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This Is Us
Front of the House
Lessons from a season of table service
I told a lie to get the job. It was 1981 and I said I was 18, old enough to legally serve alcohol. I was 17. I needed cash and something to fill the time that wasn’t school or the bad boyfriend. My place of employment — my first real job — was a mid-range French restaurant on the fringes of Washington, D.C. For a few years, while in college, I worked six days a week, serving lunch, dinner, and private parties. The experience started with a lie and ended up being a richer education than I found in those classrooms.
For service, the waitresses (all girls, the boys in the kitchen or bussing tables) transformed into a small identical army, with our hair pinned up, wearing black skirts, white tops, and Capezios. The black Mary Janes with the smart stacked heel made me feel like a French dancer. We were allowed no jewelry and little makeup. No personality. Pre-service, however, we all crashed in with personality to spare, bringing our noise and color with us.
Elizabeth was an opera singer. She swept in with wide swing skirts, dragging bags of perfume samples and hard candies, trilling bits of arias. She dated a swashbuckling Argentinian three times her age who said he was royal in his country and unable to sustain an erection due to a bullfighting accident. I…
