“As if The Remains of the Day had been written by Kingsley Amis, The Waiter is…one of the most purely entertaining novels I’ve read in years. This book is a meal you won’t want to finish.” —J. Ryan Stradal, New York Times bestselling author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest In the tradition of the modern classics The Remains of the Day and A Gentleman in Moscow comes The Waiter, in which the finely tuned balance of a timeworn European restaurant is irrevocably upset by an unexpected guest. The Hills dates from a time when pigs were pigs and swine were swine, the Maître D’ likes to say—in other words from the mid-1800s. Every day begins with the head waiter putting on his jacket. In with one arm, then the other. Shrugged onto his shoulders. Horn buttons done up. Always the same. There is clinking. Cutlery is moved around porcelain and up to mouths. But in this universe unto itself, there is scarcely any contact between the tables of regulars. And that is precisely how the waiter likes it. Sheer routine…until a beautiful young woman walks through the door and upsets the delicate balance of the restaurant and all it has come to represent. Told in a kaleidoscopic rotation of voices—the headwaiter, the bartender, the coat checker, the chef who never speaks—The Waiter marks the North American debut of an exciting new voice in literary fiction that will leave you longing to sit down at The Hills, order a drink, and watch the world go by….

Hilarious tales from the trenches of food service from the popular blog—perfect for fans of David Sedaris, Anthony Bourdain, Erma Bombeck and Mo Rocca. For all those disenchanted current and former food service employees, Darron Cardosa (a.k.a. The Bitchy Waiter) has your back. Based on his popular blog, this riotous book is full of waitstaff horror stories—plus heartwarming tales—from three decades in the industry. Cardosa knows you want your beer cold (“You want a cold beer? Thank you for clarifying so I didn’t bring you the one that just came out of the oven”). And while he may hate children (“I know the kid at Table Eight is trouble the moment he rolls into the restaurant in his fancy stroller”), he will at least consider owning up to his mistakes: “Do I take the steak from the floor, citing the “three-second rule,” and put it in the to-go box and carry it back to the woman?” From crazy customers to out-of-control egos, these acerbic tales offer a hilarious glimpse into what really goes on in that fancy restaurant—and inside the mind of a server. Praise for The Bitchy Waiter “Cardosa does for wait staff what Anthony Bourdain did for kitchens: he exposes the ugly side of food service from the perspective of those working on the front lines. And he puts the potential restaurant customer on notice that someone is watching and recording their bad behavior.” —Shelf Awareness

A head server at a renowned NYC restaurant dishes out stories and trade secrets from the world of fine dining in this behind-the-scenes memoir. While recent college grad Phoebe Damrosch was figuring out what to do with her life, she supported herself by working as a waiter. Before long she was a captain at the legendary four-star restaurant Per Se, the culinary creation of master chef Thomas Keller. Service Included is the story of her experiences there: her obsession with food, her love affair with a sommelier, and her observations of the highly competitive and frenetic world of fine dining. Along the way, she provides insider dining tips, such as: Never ask your waiter what else he or she does. Never send something back after eating most of it. Never make gagging noises when hearing the specials—someone else at the table might like to order one.

An evocative portrait of the underbelly of contemporary Paris as seen through the eyes of a young waiter scraping out a living in the City of Light. A waiter's job is to deceive you. They want you to believe in a luxurious calm because on the other side of that door . . . is hell. Edward Chisholm's spellbinding memoir of his time as a Parisian waiter takes you beneath the surface of one of the most iconic cities in the world—and right into its glorious underbelly. He inhabits a world of inhuman hours, snatched sleep and dive bars; scraping by on coffee, bread and cigarettes, often under sadistic managers, with a wage so low you're fighting your colleagues for tips. Your colleagues—including thieves, narcissists, ex-soldiers, immigrants, wannabe actors, and drug dealers—are the closest thing to family that you've got. It's physically demanding, frequently humiliating and incredibly competitive. But it doesn't matter because you're in Paris, the center of the universe, and there's nowhere else you'd rather be in the world.

According to The Waiter, eighty percent of customers are nice people just looking for something to eat. The remaining twenty percent, however, are socially maladjusted psychopaths. Waiter Rant offers the server's unique point of view, replete with tales of customer stupidity, arrogant misbehavior, and unseen bits of human grace transpiring in the most unlikely places. Through outrageous stories, The Waiter reveals the secrets to getting good service, proper tipping etiquette, and how to keep him from spitting in your food. The Waiter also shares his ongoing struggle, at age thirty-eight, to figure out if he can finally leave the first job at which he's truly thrived.

Explores Election Night 2000 from the campaign preceeding it to the confusion following it to its final result.

Originally published in 1984, The World of Waiters provides a close look at the area of everyday working life, focusing on the profession of waiters. The book addresses the complex world of waiters, look at the insecurities, hierarchies and ‘the politics of serving’ that come into play in the everyday working life of a waiter. The book addresses the issues facing waiters in everyday life, including the placing and spacing of customers, the process of ordering and tipping, and customer complaints – all of these are looked at through the lens of the rules adhered to by waiters. The book is created from data compiled by the from 5 English hotels at varying grades. This book provides an interesting case study of the restaurant industry, and will be of interest to any academics working in the field of sociology, in particular the field of the sociology of work and anthropology.