Why Every Restaurant Owner Should Still Wait Tables

You can’t run a great restaurant without working in one

In 2022, when I first joined Chris at Breakfast by Salt’s Cure in an official capacity (I’d been behind the scenes for many years), the plan was that I’d eventually become the brand’s creative director. I would be able to create short films that served as subtle advertisements because at the time I wanted to be a filmmaker. In the meantime I’d work the floor five or six days a week, manage maintenance, and lead staffing– just temporarily I thought, until the company grew. My return to the floor was humbling because I was under the impression that I had grown out of needing a restaurant job. In my previous career as a creative agency producer I had commanded a day rate of $800/day. I was working with celebrity talent and traveling all over the world with a generous per diem. Upon moving to New York, I landed what I thought was my dream job as “creative video something or other” at a women’s media company. It turned out it really wasn’t my dream job and I was fired after a few months. It was a tough pill to swallow but it ended up being one of the best things that ever happened to me because it created an opportunity for me to try out working with Chris on Breakfast in a low-pressure way.

My First Restaurant Job

I was hired at my first service job in 2013 at Nic’s Martini Lounge (RIP) in Beverly Hills. I spent an afternoon walking around Rodeo Drive with my resume in hand trying to find a service job to pay my rent while I went on auditions and wrote short films and tried to “network” as much as possible. The only relevant experience I had was a brief stint at a wine bar in suburban CT that after a few training shifts told me it wasn’t a good fit. I was just too young and dumb! I’ve always been a hard worker willing to go above and beyond because hard work is the love language of my family (German immigrant farmers) but I just didn’t have the chops yet. Desi, the manager of Nic’s, given that name because he looked like Lucy’s husband in I Love Lucy– hired me on the spot. I thought it was a bit odd given that every other place had turned me down to lack of experience but I needed the job so I accepted it and started that same night after going home to change. Now that I’m in the position of hiring and scheduling I know exactly what that means. Somebody just quit or called out and Desi needed hands right then and there.

Most of my peers from Tulane had “real” jobs and I felt inadequate by making my money this way. I tried to escape the restaurant industry by grinding for low paying assistant roles. In my phone interview with John Krasinksi I couldn’t hide the importance of my own creative work rather than prioritizing his errands. Needless to say I didn’t get the job or any of the other assistant jobs I applied for so I stayed at Nic’s for about a year until I had enough freelance video work. I was an artist I told myself and artists often have to do things that are not artistic to make ends meet. Eventually, my organizational skills turned me into a natural producer and I started to get creative adjacent roles in ad production. I was laid off at some point from one of these jobs and did another stint at one of LA’s best and busiest restaurants before finding my first “real” adult job. Finally, I had made it! I was getting paid well, had good benefits, and I was doing somewhat creative work. So when I returned to working service all these years later it felt like a blow. I remember a group of 6-10 guys and gals who hung out and would come in together almost every weekend, hungover, the party continuing on into the next day at 27 ½ Morton St. We became friendly but the distinction was that I was “the waitress” who had to remain at work and do it again the next day at 7 AM while they got to roam around the West Village in search of leisure. In those days before we were turning a profit, it was hard. I felt like I had regressed.

Staying On the Bike

Chris deems it “staying on the bike”. Meaning that you have to always keep up with the inner workings of the restaurant in order to understand the challenges and continue to improve it. If you don’t know what the challenges are, how can you create efficient systems to ensure the show goes on even when you’re not there?

While I do not miss having to be a server from 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM every Saturday and Sunday with other days sprinkled in, I do understand the importance of it and I also welcome the clarity. There is something satisfying about having a crystal clear objective for eight consecutive hours and just getting it done. At the end, I feel a sense of accomplishment and value. Serve people hot, delicious food and drink, make them feel welcome and taken care of, clean up and prep for the next day. Depending on my mood I even enjoy the dish pit sometimes. It’s just so straightforward. Dirty dish becomes clean dish and so on for many hours. If I have my elbow length gloves on I can be there for hours. If I’ve ever come to your table attempting to pre-bus dirty plates while wearing these gloves, I’m sorry, I know it’s aggro but I gotta maximize while the gloves are on!!

Soft opening at Prospect Heights. PC: Ali Kriegsman

Just this past weekend I worked both days, full server shifts due to people being out sick and I discovered a number of issues. People are using the cool antique umbrella holder as a trash can and I learned that I have to create a system where it gets put away when it’s not raining. Where does it go so that it’s out of the way and that the team can find it again? After cleaning wasted ketchup out of hundreds of ramekins and running around to get people extra sides of ketchup, I decided we will try putting ketchup bottles on the table. The bottle itself becomes something else that we have to clean and the glass is something that a child can break. I mentally weighed out the cost of doing it (occasional broken bottle and consequent ketchup cleanup) against the guaranteed wasted ketchup and extra regular cleaning and drying of ramekins. We’ll see how it goes. I’m going to try it at one place first and go from there. That’s growth for me too, to just try it once before implementing it at each location. I also noticed the team puts the line stanchion too far back from our entrance which causes people to miss it and then the people waiting in line think someone who walks in is cutting… It can get awkward. It also needs to be pushed more to the side to keep the sidewalk clear and not annoy our neighbors. What is the new system for this? I’ve got a stand that I’ll put right by the entrance briefly explaining the seating system and I’ll talk to the team about clear sidewalks. I found out the ceiling leaks during heavy rains so I have my contractor coming to fix that. I also discovered flaws in the current configuration of our newly opened back patio– it’s difficult to run food and bus tables. If you’re not there to experience these challenges firsthand you can never improve it.

When you expand and grow there are a lot of nebulous things that feel like they can only be figured out at the mercy of x,y,z. That a certain piece has to fit in before you can move to the next step. You could go left, right, backwards, forwards. There is not a lot of simplicity in expansion. Maybe you’re waiting for more funding or the right team member or the perfectly matched consultant. Working a shift requires none of that. There is a beautiful simplicity to it.

While we were closing this past weekend, one of our newer and already much beloved hires told me that he’s never worked in a place where the owner was around so much. That he felt inspired by how hard we work and he likes it that we’re around always trying to improve things. His sentiment completely made my day and confirmed that working in your own restaurants is absolutely the best way to keep getting better.