Domestic tourists to New York often associate the city with Times Square. To them the noise, lights, congestion, and annual dropping of a pricy disco ball give credence to their media-conspired vision of the city. For their convenience, an Olive Garden has been added. It generally has a two-hour wait for a table.

To the foreign visitor, SoHo may best represent the city. Once the habitat of aspiring artists and despairing dot-commers, this increasingly congested pedestrian mall teems with high-end shops, all of which are readily found in the tourists’ native cities. A few blocks to the east, the small, bespoke and custom shops of local designers struggle to survive.

But to the local resident, the quintessential New York neighborhood is arguably the Upper West Side. Here, where the Avenues have shed their numbers, one finds a sort of Bermuda triangle conceptually anchored by Lincoln Center, Zabar’s and the Dakota Apartments – with a Filene’s Basement thrown in for good measure and for quality designer merchandise at discount prices.
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(This was written by kaz for the old blog site)

by kaz

Spanning a twenty something year old career in the restaurant biz, I have had the pleasure of meeting all sorts of characters. I’ve had the pleasure, sometimes dubious, of working in all sorts of places. And well, I’ve met people who simply sling hash and want to get off shift as soon as possible and met others who, after far too many drinks still want to stay and relay what’s really been on their mind despite the fact that it’s 3am and the shop has been locked shut for hours. I have to say I’ve loved them all. They’ve all had some great stories to tell.

I have a voracious appetite for stories it seems. Red wine increases my ability to listen. And laugh. Linda. What a trip this girl was. One of my favorite people ever to work with, Linda brought her sparkling funny self to work no matter what. She loved white wine. We’d stay for ‘A’ glass and end up finishing the bottle. The thing with Linda was that she was beautiful. Inside and out. The boys always appreciated the out. Trust me. She had so many stories about the out. The girls. She had huge girls. To her credit she always hid the girls discreetly when she worked for me. I made her.

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This was written by a member and appeared on the original bitterwaitress.com blog about two years ago, but it still applies just about everywhere. My comments are in italics


Considering most servers I know are relatively intelligent people, I'm usually pretty shocked about what people choose to wear for restaurant job interviews. So...just in case anyone was wondering....

What Not To Wear

Jeans. No. Bad jeans, bad! You can get away with jeans in some hipper urban neighborhoods, e.g. Silverlake and Los Feliz in LA, the Lower East Side of Manhattan & Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Flip flops or stripper heels. Flip flops are too casual, and any heel over two inches makes you look unpractical and fussy.

Anything too revealing. Guess what? Your cleavage may not impress everyone. You're more likely to turn someone off by too much cleavage than you are turning them off from the lackof cleavage. A hint of cleavage is the absolute line, and if your girls are too big for a tasteful hint, then air them out after you get home. On that note, the only bare thighs I want to see are of the chicken variety.

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(this was originally published on the site several years ago but it's still relevant today)

The plight of the waiter has been getting a lot of press lately. From Frank Bruni’s insightful piece in the New York Times to CNN’s survery of server-run websites, the general public is getting more of an insight into the life of a waiter than they probably ever imagined. Or wanted. I mean, if you have to think of us as people, it’s hard to stiff us, right? Here’s a trick - ask a diner for their business card before you end the meal. Watch your tip go up.

So the public knows we work long hours, they know we depend on tips and they know that most of us are trying to do something else. Although I believe that last part is a crock of shit. Maybe we want to do something else, but trying it is entirely different. Many of us are complicit in the stagnation of our dreams. Or we re-write the scripts of our lives to accomodate the circumstances in which we have placed ourselves. That’s a topic for another day.
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