I never gave much thought to what it took to be a waiter. I just did it. And I was good at it. Along the way, I picked up two essentials: Make nice with the chef and always have a glass of red wine at hand. Having a good relationship with my chefs helped me deal with those not uncommon problems that occur in most restaurants. The red wine helped me deal with difficult customers. Difficult customers are an integral element of the restaurant world. The best of us learned how to train them. I did so by letting them be. I encouraged their idiosyncratic tics, because, yes, they were demanding and entitled and annoying and giant pains-in-the-ass, but mostly they were just hungry. Once fed, they usually clammed-up and we got along fine. But it wasn’t always about blood-sugar levels. There were those customers who didn’t act out because they were hungry for food; they acted out because they were hungry for attention, for recognition, for love. There’s a lot of pain out there. My job was to alleviate that pain to the best of my abilities.

Regarding my abilities: they weren’t exactly stellar. I’m not blessed with a terrific memory, so I never learned the menu of any restaurant inside-and-out like a competent waiter should. I was that car salesman who had no idea what a catalytic converter was, but could sell you a Delta-88, replete with white custom-made leather interior and cup holders. What I didn’t know about the menu, I made up. I never got to know the wine list, either. I made that shit up, too. And no one ever caught on. Francois Blaya, an early mentor, once said the average restaurant-goer can’t tell the difference between Sauvignon Blanc and Tang.

My best and most lasting ability was born from a deep, subterranean insecurity: the ridiculous notion that I needed people to like me. To achieve this, I ofttimes pretended that my station was my dining room, wherein I hosted the most fabulous dinner party ever, and my customers were my absolute best friends, even if I despised them.

My life on the floor began in the fall of 1978. I had moved to Manhattan to attend NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, determined to be a film director, ala Hitchcock. I was staying on a friend’s pull-out sofa on the East Side of town. My friend said I was welcome to stay with him until I found a place of my own. He gave me a week. In my pocket were my meager savings (about $100) and a stack of McDonald’s coupons (three left). I needed an apartment and a job. A job that would give me immediate cash to pay for an apartment.

My first and only thought was waiting on tables. My grandparents had owned a restaurant in Scranton, called “Mama LoRusso’s.” I’d never worked there, but my parents did, so, really, how hard could it be? I took the subway to midtown Manhattan, because midtown was the “core” of the Big Apple, and someone had warned me to stay within the core, as it was the safest place to work. Walking west on 48^th street, I passed restaurant after restaurant, but a creeping intimidation stopped me from walking in and asking for work. At 8^th Avenue I stopped for a light. I looked up and saw a big bland beige hotel looming against a cloudless powder-blue sky. “Howard Johnson’s.” I looked down. Looming low and dingy at street-level was a sign: “Howard Johnson’s Family Restaurant.” The word “family” gave comfort, and courage. I finger-combed my hair, walked in, asked for the manager, and lied.

And now….the stories.