It’s another December 24^th, and once again, I know where I’m scheduled to be tonight. People are heading home from their shortened work days and maybe some office parties, possibly making a last-minute mall stop, and I’m slowly getting ready to go to work for the evening. No matter where…

In October 2009, I worked the bar of a private party at the old home that was once leased and lived in by actress Jean Harlow in the late 20′s and early 30′s, on 512 N. Palm Drive, a several block street sitting between Sunset and Wilshire. This was her last residence before…

I’ve been bartending at the famous Gardenia Room in Hollywood for close to 22 years now, in various time capacities; full-time, part-time, on-call, etc., During this time I’ve also worked in a number and variety of other bars, clubs and venues throughout L.A., to the point where I can barely…

Bartenders and Waiters today are taking their jobs more professionally and seeing it as a true and honest working career, which in my case behind the bar includes the practice of creative mixology as culinary art. Management and ownership want it to be perceived in just that way in hopes of…

” Like Little Works of Art”

Initially, I created my cocktail photography series so I could have my own drink pics in my then-new self-published work, some of them with a Western theme to fit the title and content of the book “Cocktails of the American West”. Yet, I knew…

I used to work for a big franchised restaurant chain and we were doing some market research to improve guest satisfaction. This got me excited because I have my opinion of what makes a good server but this was an opportunity to find out what the market research results would show from the following…

Most all of us who have both dedicated and/or slaved in this industry that doesn’t take care of their own, have ran head on into help wanted ads on Craig’s List or wherever else one seeks work in the field , when looking for either full-time, part-time, fill-in or even on-call work to fill up more of our…

This may be a bit of self promoting here, but screw it, I'm excited about it and I think you will be too.

What I'm referring to is my website insidedish.com

  This is our first blog on this site, we run our own website www.stuckserving.com, and just stumbled upon this gem! One of our contributors has been in the industry for over 10 years and this is one of the craziest things to have happened in a restaurant yet. …

Dear Wait Staff

Please take careful note of the simple truths about to be dropped upon you.

They are basic. 

And I know you know them all.

But you do tend to forget...

...brought to you by someone who knows the kitchen...…

                    I've been working in the restaurant business since my first job. Although that was only 7 years ago, a relatively short amount of time to be in this game, I've picked up on quite a bit of ins and outs of running, managing, and optimizing restaurants.

                   From fast food boy, to line cook,…

So we've been getting phone calls on a regualr basis at the restaurant that make me so angry.  They involve scams of course.  Fortunately we have not yet become a victim of a major one but it's not for lack of trying on the scammers' part.  Here are 3 scams we are currently dealing with on a recurring basis:

1) Food donations…

So this is my first post on this site but I thought that y'all would get a kick outta this one... I know we sure did.  The story goes a little something like this:

Setting: Saturday night - the busiest moment of the busiest night of the week of a very, very busy restaurant.…

Ok, so I don't have anything against feet in general.  I'm not saying I'm fond of them or that I have a fetish of some kind; it's just not that kind of blog.  My peeve of the day...especially a warm weather day...is customers who find nothing wrong with removing their shoes in the restaurant.  Yea, I know; it's gross!  I work in a restaurant & sports bar in the suburbs, thousands of miles from the oceanfront,…

I work at a restaurant that has been around for 100 years. It is owned and operated by the same family that opened it in 1911. When it first opened, all of the servers were black and could not read or write. This gave the place an edge. People came from all over to try and stump these servers. They would literally switch seats when the server left just to test them. If that were me back then,I would have killed…

This is not meant to actually be instructional...there are many who need no instruction at all.  That being said, I know that we can all relate and have instances to share.  I swear on the holy menu that  all of these have really happened, although I'm sure you all know I couldn't make these things…

A recent article in the Chicago Red Eye gave the results to a poll whether children should be allowed to eat at high end places. The results were that the guys disapproved because a little cutie threw orange juice on him; The ladies approved because the cuties are sometimes sweeter than some patrons at these places.

I think…

If you work in the food-service industry, chances are you’ve wandered casually into the dark hole of Craigslist in search of a gig. After scrolling for what seems like hours, emailing resumes to shady email addresses in pursuit of questionable job descriptions, all the while knowing there are tons of people vying for the same job it starts to feel like a pretty hopeless…

    Finally,after two weeks it's time to announce the winners of our Waiters Today Social Network Blogapalooza blog Contest !!!

The Winners !!!!!!…