Waiter to the Rich and Shameless: Confessions of a Five-Star Beverly Hills Server (14 page)

And
I don’t know where the hell Vino got this from, but he replied in his rather
high, androgynous voice, “Your Graceness is drinking the Henshke Hill of Grace
Shiraz, a very noble choice, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir.” 

Your
Graceness gave another approving nod.  Instead of laughing, everyone just
became very quiet for a second.  Mr. Crowe was just eating it up, the comment,
the wine, and all the attention from his friends and the service staff. 

“You
should all have some of this. This is my most favorite wine, and it’s
Australian, of course.”  Everyone laughed and smiled, and we quickly filled their
glasses so they could all toast together with the Crowe.  No one seemed to
repeat the comment regarding His Graceness; it was either forgotten or too far
out to deal with.

I
told Vino to approach His Graceness to offer him some other great Australian
wine that we carry.  Regarding his “Your Graceness” comment, Vino asked me,
“Did you like that one?” 

“Like
it?  I loved it! He loved it!  You didn’t see what happened earlier with his
vodka but we’re good with him tonight, my friend, just go over there and offer
him something else that he’ll like.” 

“I
will!” he said confidently.  I was just hoping he’d call him Mr. Crowe this
time. He didn’t fail me.  

“Mr.
Crowe, would you like me to bring out the ‘98 Penfolds Grange and decant it for
you and your guests?” 

“That’d
be nice, mate, bring two.  Wait a minute! You do have two, don’t you?” 

“I
do, sir, I’ve already checked,” Vino replied gravely.

“Very
well, then.  Let’s open one and keep the other as backup.” 

Vino
bowed and rushed away from the table as he always does when he’s excited about
a good sale.  This one was nine-hundred a bottle.  Like me, he could see dollar
signs floating from the check into his pocket. Money is not all we care about,
but it’s near the top of the hit parade.

Vincent
was an amazing sommelier.  He had memorized every bin number and price on our
wine list and that meant close to fifteen hundred vintages.  He was passionate
about wine, he knew the vintners of most of the wines he sold and also knew
what region they were from, the percentages of blends, and every other bit of arcane
wine data.  Though Vino was a bit obsessive-compulsive, when he applied it to
his wine business, it really worked for him.  I loved listening to him talk
about wine – he’s so passionate, it’s like grape porn.

Vino
and I returned to the table with nine sparkling clean wine goblets, two
decanters and the two bottles of ‘98 Grange.  I asked Crowe, “Is everything to
your liking? How is the filet, sir?” 

“Very
nice, thank you,” he said, leaning back with a pleased look on his face and a
small piece of steak in his mouth.  Vino opened the Grange as if it were the
last great wine left in the cellar and asked Crowe to taste it. 

“Mmm…lovely,”
said Crowe.  “Go ahead and pour a little for everyone, I want them all to taste
it.” 

“Very
good. I will, sir, thank you.” 

When
I came around to Mr. Crowe’s left side, Red was engaged in a conversation with
his girl on Mr. Crowe’s right side, and the guy who was sitting on Mr. Crowe’s
left side was gone, possibly making a call or answering one in the bathroom. 
Crowe looked up at me humbly and said, “Nice work earlier, mate,” as if I were
the quarterback who set up his winning touchdown.

I
gave him a knowing smile and nodded.  He continued, “You’ll be mentioned in the
will.” We both smiled because we both knew that I saved his ass on the vodka
prank and now his buddy Red was even more impressed with him, as if that were
possible. I think at that point Red would have given him a blow job under the
table if Crowe had deigned to offer up the family jewels.

A
few minutes later Crowe made a toast with the Grange, and then everyone leaned
back, satisfied, and looked ready to call it a night.  This was usually my cue
to start cleaning off the table.  Carlos and I removed the dishes and crumbed
the table until it was ready for the next expensive course.  Well, not
completely clean because the King and his men had gorged, as real men should. 

A
strange thing happened while I was cleaning the Crowe table. While Red was in
the restroom I lifted up Red’s dinner plate and just underneath the edge of the
plate was a Marlboro cigarette that had not been smoked but was trimmed off
only an inch from the filter and twisted at the end.  I looked at it,
clueless. 

Crowe
looked at me, I looked at the Crowe, our eyes met, but nothing was said.  He
looked back down at the cigarette but didn’t touch it.  I hurried to reset the
table with small dessert plates, clean napkins, and spoons for the soufflés. 
Crowe said he wanted an espresso, and I took a few more orders for cappuccino
and tea.  When I returned with their coffees, I noticed a strange odor. It was
something like a burnt-out light bulb or some kind of weird smell from an
electrical fire. Hmm, maybe a huge bug had gotten stuck in the insect zapper
and was just frying in the heat.  I remembered noting that same chemical-like
smell earlier in the evening just after they had all arrived and were drinking
their vodkas.  I had forgotten about the smell because it only seemed to hit me
when I approached the table from the bar or kitchen. With so much else to think
about, I hadn’t focused on it.

The
coffees were down, Vino was pouring wine but used discretion regarding whom he
poured for because he knew Mr. Crowe did not like to waste good stuff on people
who weren’t going to drink it.  At that moment, Paco showed up with the
soufflés and everyone at the table tried them.  I heard some of them begin to
groan with
Harry Met Sally
pleasure. They stayed at the table and talked
for another twenty minutes or so, and then Russell gave the word, and everyone
rose from the table. 

Some
of them said goodbye and started walking towards the exit. Mr. Crowe was the
last in line to leave.  I handed him the bill as he stood up.  He never really
asked for the check, never does, that’s just how he rolls. The total for their royal
feast was $4,800 and change. He signed the bill to his account and left me a
$1,000 tip on paper.  Then he took out a huge wad of $100 bills and counted out
ten of them, looked up at me and tried to stuff them in my faux breast pocket. 
I helped him out by putting my hand near the pocket.  As the bills reached my
palm he looked at me and said, “Nice work tonight, mate. This is for you to do
what you want with. You can share it or not share it.” 

He
turned in his suave, macho way and I said, “Thank you, Mr. Crowe, it was a
pleasure serving you tonight.”  I really couldn’t come up with anything better
and still stay within the rules of service.  Crowe was already walking away.
“Cheers, mate,” he said with one final crooked grin.  And out walked a true
acting legend.  It was all I could do not to kiss him, and I suddenly
understood how Red felt.  Except I’m not a suck-ass.

Though
I’d served Crowe many times before and he’d always tipped me well, that night
was beyond all of my expectations. Perhaps it was because I had been able to
tend to his table all night without having to serve other guests.  Or maybe it
was just that we’d connected somehow in some perhaps meaningless way to him but
an unforgettable way to me.  As I stood there looking over their table with all
the half-drunk glasses of wine and the half-eaten soufflés, chocolate-laden
spoons and dirty napkins and ashtrays, somehow I felt as if I’d been watching a
film in which Mr. Crowe had played King Henry the Eighth entertaining his
advisors, closest friends, and court jesters. But in this movie, there had been
only one memorable star. Let’s just say I’m a big fan of King Crowe. Long live
the king.

Later,
talking to Paco, we figured out what that cigarette had been and it all came
together in my mind.  They were smoking “coco puffs” (tobacco cigarettes with
powdered cocaine mixed in) and the reason I hadn’t seen them do it was because
they would send me to the bar to get drinks or coffee and then light up. 
That’s why I had only smelled it when approaching from the bar or the
kitchen.   

I
gave Vino a good chunk of my cash tip and we left to enjoy a nice bottle of
wine at his place and then a late-night French dip sandwich at the French
Market.  Not really my idea of a royal feast but sufficient enough.

To
my delight, I checked my messages on my way home and found that my agent had
placed some of my music on two CBS television shows to run nationwide.  There
couldn’t have been a better way to end that memorable night. Unless I had
turned the festivities over to Jens to coordinate, but I was too damn tired to
handle one woman, let alone the two or three he would have arranged. Money,
music, and memories would have to suffice.

The
nameless, faceless, godless, mindless, spineless, greedy bastards – not that I
don’t love them – who had recently purchased the Cricket Room as part of a
nameless, faceless, heartless hospitality portfolio, should perhaps have taken
How to Run a Business 101 in college, rather than lacrosse or basket weaving.
Or even purchased a basic book, such as Business Management for Idiots.  But
they hadn’t and we were now their unwitting victims a/k/a cash cows. Moo.

In
past years, the Cricket Room had famously provided five-star service to upscale
clientele, charging accordingly. 
During
that time
the bottom
line had always been top service, not top profits. The place
has such a luminous history and
reputation for legendary service that guests never really minded that the food is
less than five-star.  They would pay top dollar for crap food in many cases
just to say they’d eaten there. Or had a drink at the bar next to a celebrity. 
Recently, however,
our new corporate overlords acted as if they had adopted Gordon Gekko as a role
model. I kept waiting for them to embroider “Greed is Good” on the napkins next
to the shield logo.

After
the corporate goons started sinking their fangs into our historic restaurant,
morale hit rock bottom.  They slashed our budget leaving us shorthanded at the
most crucial times.  They set up speeches for us to perform at every table and
made us go through all the ridiculous rules of service, numbers one through twenty,
with each guest, even the regulars.  That kind of forced, scripted performance
took the personality right out of the exchange and made us look like trained
monkeys.  And then they’d send out anonymous “shoppers” every month to make
sure we followed their guidelines.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard
our managers recite: “Treat every table like it’s a shopper, because if a
shopper comes in, they will also be judging your performance at the neighboring
tables.” 
These
little worms always tried their damnedest to make us lose our temper, screw up
their order, overcharge them, or they would even try to set us up to pocket
cash. Since we had a solid tourist clientele (one-time guests), it was almost
impossible to spot the shoppers, adding even more pressure to our jobs.  If we
messed up on a shopper, it would be
documented in our records,
upper management would be notified, and it could lead to penalties or even
termination.  S
o we
had to look at each customer as the ultimate test, and eschew the genuine,
warm, human interaction that has long been a hallmark of the Cricket Room. 
Nothing says trust like spying on
your “trusted” employees, especially when we were being told our relationship
with management was a “partnership.” Yeah, like the partnership between a slave
and his master.

They
made it clear that we are expendable, and that there was someone anxiously waiting
around the corner to take our jobs. It’s called “Management by FEAR
.”  And I can say from experience
that it actually reduces performance and leads to nervous, anxious employees
who are more likely to screw up or burn out
.
 Yet all of our special guests came
to the Cricket Room for the incomparable, personable service and to see that
familiar face ready to serve them. Didn’t the suits realize that?  There is a
distinct value in being served by someone who knows what you like and on whom
you know you can rely.  That had been the trademark upon which the Cricket Room
had built its legacy.  We always recognized our many repeat guests, and welcomed
them back each time by name.  And why did we do that?  Not out of fear, but
because we’d all been there so long and we genuinely felt privileged to be
serving not just celebrities, but all of our valued regulars.  In my
not-so-humble opinion, the suits ruined the experience for the staff who genuinely
loved their jobs, and destroyed the uniqueness of the experience for the
guests.  But try telling that to a bunch of businessmen who have never waited
tables in their lives and are under so much pressure from their corporate
bosses to perform that they lose sight of the most fundamental reasons a
restaurant is successful. 

There
we were at the peak of the real estate boom and the chatter you heard at every
table was about buying and selling real estate. One of my customers was a local
named Perry. He told me that he had bought his four-bedroom house in Beverly
Hills for $1.3 mil in the mid-nineties and he had sold it that day, just over
ten years later, for $3.4 mil.  His story was typical and I’d been hearing those
kinds of things a lot.  Beverly Hills 90210 real estate is finite; no one’s
making any more of it, the locale has cachet, and even in economic downturns,
properties here increase in value. Not only California was booming – there was
nouveau riche money pouring in from all corners of the globe. New fortunes were
being made in stocks all over the world; middle American farmers were selling
off their land to oil and gas explorers and collecting a royalty on top of it;
and in recent months, there had also been boatloads of tourists from Europe
throwing money around in the Cricket Room.  As they say, when America sneezes,
the rest of the world catches a cold.  So when we do well, so does everyone
else. Everyone was spending, spending, spending and we had more business than
we could handle.

The
restaurant grossed around $13 million that year and paid its GM over $500,000 annually.
You would think a corporation with those kinds of numbers should have enough
cash flow to run the restaurant like a dream.  In fact, the budget for staff
was so small that we constantly worked the floor of fifty-eight tables with only
six or seven waiters and three busboys, one of whom in each category was always
on break. Because of California state law every employee had to take a 30-minute
break, but not until he or she had been clocked in for two hours minimum.  Because
we were understaffed, this meant that around seven when the dinner rush was at
its height we were always short-staffed by one waiter at a time for three hours
straight just to get each break out of the way. 
That also left us with one busser per 28 tables at
the height of dinner service.  Ridiculous! The pancake house had more busboys
than that. Those guys cost ten bucks an hour and can get a table turned in seconds,
seating more guests who spend more money. 
That’s something that the suits forgot to calculate.
But of course, their concern was the bottom line and not efficiency, guest
satisfaction, or employee well-being.
 One manager suggested hiring a “break waiter” who would fill in for each
waiter while they were on break, allowing us to take back the same tables after
our breaks.  Great idea.  Never fucking happened.

The
place was making huge profits, but they distribute the gold at the top levels
rather than reinvest it in the face of the business – that is, the staff – and
squash us little guys until we make room for the next willing victims.  It
doesn’t make sense. A fine establishment needs plenty of polished, highly
trained staff to fawn all over its wealthy patrons and to anticipate their
every need.  But in the Cricket Room, where we served the biggest names in
every industry, we were cut off at the knees while being held to a higher
standard.  Is greed really that good? No, it’s actually counterproductive and
destructive. You’re killing the golden goose by running the shit out of her.

Because
the Cricket Room never had a drastic lull in the late afternoon, management
refused to close the restaurant for an hour between afternoon and evening
service like most other fine dining establishments do.  This prevented both
shifts of waiters from accomplishing the side work so important to an organized
dining room, and also wreaked havoc on the handover of tables from the lunch
shift to the night waiters. And because the economy was booming and guests were
constantly streaming in, it only got worse. There were numerous arguments
stopping just short of bloodshed.

Management
had an unrealistic (or purely ignorant) expectation of how their
constantly-open business model should work.  Sometimes things that look good on
paper, or sound logical around a conference table, don’t play out that way with
real people in real life.

A
typical night at the Cricket Room would go something like this:  I would come
in at four o’clock with one other server to open the night shift.  Our duties
were to clean up all the service stations that were invariably left in a mess
by the day shift.  We had to polish and restock all the specialty silverware,
such as steak and fish knives, forks, bouillon and soupspoons. Then we had to
clean out and restock the three supply dressers with silverware, folded
napkins, sugar caddies, salt and peppershakers, dessert plates and the like. The
dressers were strategically placed in the main dining room, another in the
garden area, and the third in the front dining section.  Once all that was
done, we had to stock and refill all the ice water pitchers at all the
stations, then polish silverware and glassware and set every table in all the
dining areas.  All of this would take two waiters approximately forty-five
minutes to do. 

The
day shift was supposed to keep taking tables until five o’clock, giving the
night team the time described above to complete our preparations.  At that
point, they were expected to transfer any remaining tables to us and clock out. 
In a perfect world, it might work that way, but have I been describing a
perfect world? You can understand how that would build animosity, with the day
shift having to start tables and sometimes wait on them for hours, only to
transfer them over to us as we became available.  We would then cash in on
their tips, which could be worth an extra $100 a night.

Therefore,
the way it really went was that within just ten minutes of the night team’s
arrival at 4:00 p.m., the day shift would already be trying to pawn off their
tables on us so that they could avoid starting any tables that wouldn’t garner
them tips. Why couldn’t they just stay and close out their tables, you ask? 
Because the corporation didn’t want to pay for their overtime, which in essence
would amount to about $12 an hour for a few waiters – and one hour was usually
all it took to close those tables.  So, to save the multi-million dollar corporation
about $36 a night, we night waiters were burdened with all the necessary side
work at the same time that we were being handed tables in progress, at which,
of course, we had to follow all those anal rules of service under strict
deadlines.  And the day waiters invariably took off without finishing their own
side work.

But
wasn’t side work one of the procedures put in place to allow us the preparation
required to provide excellent and efficient service? Apparently, this didn’t
matter to management when $12 an hour was at stake. I’m sure the higher powers
thought they were being clever when they went so far as to change the cut-off
time for the day shift to 4:30 pm instead of 5:00 pm to doubly ensure that they
didn’t go into overtime. This guaranteed the night waiters’ collective failure
to complete any sidework and solidified what the day waiters were already
doing.  Shit, I didn’t blame them.  I don’t want to work for free either.  The
corporation was looking for teamwork but they weren’t giving any to us. We
needed more staff, not less.

But
that anonymous corporate baboon in our foreign headquarters who set the budget
for the Cricket Room was happy because the room was coming in way under budget
and he was getting a nice bonus because of our hard work.  When you stop to
think about it, this is how every big or small corporation operates.  Some
jack-off sits in a corporate office with a suit and a tie setting budgets and
rules for a place he has never even set foot in.  It would have been so much
smarter to make sure the room was staffed properly at all times because our
affluent clientele expected to blow wads of money at the Cricket Room, and if
the waiters were plentiful and attentive the room could have grossed another
million more a year.  “A waiter with time is a waiter who will earn you that
extra dime.”  That’s fucking novice but not to these idiots. Quite often, the
guests would have ordered another glass of wine or another cocktail if I had
been able to return to their table in time to offer it to them.  Instead, the
next time they saw me, they would ask for the check since they were not sure
when I’d be back again, and neither was I.  Is this really five-star service?  Compare
and contrast that to the night I served King Crowe and his large royal party. 
With no other tables to manage, I gave them excellent personable service and we
all left shiny and happy. It infuriated me, as I took great pride in my work
and was simply not given the tools to succeed. 

In
the old days, the
Maître
d’
of the Cricket
Room sometimes introduced guests to each other who might have similar business
interests, or who might need each other’s services.  It wasn’t unusual for a
director to find an undiscovered leading man at the next table, thanks to a
clever introduction.  But new ownership meant that our
Maître d’
was run ragged taking
reservations, setting staff schedules, dealing with guests’ complaints, waiting
tables, and ringing up tabs due to constant underfunding and therefore
short-staffing.  He too
was
spread too thin, wearing two hats as both Maître d’ and restaurant manager. 
Those should be separate positions.
 
Between lunch and dinner, which
was no longer slow, Mr. P had to work out a weekly schedule for forty different
employees (runners, busboys, and waiters, all with their individual vacation
and special schedule requests) but the phone kept ringing and VIPs kept coming
in with whom he had to chat amicably and accommodate their special seating
requests.  He also had to stay on his toes to ensure everyone feels like the
most important guest in the world, including working in those clever
introductions wherever possible.  He didn’t have time to worry about what we
were doing every minute, so he just tried to make sure that someone – anyone,
for all he cared – was serving the guests.
The old ambiance was long gone, in deference to the
corporate dollar. Fuck those greedy pigs! I came to despise them for ruining a
legendary restaurant. It just wasn’t necessary, and to me was like turning the
Taj Mahal into a food court.