From
the first day that I started waiting on my own customers at Piccolo's I
took to it like a duck takes to water. I was a star, my station was my
platform and the customers were my audience. I wasn't selling the place
or the food--I was selling myself. The 'applause', the success of my
salesmanship, was in my tips. I aimed for 15% of my total sales and the
more I made the bigger a night I had. I don't recall EVER making less
than 15% of my sales even with 'stiffs'--people who didn't tip!

Waiting
tables was fun and I found out very quickly that I was fast (which
meant I could turn my tables over, getting more customers and,
consequently, made more money which wasn't easy when you were serving
'earlybirds' who paid $5.95-$7.95 for a 7 course dinner.

The meal started off with an antipasto which had 2 slices of Italian salami, peppercinos, cheese on a bed of lettuce with olives and a basket of garlic rolls.  This was followed by a bowl of soup either minestrone
or a soup of the day. There was a choice, if I remember correctly, of
at least a dozen main courses with the most ordered being the vealparmigiana with a side of pasta.

Strange but I do remember, 53 years later!!!, the choice of desserts which were Spumoni, Tortoni, ice cream, sherbet or rum cake and we poured the rum flavoring over it. (If I liked you I might give you 2 desserts but, shhhh,
don't tell Sam or Dorothy like one of my customers did! They didn't
mean harm but told Dorothy that I was so nice, that I even gave them
ice cream with their rum cake!)

Naturally,
at that time, dinner included coffee, tea or soda with unlimited
refills. 'Earlybirds' was something new to the world of restaurants and
started in Miami Beach--I am still looking for that guy who introduced
the concept!!!!--and people had to be educated on the fact that you
tipped on what the meal would have cost, not what it cost at the
reduced price.

I very quickly learned that in 1956 the worst tippers were, in order: 1) French Canadians  2) Earlybirds  3) doctors 4) pipe smokers so if you waited on a French Canadian, pipe smoking, earlybird doctor you know it would be the pits.

It
didn't take me long to know that when someone said, "I'm a friend of
the boss," or if the boss picked up the check, the tip would be pretty
bad!

Oh,
yes, let's not forget the tourist who thought, "I won't be back, I'll
never see the waiter again," or the foreigner who faked the, "I didn't
know the tip wasn't included," and didn't leave a tip! On the other
hand let's not forget the guy who had a pizza who had won big at the dogtrack and left me a $100 tip!!

Coming up--my future, at and after, Piccolo's--lessons I learned there that helped me to earn a living the next 48 years whether in a 5 star restaurant, a deli, a coffee shop or in the weight reduction field and, yes, the mosr embarrassing time in my career as a waiter.