READFOODWRITING
A Restaurant from the Perspective of a Dishwasher
It is nearly Christmas. The year is drawing to a close and I realize I will again be late on rent at the start of month. There is work available in my old friend Boron’s restaurant. He calls and asks, with a certain note of desperation, if I might be able to fill a dishwashing position recently vacated to, as he terms it, get him through the holidays. This is a notoriously busy time of year for restaurants, hotels, and other fixtures of the hospitality industry, when families come together, travelers arrive in town, and large companies plan large parties to spend excessive amounts of money on food and drink. A lot has changed – Boron tells me over the phone – I’ve had to make a few adjustments. All for the better, of course. The service industry is a volatile thing. Hospitality. What people expect. We must adapt or fall behind. I am to meet with him today to talk and take a tour of the restaurant. I wait for him at the bar, sitting on a stool and staring ahead at the colored bottles of cognac, chartreuse, fernet, gin and whiskey arranged neatly on back-lit shelves. My toes barely touching the hexagonal penny tile of the floor. When I finally see him I almost do not recognize him – he is no longer the young teenager I once knew, bright-eyed, unwashed and underfed. He is now a hardened man of twenty-four, with multiple employees under his direction, and the state of a stylish restaurant in one of the city’s most refined districts to manage, the success of... read more
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After We Eat
The meal, consisting of something from the garden, something from Lake Superior, and something that Ralf across the table killed with his hands, is over.
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