While writing my Piccolo's
blogs I started to think of all the
restaurants I have worked in over the years. The restaurant business is very
transitory especially when it comes to servers. At most restaurants there is a core of 3-4 servers who have been in
the place for awhile while the rest are fairly new. As far as I can remember I
have worked in at least 18-20 places from hash houses to delis to middle of the
road to three 5 star restaurants.

I won't talk about all
them but will mention a few of the highlights and lowlights of the places I worked in. I would generally quit
a job if I wasn't averaging a certain amount in tip money per hour and it
definitely had to be, at least, 15% of my sales. As far as I can remember I was
fired--yes, I know it's hard to believe--me fired?--lol--once for confronting a party of four
who ran me ragged and left a real lousy tip--that was at The Crabhouse, a fairly upscale seafood house
which I will mention later again.

One of the hardest
restaurant jobs is a deli and/or breakfast/lunch place. I worked at the Bagel
Den in the Fountains out west in Plantation, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale. Aside from all the different
types of bagels, not to forget spreads, there were all the different types of
egg dishes from over light to scrambled to poached to hard boiled to various
omelets. There were the bowls of pickles, sauerkraut, Cole slaw and sour pickles that had to be on
each table and changed with each party.

One aspect of server's
work that many customers aren't aware of is sidework. This could be from combining
ketchup bottles, filling salt and pepper shakers, filling butter cups, wrapping
silverware, preparing dinner salads and cups of dressing just to mention a few things. Most of the time I could pay
a bus boy or another server, who could always use extra money, but not always.
The place I had to do the most sidework, and it had to be done after you
are finished waiting on your customers, was The Crabhouse. (Thanks Laurie!) A little known
fact--many times sidework had to be
done off the clock so the house could save money. Sure it wasn't legal but if
you said anything you would get the
worst stations, hours and, possibly, be let go.

The attitude of most restaurant owners and certainly
restaurant chain managers is that servers are a dime a dozen--and then they
wonder why they have a big turnover in help!

One of the best
restaurants I worked at as far as fringe benefits went--in most restaurants they
hardly exist--was Wag's. Wag's was a chain of restaurants that was
owned by Walgreen's as they started to phase out their drugstore fountains. We
got paid vacations, paid holidays and time and half, you got paid on the clock
for all the work you did, every year you got an anniversary day which was a paid
day off. In addition you got free stock plus bonuses and a savings account where
you could put a percentage of your earnings and get  15% interest. The first few
years they had cashiers and bus people unlike Denney's where the server had to
man the register and clear and clean their own tables, which they also now do at
IHOP, HOP and OHOP. After working a couple of years at
Wag's when I quit I walked out with a
$10,000 check