First of all, I don’t want to hear a word about my punctuation in the word MaitreD. I know there’s supposed to be an apostrophe (before the D? After the D? Is the D even capitalized?) I also know there’s some sort of indentation over the i, but I can’t be bothered to figure it out at this very moment.
And also, I maybe resent the word because it reminds me of hors d’oeuvres, which I think is the reason I didn’t progress past the 2nd round of my middle school spelling bee. I didn’t misspell hors d’oeuvres, I just spent all my prep time making sure I knew the order of the vowels and where the apostrophe went, only to be eliminated on the word affluent (or as I spelled it, afluent).
Enough about how I’m so aflicted (omg I can’t help myself). The story of how I became a MaitreD at a downtown restaurant is that I set a goal, displayed a palpable passion for hospitality, and then outworked everyone else.
Kidding! I got a part-time job as a host, and then the MaitreD of three years quit unexpectedly during my first week.
My last shift as a MaitreD was two weeks ago. I left to start an assistant role in a TV writer’s room. But before I knew I was making this transition, here’s what I had to say about life at the restaurant:
“This past weekend (Thurs-Sun), I put in ~30 hours working as a MaitreD at a Greenwich Village restaurant.
I’d tell you which one, but then I’d have to make you a reservation, and we’re already overbooked…
Translation: I’ve become flushed with power.
What I’ve learned from working in a restaurant is that there’s always a table— if you’re an investor in the restaurant, a close friend of a line cook, or you tell the hostess that absolutely no worries and you’re happy to wait and you love this restaurant and appreciate all she’s doing so much.
In high school, I worked one summer at my local Mexican restaurant—though if you know me, you may be under the impression it was more than one summer based on how often I bring up “working in the service industry.”
Now I know: that was child’s play. At the Mexican restaurant, I led customers around the outdoor patio in jeans, gripping the iPad and pointing at random to empty tables: “Y’all can sit there.”
At the Greenwich Village restaurant, jeans are strictly forbidden—as is taking the iPad into the dining room, where the screen light could bounce off your face and “distract” guests from their farm-to-table meals. I’m not allowed to use my fingers to point, refer to guests as “guys” (i.e. “Thanks guys for coming in!”), or have chipped nail polish.
I am allowed to send especially nice guests free appetizers, make reservations for people when Resy/OpenTable says we’re fully booked, and reserve bar seats for my friends even though the bar is “first come, first served.”
When tables aren’t “turning” (getting up), and guests have to wait more than 15 minutes, I “splash” them (instruct the sommelier to pour them a free glass of wine).
Besides the delegating of perks, the absolute best part of being a MaitreD so far has been my unfettered access to diner profiles. Every time you use your phone number to make a reservation, the restaurant gathers more information for your profile: how long you typically take to eat, if you prefer eating near the window or in the private back dining room, your birthday, whether you’ll need a highchair at your table, if you’re particularly rude to your server, etc.
Browsing through the diner profiles the other day, I stumbled upon the information that a friend of mine is specifically never to be sat near the sommelier station because her perfume is so heavy that it confuses the assessment of the wines.
A famous actress’s less famous mother “must with NO EXCEPTIONS” always be sat at Table 20. An investor’s wife “CANNOT endure SPICE.” A 90-year-old male regular “should NEVER be sat with a female server.”
70% of what I need to know about writing dramatically, I can learn from these guest reservation profiles. The other 30% comes from the monthly Resy survey compilations. You know how after you eat at a restaurant you reserved on Resy, it’ll prompt you to rate service, food, ambiance, etc. on a five star scale? And then it asks if you’d like to provide any more feedback?
The “more feedback” section is sort of a self fulfilling prophecy: no one who ever had a normal experience takes the time to write any “more feedback.” So the range of comments you get looks like this:
Linda A. / Saturday 7:30pm / Table 11 / Server: Liz
0/10
“Something was very, VERY off with the bubbles in my Pellegrino.”
Doug P. / Thursday 9:00pm / Table 62 / Server: Roland
10/10
I wanted to tell the hostess that she looked like phoebe waller-bridge’s younger sister but prettier 💯
(This was a real comment. I thought it was about me and was so flattered, but then I checked and I wasn’t working that night. It was a host who always wears a red lip and just put in her two weeks to go work somewhere with a prix fixe menu instead).
More than the flexible schedules or the plentiful tips, I understand now why restaurants attract so many theatre and/or actor types. The drama I have witnessed at this restaurant beats anything I’ve ever seen on stage.
The other day, one of the general managers announced at the pre-shift meeting that staff were no longer able to use the expresso machine and instead, if we wanted coffee during our shift break, we could have drip.
Two servers quit. I never saw them again after that night.”
That’s how I felt when I had the job. When I got my new one, I was so nervous to tell everyone at the restaurant I was leaving. I really liked the people there, and I felt like I’d only recently perfected my napkin folds. But as my Aunt Jan insightfully said, “you’re not the first person to leave a restaurant job on short notice to work in entertainment.”
So I’ll keep the dramatics to a minimum, but let me at least have this: Ivy B, MaitreD, clocking out.
“Something was very, VERY off with the bubbles in my Pellegrino." I snorted.
Congrats on the new job and I loved this post!