, and I wish I had a book deal waiting for me.  Also, the customers at my own Bistro are not as bad as the customers in the book.  Most of my customers are students, and while they can be picky and shitty tippers, they are not rude to the server on the most part.  However, the paranoid management is something I can relate to.  Always watching, and waiting to make a big deal about the smallest thing.  Maybe I should start my own blog...  Three and a half out of five stars.