The Red Flag That Made Me Walk Out Of A Restaurant As A Former Server

Among the many ridiculous things former New York City mayor Eric Adams has said (such as equating cheese to heroin), one stood out to me as extra annoying. Toward the end of his tenure, he took a jab at his myriad critics with a taunt: "Our haters will be our waiters." Yes, in one fell swoop he both dismissed legitimate, reasonable assessments of his shoddy mayoral performance and demeaned the good people in the service industry. What did they ever do to you, ex-mayor? Besides provide you with, you know, service.

I was a waiter. I don't miss it, but I valued the job for the flexibility and security it gave me. On top of that, I come from generations of restaurant owners, managers, cooks, and, yes, servers. So, even though I no longer run food, balance trays, crumb tables, and screw up dessert orders, the job has never really left me. This especially comes to the fore when I walk into a restaurant as a patron.

My eye naturally (and amiably) analyzes the front-of-house staff upon entrance: Are they cheery? Smug? Just over it? Are they chatty? Irked by the manager? Robotic? Colorful? Call it empathy through common experience, if you will. With that said, there is a big red flag for me in regards to a particular service failing. This one I can see from a customer's point-of-view as being massively frustrating. So much so that –- when it's especially egregious –- it makes me want to get up and walk on out.

It's one thing when a restaurant is jam-packed. As a server, you're just trying to survive. And in those instances it's usually the ignorant customers getting on the staff's case about wait time, let's be real. I have no problem saying the customer isn't always right. Customers are (checks notes) people. Are people always right? Does that even merit an answer? But when a place isn't busy, like if it's a Monday evening or an afternoon dinner, there's something I think is borderline criminal from a server: making people wait too long to order their first round of drinks. 

There's a certain kind of mini-psychological torment sitting at an empty table in an unrushed environment tapping the cloth while waiting for basic acknowledgement of your presence. I start to wonder: Is the place even open? Did they see us sit? Do we even exist as tangible entities in this dimension?

Sure, we all have tough days. And when you're in a yucky mental place, there's little worse than having to wait tables. At the same time, you are literally the customer's direct supply line to the stuff they came for. Unless you want people going behind the bar themselves or grabbing their own flatware from the back, you have a job to do — and that job starts the moment someone sits down. From one server to another: Read the room, literally. Let's take those drink orders from new arrivals before they start questioning what dimension they're in.