Waiter Rant on how the food industry is weathering the recession.
Forgive my flare of working class/misogynistic anger. Every server has good days and bad days. Old pros like me should be able to roll with the punches. But business at Café Machiavelli’s has been so bad lately that my patience is wearing thin. We’re down five hundred covers a week since I started. That’s bad. Waiters are getting cut on Saturday nights. Working a thirteen hour double last Thursday earned me a paltry sixty bucks. The staff members at the bottom of the tip totem pole, the bus people, are really hurting. One guy told me how he was having a hard time affording Pampers. Several bussers have already left, looking for greener pastures. The sad part is that there are no greener pastures. Things are bad all over. I don’t know if America’s economy is in a recession or not, but the restaurant industry sure as hell is.