The young waiter was efficient as hell, and he had to be. Sticky Rice was packed solid on a Tuesday night. Potential customers were lingering by the door, hoping to get a taste of the joint's B-grade sushi and tater tots. (Hey, here's an idea: Why don't you add a few more toasted sesame seeds to [...]
Our topic for discussion is a good one. We'll be discussing wait staff and the labor issues they face as they cater to every one of our fussy whims in D.C.'s dining rooms. Y&H is no labor expert, of course. But I've dabbled in doing the dining room two-step for ungrateful customers. I've also received more [...]
Not officially, of course. But servers at restaurants often labor under more rules than a slaughterhouse worker. Well, definitely more than a slaughterhouse worker actually follows. I mention this because of Bruce Buschel's latest post on his delightful Start-Up Chronicle blog for The New York Times. (If you haven't read his posts yet on starting [...]
As shown in this CBS Early Show report, London's Inamo is among the first restaurants to install a table-top ordering system, which would appear to make waiters and waitresses obsolete (or at least turn their skill set into something resembling an IT person's). I personally loathe the idea. I crave real human interaction at the [...]
When restaurants can't afford to pay busboys minimum wage, you know things are bad out there. The Wall Street Journal reports today that at least one major chain (Bob Evans) and a few franchisees from another (T.G.I. Friday's) are axing the folks who clean up after us in their restaurants. It's putting the squeeze on [...]
The standard thinking (well, my thinking) about the U.S. economy has been that it's mostly shedding white-collar jobs, you know those high-salaried, middle-management, egg-sucking gigs that stifle the life out of every company. A parallel thought to that (my) standard thinking is that, should you be one of those egg-sucking middle managers who gets the [...]
