Phoenix Food Blog

In the table-turning trade, every shift ushers in a new assortment of characters. And the luck of the draw can either make your day or make your day a ten percent, everything on the side and separate checks living hell. Focusing on the positive, here's a short list of the types of clientele I love to see sitting in my station:

My food & beverage blood brothers & sisters- Unless I literally take a crap on their table and/or call them cocksuckers, this ticket's good for a 25%-plus grat, guaranteed. Then there's the camaraderie factor. There's just something oh so cathartic about engaging your professional peers in witty, work-related banter at the expense of the boorish, butthole customers and anal taskmasters we all have in common. And admit it. Few things feel better than dropping that tableside F-Bomb you know you can get away with.
Professionals- Show me guys in suits doing the power lunch or dinner thing, and I'll show you easy pickings and a tip sure to cover my next cable bill, inclusive of the pay-per-view charges. High let's-make-a-deal testosterone levels make my job easy. I simply bait the hook properly: "Gentlemen, the bacon-wrapped filet crowned with crab and hollandaise sauce is our signature." Like pond carp, they can't help but compete over whatever's thrown in the water.

"And to whom should we entrust the wine list?" is my go-to move. If no hard-charger makes a quick grab, the right guy usually gets flattered into action in short order by his deferential associates at the table.

I suppose there are some tried and true secrets to making relationships work. And while I won't toss out altruisms here, I'm sure openness and honesty are great policies to employ to that end. But as evidenced by a conversation I listened-in on last night at work, I'm as convinced as ever that you can't always lay every card on the table, even if that someone sitting opposite you knows exactly what you're holding onto.

"So, explain this solitaire situation to me again," A certain Mrs. sounded pretty insistent with her man of the house.

"It's an online thing, Sharon. What's your point?"

"Let me rephrase, Jake: Explain the attraction."

Man of the House and I make eye contact. He's looking to me for something. I do what I can.

"Would either of you care for an after dinner drink?"

"Could you just give us a few minutes, please?" The Mrs. is terse, not thirsty.

"You're on your own, Pal," I let the gentleman know in a gesture, shrugging subtly from just over the lady's shoulder. Then, I start straightening up my station around them to stay within earshot, and it pays off.

As a career bar and restaurant guy, I've had my professional eye trained on the state of social-sexual politics for the past twenty-five years. Even so, it's hard to say whether we've evolved or devolved as an outgoing species. While the games remain basically the same, the rules have certainly changed, for better or worse.

One thing I've noticed in recent years is the dearth of young twenty-somethings doing the dinner date thing these days. So I asked my coed daughter and her steady to weigh in on the topic, perchance to shed some light.

Both she and he assure me that, in the eyes of "their generation" (gulp!), this is a farcically fusty ritual, practiced by social dinosaurs too primitive to appreciate the simpler pleasures of "just hitting Pepe's Tacos and hanging out."

I can see, of course, why boyfriend subscribes to this theory. Such drive-thru druthers come at quite a discount to him. When I was a young stud back in the day, I shelled out handsomely for the sit-down dinner prerequisite of every self-respecting Friday or Saturday night date. And for good reason.

"Besides, Dad," Daughter reminds me, "Guys paying for everything can come with certain expectations."

"Yep, that was pretty much my good reason," I say to myself, under my breath.

Meet Bob. Talk about a major tool. Bob's one of those types who makes us hard working restaurant stiffs wince over the thought of having to accommodate him.

Bob's friends and family insist he's just hard to please. Every time he comes in, everyone with him seems to take turns apologizing for his condescending and contentious demeanor.

"Don't take it personally," someone in Bob's enabling posse will say. "Bob always sends his steak back. He's very picky." Bullshit. Bob couldn't care less about what's on his plate. He's all about eating up the attention that acting like an asshole brings him.

When you till the soil in local food and beverage, you learn certain almanac-like lessons in eking out a living. Working in an industry where warm winters mark tourism's high tide and torrid summers slow income streams to trickle, one keeps an eye on the ebb and flow.

As for myself, I've come to gauge the business climate's prospects from season to season, year after year, through certain telling indicators. Given everything that seems to be in the air, it's hard to divine anything but more doom and gloom for the immediate future.

During service, stuff happens: Drinks spill, wine corks break, and food can have a hard time finding its way to hungry people.

Nobody's perfect. And there's certainly no shame in confessing occasional instances of clumsiness and/or confusion. A simple apology -- or any aplomb demonstrated through problem solving -- can offer an elegant statement on professionalism.

Still, it's hard to own up to any faults.

For me, the cardinal sin of service is forgetfulness, and I've gone to great lengths to avoid confessing it. Years ago, at a fine, French bistro at the Biltmore, my mind went blank while tending to a VIP two-top. For the life of me, I couldn't recall a gentleman's order mere seconds after taking it.

I work in a professional no-man's land, a crossfire of commerce in which I negotiate dining room detente, and navigate all the bullshit bandied about back and forth. And from those I serve to those who sign my paychecks, all parties concerned keep me at the center of the minor crises that all add up to another day's work. At times, I feel like I'm always "it:" The accommodating monkey in the middle of a game I'm not so much playing myself as I am being played by two sides in tandem. And the object seems to be to pit me against every potential powder keg of a problem to see how fast I can grasp and defuse any given situation before it blows up in all our faces.

What follows is an amalgam of some situational sticks of dynamite, typical of those flung my way on a regular basis:

"Waiter, I don't have your duck for table 22," Chef might summon me to the line- maybe ten minutes after I've taken that order- to inform me, case in point. "The count was wrong. It's 86'd."

"Yes, Chef." That's the only answer I'm allowed, of course. Because Chef- despite his kitchen's imperfect mise en place math- is still perfect. He cannot be held accountable or even be bothered by this. Not in the middle of everything. Not ever.

Gold rushes unearth human nature horror stories. Precious few mine wealth from such circumstances. Many more are left to the muck and mire of greed and want.

In the hospitality trades, the high roller is the rich vein of our gratuity-grubbing existences. Tap into the right one, we think, and we'll have it made.

But consider a certain Ms. Greedy I once worked with years ago at a South Scottsdale burger bar (circa 1985). When a mad tipper surfaced in her station and started leaving extra c-notes on his ten-dollar lunch tabs, she managed to turn a windfall into a shit-storm in short order.

"Did you hear?" One of my table-hopping cohorts shared the buzz around the buss station with me one evening. "Some guy left Daphne two hundred bucks today."

"No shit?" We shook our heads, covetously contemplating such luck, before considering the possibilities.

For the movie version of my professional life, I'm tossing around ideas on whom I'd like to see in the starring role. Given the magnetic machismo he and I share, De Niro might seem an obvious choice. Still, juxtaposing my polished, fine dining persona with Robert's renowned, raw pugnacity could create a Raging Bull-in-a-china-shop conflict with character development.

Sorry, Bob, I'll have to pass. And, yeah, I'm talkin' to you.

Moving on, Paul Giamatti's another name that comes to mind. I loved his angst-ridden work in American Splendor, Sideways, and even as the human pet-peddling Orangutan in The Planet of the Apes remake. When it comes to communicating that is-this-all-there-is? ennui we waitstaff sometimes feel standing tableside, Giamatti could certainly do the role justice. Tell you what, Paul: Let's have a sit-down and discuss it. Just know I'll be asking for a body double for the nude scene, no offense. My people will be in touch with your people.

Before shows like Fear Factor and Bizarre Foods triggered mainstream gag reflexes, I toyed with my own notions of pushing the edible envelope. For much of the '90's, for example, I worked for a guy who allowed me the latitude to turn his specials chalkboards into an outlandish culinary canvas.

Conceptually, it seemed clear we were onto something. "Club-your-own, whole-roasted baby Harp seal" triggered lots of table conversations. A few folks were appalled and protested our flippancy, but most ate it up for the obvious parody on culinary adventurism that it was. By the time our "Marvin Gaye" promotion ran ("Bring in your dad and get two shots free!"), we were lampooning life from an epicurean perspective on a fairly regular basis.

Of the spoofs we served up in those days, "Javelina Nipple Fritters" proffered quite a parable on the power of suggestion, an invaluable tool of our trade. And it taught me a lesson on what rapport, some sense of humor, and a little artful persuasion can bring to the table.

"Good evening," I greeted a group of gregarious seniors early on that particular shift. "You folks familiar with the menu?"

As a waiter, Manuel was a marvel. While reciting specials and fielding menu questions, he dispensed information with the rote confidence of a Rhodes Scholar. When it came to taking orders and delivering the goods, he neither wrote things down nor screwed things up.

It was at a chain Mexican hang in Scottsdale's Old Town that I took notice of Manuel's talents. A favorite day-off destination for my ex and me during our years together, we always felt fortunate to draw a seat in his station, and came to see his service as a cherry on the sundae of our Margarita Mondays.

"Is Manuel here today?" I asked a hostess, the last time we paid a visit to the place.

"He sure is." She gave us the good news, and then whisked us off to one of his tables. In no time, Manuel appeared, and with one of his trademark moves, spun his service tray on a fingertip while telling us about the day's food and drink features.

"But I'm guessing you folks will be having your usual," he guessed right, at the end of his short and sweet schtick. "Two double Cadillac margs, one no salt, and some house salsa macho for your chips."

I never needed to say a word. But there was something I had to do.

I know, times are tough in our business. The belt-tightening evidence is everywhere. Restaurants with dollar menus are lining their pockets, while the full service industry is pretty much taking it in the shorts.

Still, even with frugality the fashion these days, it's hard to abide those who wear their cheapskate genes out to a nice dinner. Spending less is one thing. Pinching pennies at the expense of what's appropriate is quite another.

So, listen up. I'm only going to say these things once:

To you half-glass of wine orderers, who imagine, apparently, that you imbibe in a world staffed by those who see your hair-splitting requests as reasonable...We don't. A whole, single glass of wine is as low as we go, unless we're selling flights and tastings.

To you "poor man's lemonade" concocters, who insist on plates full of lemon wedges for your "water"...We see what you're doing with those sugar and Sweet 'N Low packets. For shame.

To the multitude in general...Ease up on the bread baskets, folks. Unless Jesus appears in the dining room, there's only so much we can do.

Tanya Cruise is a trickle-down casualty of our piss-poor economy. With her boom years in car sales gone bust, she's waiting tables, tending bar, and learning the tricks of a new trade.

"I was pulling down 7K a month," says Cruise, 26, shifting her career story in reverse while she and I idle in conversation prior to a recent lunch shift.

"Then, people started getting let go, left and right. By the time I left, I was upside-down on my monthly commission draws. I actually owed the dealership money. The last I heard, four of my former bosses were gone and facing foreclosures."

These days, Tanya's busy turning tables for a living. Watching her work at it, I can't help but feel a little professional pride. Despite low-brow perceptions of the job description, waiting tables isn't something any Displaced Someone from another corner of the working world can just show up and do. Even if you've worked in sales and/or customer service, there aren't too many jobs that involve tending to a dozen or more individuals at the same time. Factor in how many among them are inebriated to some degree, and add to that the number of water fills/refills, drink and plate deliveries and pick-ups, and check drops one party's points of service entail, and the layman's eye begins to open to the logistical realities of what we do to earn our keep.

Still, Cruise thinks she'll get everything under control.

For years, a restaurateur named Luigi Lamentini performed in the Italian dining theater - lucky for us, right here in Phoenix, where he operated several restaurants. A Florentine by birth with a thick, nasal accent, he'd take flight on fluid rants in his native tongue; singing a sad song about his love-hate relationship with the business while hitting the high notes in English expletives for which he knew, apparently, no romance language equivalents.

"Ah, so nice you come in," his first act might open for guests he'd greet personably at the front door.

"Pazzo cocksucker!" he'd change his tune toward some of the same with his next line, from the safe distance of his kitchen. "Last week, this ass-a-hole no call to cancel his reservation. He no show. Cost me a fucking turn!"

The time we spend in this business can be a gamble. From the easy money to the nightlife and liquor-fueled libidos, there's a risk we run of getting addicted to the action.

I'm the perfect example: That not-so-lucky winner you hear stories about. And the tale of my $4,000 tip, I suppose, will sum things up nicely.

When my ex-wife and I got engaged, I bought her the ring a waiter could afford, rather than the one she deserved. Along with loving, honoring, and cherishing her for a lifetime, buying her a bigger, better diamond one day was one of the things I vowed to do as her husband.

Shamefully, it was one of the very few promises I kept. Over the course of our years together, I gave in to the dark side of this business: Too many late nights out after work, partying like I didn't have a wife and two kids waiting for me at home.

Today, the torch passes to a new generation. But some will never forget certain meals enjoyed during the Bush Administration.

On October 13, 2004, in an act some might consider tantamount to cannibalism (shame on you), President George Walker Bush dined on turkey-stuffed enchiladas at Dick's Hideaway in Phoenix. (Dick's is the cozy bar and private dining room tucked into an unmarked space right around the corner from its better-known sister restaurant, Richardson's.) He'd worked up the appetite debating Democratic nominee John Kerry at ASU's Grady Gammage Auditorium in Tempe.

More than four years later, the President's dinner host that evening, restaurateur Richardson Browne, reflects on his Santa Fe-style summit with the soon-to-be ex-leader of the free world.

"About thirty minutes before he showed up," Browne recounts, "I got a call at home from my manager saying, 'The President's coming in.' I just hung up, horrified. I was more than a few Maker's Marks into my evening. She kept calling back. I kept hanging up. Then it occured to me that, Christ, she's fucking serious. So I put on a clean shirt and came down."

When it comes to playing hooky from work, you'd better be on your game - particularly if you work in a busy restaurant. Where my own exploits are concerned, experience has proven the best teacher. Susceptible to bouts of Cactus League-triggered spring fever, I've called in sick one day and returned to work sunburned the next. Not smart.

But that pales in comparison to the time I conspired to fictitiously kill-off my Aunt Martha for want of an impromptu weekend in San Diego.

There's no denying it. Charles Barkley's a character. He proselytizes. He womanizes. And his traffic stop after supposedly chasing a fellatio artist through the streets of Scottsdale two weeks ago will undoubtedly further his reputation.

But before we burn Sir Charles at the stake (and let he who is without sin strike the first match, by the way), let me share a story that might cool TMZ-kindled tempers. I met Charles Barkley on his first day as a Phoenix Sun. He popped into Richardson's -- where I worked at the time -- for lunch. I fed him a good chunk of our menu, then we chatted. He thanked me for introducing him to Santa Fe-style food, and promised he'd be back for more.

Things are getting spooky around town.

Driving to work, I pass Chef Robert McGrath's never-opened REM project on Lincoln Drive. Having boarded it up along with the Pischke's property he took over in 2006, subsequent to the suicide of Chris Pischke, McGrath's suddenly disappeared from the food scene he's poster-boyed for more than a decade. Stopping by for a closer look around Christmas, I found a county inspector's notice tacked to REM's door, confirming that "the establishment has relocated or is no longer in operation."

Chef Michael DeMaria's circumstances seem eerily similar. With his longtime Citadel outpost abandoned and his long-awaited, lakeside launch in Tempe, "Trattoria M," torpedoed by the equally tragic ending of the Scott Coles story (Coles' company, Mortgages Limited, was a partner in the venture), DeMaria's another tenured toque whose fortunes have fallen to the frightening economy. (Though not entirely: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bella/2008/12/michael_demarias_heirloom_set.php.)

In the foodie blogosphere, you can be somebody. Just pick a site (Chowhound, Yelp, EGullet, et al.), a clever byline, and you're in. It's like AA for food junkies -- a sympathetic forum in which Epicurean souls are bared and horror stories are exchanged in catharsis.

Of course, it's just as easy to choke on all the smoke being blown around while you're at it.

Two doctors sit at a bar and start talking shop.

"Why proctology, for God's sake?" one asks.

"I know," the other answers, raising a hand with his thumb and forefinger an inch or two apart. "I was this close to being a gynecologist."

That same gag works for bartenders, too. If you're going to work among wildlife at the watering hole, why not become a zoologist? Certainly, after years of observing the creatures who prowl the night in my profession, I'd like to think I've learned a little something about the nature of the social animal. I know this much: Few wander in just for simple sustenance. Most are sniffing around for possibilities.

Back in the days before TV talk shows brought Tourette's Syndrome into our mainstream consciousness (circa 1985), I hung my server shingle at a lakeside seafood restaurant in Scottsdale.

I'd gotten the job through a drinking buddy, just days after being fired for arguing with my former supervisor (and that restaurant owner's then-girlfriend) that I was an untouchably gifted server whose services to the proprietor were unequaled even by her. You live, you learn.

During training shifts at the new job, my corporate trainer, "Rod," walked and talked me through my paces - how to toss the house's tableside salad, how to take an order just so. Rod was good at his job. He talked his customers through the details of their dining experience with supremely confident, rote repetitiveness.

Hovering tableside this time of year, it's hard not to feel a little left out and invisible among so many celebrating their holidays.

Like some Scrooge, I try to convince myself it's all in a day's work, but inevitably, hauntingly familiar faces in the crowd whisk me back to Christmas repasts in my memory, like the dueling dinners served up by my forever-feuding aunts Martha and Hilde. Their rivalry simmered year-round until it boiled over into an Iron Chef-style Christmas Eve.

In principle, I get that whole "the customer's always right" thing. In practice, of course, it doesn't always hold up.

Consider the barfly I once tended to, who, after asking me for an empty beer mug, proceeded to seal it over her mouth and puke in it. Then, as though it was a gift of some warm, chunky chowder she'd cooked up specially for me, she handed the mess back over with a simply slurred, "Here you go, dude." Somehow, I managed to wretch my way out to the dumpster without calling the bar crowd's attention to the matter. It's what I do.

My food handler's Card reads "Food Service Worker," not "Industry Analyst." But on the flip side, those are credentials enough to see the kind of economic Love Canal the Scottsdale Waterfront's becoming for a number of its restaurant tenants. Second helpings of Scottsdale Galleria anyone?

Sniffing around SouthBridge just after seven in the evening, at the height of holiday shopping season, I find Canal in virtual dry dock. A cordial hostess puts on a brave face and accommodates me when I ask to take a look around the empty dining room. She suggests I at least stay for a drink, but the bartender looks too sullen and bored to be good company.

Well-heeled, well-preserved, and ready to play, the club-crawling "cougar" has become a cultural icon. One need only survey such fertile habitats as Barcelona, Skye, Eli's, Pane e Vino, et. al. to know the local cougar population is thriving. Good news for both predator and prey.

Editor's note: Chow Bella usually gives bylines, so why the big secret about who writes Waiter Confidential? Well, consider all the toes that Anonymous could step on. This industry pro has seen it all in 25 years of waiting tables and tending bar at some of the Valley's most beloved restaurants, and what's more, he still gets a nightly glimpse of the human condition from his post at one of Phoenix's culinary hotspots. From well-known restaurateurs to the people he waited on last night, anybody's fair game for Anonymous. But don't worry - he's not naming any names.

I left the Midwest for Arizona in 1983, barely 20, fairly broke, and pretty much clueless as to what I'd do with myself once I got here. Doing what felt good first, I spent a month and nearly every cent I had celebrating my newfound emancipation, until the sobering reality of my last $16 started me looking for work.

Despite some strong, preconceived notions about the indignity of the occupation, I took a job waiting tables. On my first solo shift, a $20 tip doubled my net worth and changed my disposition.