Well into my run, the owners of Perretti’s Italian Café decide to upgrade from cheesy pizza parlor to jazzy new wave Italian Bistro. The owners hire chef/restaurateur Jonathan Waxman to manage the transformation. They’re lucky to have him.

Waxman is in the vanguard of a movement brought on by the advent of Nouvelle Cuisine: the Celebrity Chef. The Celebrity Chef is the most vital and important element of a restaurant. Waiters, busboys, bartenders are superfluous, easily replaced, and pretty much just in the way. The kitchen of the New Perretti’s is outfitted with the latest-of-the-latest to accommodate the celebrity chef. The new equipment takes up so much space, the kitchen has to be extended into the dining room, eating up the space that used to be our Wait Station.

The Wait Station is our oasis. It’s where we write our checks; it’s where the specials and the 86 list are posted; where we stow sugar caddies, coffee cups, glasses and other necessary paraphernalia; it’s where we converge to gossip and gripe about the customers; where we take a moment to figure out our next move; where we cop a cigarette; it’s where we keep our clandestine coffee cups of wine.

When we ask about our wait station, Celebrity Chef Waxman says a good waiter doesn’t need one. Waxman doesn’t last long. He has bigger fish to filet and moves on shortly after we re-open.

His sous-chef, Manolo, takes over.

Under Manolo the place explodes. He appreciates waiters, and he produces five-star food. We’re packed every night. It’s the hottest spot on the Upper West Side. Then one day the owners call a meeting and inform us that even though we’re doing sensational business, they aren’t making money (it is later discovered that the restaurant’s bookkeeper siphoned great sums of cash from the bottom line), so they close the doors.

After thirteen-years, I’m transferred to a sister restaurant on First Avenue and 53^rd Street.

LAW & DISORDER

Metropolitan Cafe – 1996

My first shift. I am overwhelmingly depressed. I stand in my station close to tears. I’ve gone from working the best shifts in the hottest restaurant in the company to serving French Toast on a Sunday afternoon. What makes it worse is that I haven’t been awake on a Sunday afternoon in fifteen years.

Jo Jo, the hostess, approaches, trailing a row of customers.

My first table.

The look on Jo Jo’s face is that of an executioner about to tie a blindfold over the eyes of the accused. She whispers as she passes, “It was nice knowing you.”

Following Jo Jo in single file are a kindly gentleman and his grown children. Taking up the rear is the kindly gentleman’s wife, an attractive, well-put-together dame known to America as Judge Judy.

Oh fuck, I say unto myself. I’m doomed. But a confidence kicks in. If I can handle an exploding Churchill (another day, another story), I can certainly handle Judge Judy.

As it turns out, she doesn’t need “handling.” She isn’t the scary broad one sees on television. She’s a nice lady out for a lovely brunch with her husband and children.

The children order first, then Judy. She orders a California Sandwich (slices of a beautifully ripe avocado, tomato, and pickled red onions, topped with sprouts, served between thick slabs of seven grain bread slathered with a garlic aioli).

Having ordered, Judy presses Jerry, the other Judge Sheindlin, “C’mon…you’re up.”

But Jerry can’t make up his mind. Eggs or the California Sandwich? Eggs or the California Sandwich? Eggs or the… After a stark stare from Judy, he opts for two eggs…over easy.

I place the order. Twelve minutes later, I serve the food.

The table digs in, except Jerry. He’s not eating. He’s staring at Judy’s sandwich. His eggs are okay looking, but the California Sandwich glows with sunshine and health. Judy stops eating, points to her plate.

“You wanted this. So why didn’t you order it?”

“I wasn’t thinking.”

He reaches for Judy’s plate. Judy pulls it back.

“I’m not sharing.”

And here’s my chance.

I dash into the kitchen.

“Chef Armando, I have Judge Judy’s table. Her husband doesn’t want his eggs. How fast can you whip up a California Sandwich?”

“Take that one,” he says.

A California sandwich sits in the window; it’s for another table, but the dishes that are to accompany it aren’t ready yet. I grab it, walk it over to Jerry, remove his eggs, place the sandwich in front of him.

“I believe you really wanted this.”

Judy and Jerry stare at the sandwich, genuinely startled. Judy looks up at me.

“How did you…?”

I shrug.

Judy turns to her kids, points at me.

“That’s what I call a waiter.”

The Sheindlins leave, happy, and I think unto myself that this gig may not be too bad. If I could snatch a couple of night shifts, I might just survive here.

Then Mayor Giuliani waltzes in.

He’s with a woman not his wife. JoJo says her name is Christine something-or-other. She’s either his assistant or his girlfriend, or both. They’re an exceedingly unfriendly table. I carefully take their order: bowl of soup and a couple of burgers. I serve the soup. The Mayor lowers his head over his bowl and nosily slurps away.

Rana, a fellow waiter, walking by the table on his way to the kitchen to dispose of several dirty dishes, becomes distracted by the Mayor’s slurping, and stumbles. Together we watch a half-eaten omelet slide off one of the plates and land on Giuliani’s back. There’s nothing in the world that beats the emotions a waiter feels when he drops food on a customer. Rana is paralytic. To drop a half-eaten omelet on a tourist is one thing: the tourist has a story to take home; to drop a half-eaten omelet on the Mayor of New York is catastrophic.

I tell Rana to beat it.

“I got this,” I say.

He beats it, gladly.

Hizzoner and companion have yet to register the half-eaten omelet oozing down the back

of Hizzoner’s off-the-rack suit jacket.

I lean in close to Giuliani like I’ve got a secret to tell.

“How’s it going, your Honor?” I say as I give him an amiable pat on the back and clandestinely scoop up the errant omelet.

Their looks drip with contempt: How dare I interrupt their meal? How dare I place a hand on the Mayor? I quickly retreat, holding the errant omelet behind my back, squishing through my fingers.

They never notice.