Tales From New Orleans Restaurants: Servers' Edition
Photo credit Alessandro Camilo via Pexels
Tales From New Orleans Restaurants: Servers' Edition
Part two of our short series. What happens in New Orleans' restaurants doesn't always stay in New Orleans restaurants. This week, the servers are in the spotlight, and you might need a strong stomach for some of these stories. Thanks to everyone who contributed - if you missed Part One: Guests' Edition, it's worth a look - click here. Here's our second instalment - tip your servers and treat them with compassion, wherever you are; they're on those front lines, even when they night not want to be:
One of my good friends for my bachelor party covered our Rum House waitress from the waist down in Margarita vomit.
Mid-level touristy spot in the quarter. Brought out a steak dish that came with melted blue cheese on top and dropped it to the table. The woman who ordered it was picking at the dish and had a generally disgusted look on her face. When I inquired if everything was to her liking she let me know in a long southern drawl, that her steak "smelled like doooodooooo". I mean, I hate blue cheese too, but I'll never forget that lady.
It was after the Christmas parade and Dominica had just opened in the Roosevelt and Nagin was mayor. We went in to eat after the parade and watched a waiter dump a tray of Bloody Marys on a table of people wearing their minks.
Table of four came in and ordered drinks and dinner. They asked for an empty wine bucket. One of the women proceeded to vomit in the middle of the dining room. This was not treated as an emergency, they acted as if this was just another Wednesday.
Had six guys try to walk out with a table. Not skipping on the check but picking up a large round table . They would have made it had they turned it on the side. The legs got stuck in the door.
One time at an upscale French restaurant, the bread wasn’t ready yet so the server offered me a complimentary round of “some of this fried air shit” (they meant that soufflé potatoes). He also referred to my extra dirty martini as “fa fa fa filthy” (complete with him shaking his head around when he said it). Great server.
Went for brunch and ordered the half chicken. The server brings it out, drops most of it all over the table, says a quick “sorry” and disappears. No offer to replace it, or even any effort to clean it up, just leaves, never to be seen again. The manager eventually brings us our check and tries to overcharge all of us for our meals, claiming the server “gave us the wrong menu”, even though I went and grabbed another from the stack at the host station and it matched what we had seen before. He eventually relented and fixed our check, but it was such a bizarre experience, and we were one of only two tables in there.
One time I was a server in a white tablecloth type of restaurant and a damn flying roach landed on the customer's shoulder after I brought them their food. Needless to say, the table yelled a LOT, and it was totally understandable, but they got comped over $200 and $0 tip for me of course, haha.
I was at a high end Italian place in Meterie for an anniversary dinner. We ordered the lobster. Server brought it out, grabbed it by the tongs and dropped it on the carpeted floor. He picked it up, put in on the plate and served. We looked at each other and said, "Three second rule I guess?". We never went back.
I worked at Arnaud's. We had a guy come in with his wife celebrating the anniversary of his recovery from a stroke. While I'm making Bananas Foster, this dude gets all red and starts slumping - he's HAVING A STROKE AT THE TABLE. We're running around getting the police and ambulance and moving tables so they can get a stretcher in, and the Maitre D' ends up following the lady into the ambulance to get the check paid before they leave.
I was a waiter for a long time. One time a couple was on their anniversary, argued forever, like very heated, and he tells her to shut up and she stabbed him in his hand with a fork. Another time, some trust fund baby brought his girlfriend to New Orleans for a surprise trip - surprise, as in he hires an escort for a surprise threesome that she had no clue about. They were having dinner after the subsequent fallout and she just laid out all her problems with this dude in this room where it's only them and a party of 12, and everyone in the room just stopped to listen to this lady. After this, she poured the rest of her wine into her glass, chugs it, throws it in his face and storms off while everyone clapped, like something out of a movie.
A friend of mine got fired from a casual tourist restaurant. The funny part, he never worked there. He was just there for the oyster happy hour, as a customer. The owner was so whacked out on drugs, he came out of his office, saw my friend sitting there with his beer and oysters, and starts screaming at him "I don't pay you to drink and eat, I pay you to work! You're fired!!" The owner stormed off in a huff. Flabbergasted, my friend turned to the bartender (who was rightfully horrified), gave her a fat tip, and told her, "If I'm fired, count this as my last shift meal."
A customer was complaining about the light streaming through the window. The management made a server stand in the window to act as a shade for this feckless idiot.
One of the best po boys in New Orleans was out of the back of Molly's at the Market. The guy opened a "poached slider" stand and would hot box all night just making food. Half the time he'd forget to charge. One night he says "Here, try this!" And dishes out a panko breaded coconut shrimp po boy with sweet chili sauce dressed with cabbage slaw on Dong Phuong bread. It was amazing.
The next night we go back (a friend was the back bartender for awhile) and we ask him if he'll make it again. He had no clue what we were talking about. So I described it to him. "Wow, that sounds f*****g awesome! I made that?"
I was working at a downtown brasserie, my first job when I moved to town. We had a bread warmer in the kitchen for biscuits. Inside the bread warmer was a tray. The biscuits came off the line and you plopped them on the tray inside the bread warmer. The biscuits were free. We gave them to every table. The biscuits were also the only thing the staff could eat for free so all of us ate those biscuits every shift. One night while we were doing side work, someone decided to go extra hard cleaning the bread warmer. For one time only someone took the tray out of the warmer to actually wash it and there, underneath the tray in the bread warmer, was a JERKY RAT. A rat that has been dead under the tray in the bread warmer so long that it turned into a dried out husk, completely in tact. The rat jerky had been infusing all of our biscuits for an unknown length of time.
I had a coworker at who had worked at the old Irene’s on Chartres. He had to quit working there after one Christmas season dinner because of the following: An old woman who owned a tourist store on Decatur came in with some folks for a Christmas dinner. She had some kind of medical emergency during dinner and the staff had to lay her on the floor of the dining room. They called 9-1-1, but it took forever for them to come. In the meantime other tables’ plates were coming up in the window. The servers didn’t know what to do, the dining room is small, and they have a regular laid out on the floor dying. The kitchen didn’t care. Ran the food. So the servers end up having to step over the regular’s body to run plates to the dining room. She died. My coworker was justifiably traumatized and quit immediately.
I was working garde manger at Commanders and the food network was filming. I was coming out of the back walk-in, the party plate up table was down. I ducked under it and ripped my chef pants…it was so hot in that kitchen back then I was going commando, I told my sous chef he started laughing, he pointed at his chef coat, I forgot he was mic-ed up.
While dining in New Orleans’ oldest restaurant in December of 2019, a waiter in training accidentally set our tablecloth on fire while making Cerises Jubile (cherries jubilee). The Maitre D’ (finding no humor in the situation) made him stand in the corner by the Christmas tree.
Many years ago eating at a French Quarter “grande dame” restaurant at a table of six-eight. We all ordered turtle soup, which was brought to us in and served out of a tureen. My friend called the waiter over and showed him that there was a rubber band in his soup. The waiter quickly replied, “No extra charge, sir!”
In a well known Italian restaurant the bus boy calmly took his wet cloth and zapped a palmetto bug on the wall in full view. The diners clapped and cheered then continued their evening as if nothing happened
Had brunch at a well-known place in the quarter in the early 90s. Family was visiting me from out of town. We’re in the omelette line. There are two large vats of egg batter to choose from and then the cook makes your omelette. The woman in front of us announces to the cook, “I’m from California and I eat only healthy food.” I’m thinking what the hell are you doing in New Orleans? She then points to a vat and says to the cook, “the egg whites only for me.” To which the cook responds, “Egg whites? There’s no egg whites here. This is New Orleans. Do you want rum or not?”
My sister ordered a Bailey’s and coffee after dinner. The server looked a little confused over her order but said ok. A little while later he brought a plate of carefully arranged bay leaves.
I cooked at very famous restaurant in the French Quarter for six years. One of the craziest things I ever saw was a large mouse fall from the rafters onto a table which the G.M. happened to be chatting with the diners. He quickly grabbed it and jammed it in his pocket before anyone noticed.
One of my guests called me to the table and pulled out a baggie of cocaine from his coleslaw. The table next to theirs, winked at me asked me for the ‘$40 coleslaw’
I was dining in a restaurant/playhouse and the waiter for the table behind us spilled his tray down my back. I had to ask him to bring me some things to help clean the food off my back. Unfortunately the food was spaghetti.
We were seated next to a cabinet that held glassware, a waiter somehow knocked multiple glasses over and they broke all over the cabinet and onto our table.
We took some friends to a very high-end, very well known New Orleans restaurant They were having an off night. I’m not sure if the waiter was new, or just tragically terrible. A few dishes didn’t arrive, and he blamed it on the kitchen when I’m pretty sure they weren’t actually ordered. One of our friends asked for a coffee, to which the aforementioned unfortunate server, replied, “We don’t serve…(disdainful pause)… COFFEE”. Our friend gestured to another waiter laden with a tray of ceramic cups headed to another table, and questioned, “Then what is that?“ To which our server replied, “THAT, is ESPRESSO!”
TALES FROM NEW ORLEANS RESTAURANTS - PART 1: GUESTS' EDITION
Part two of our short series. What happens in New Orleans' restaurants doesn't always stay in New Orleans restaurants. This week, the servers are in the spotlight, and you might need a strong stomach for some of these stories. Thanks to everyone who contributed - if you missed Part One: Guests' Edition, it's worth a look - click here. Here's our second instalment - tip your servers and treat them with compassion, wherever you are; they're on those front lines, even when they night not want to be:
One of my good friends for my bachelor party covered our Rum House waitress from the waist down in Margarita vomit.
Mid-level touristy spot in the quarter. Brought out a steak dish that came with melted blue cheese on top and dropped it to the table. The woman who ordered it was picking at the dish and had a generally disgusted look on her face. When I inquired if everything was to her liking she let me know in a long southern drawl, that her steak "smelled like doooodooooo". I mean, I hate blue cheese too, but I'll never forget that lady.
It was after the Christmas parade and Dominica had just opened in the Roosevelt and Nagin was mayor. We went in to eat after the parade and watched a waiter dump a tray of Bloody Marys on a table of people wearing their minks.
Table of four came in and ordered drinks and dinner. They asked for an empty wine bucket. One of the women proceeded to vomit in the middle of the dining room. This was not treated as an emergency, they acted as if this was just another Wednesday.
Had six guys try to walk out with a table. Not skipping on the check but picking up a large round table . They would have made it had they turned it on the side. The legs got stuck in the door.
One time at an upscale French restaurant, the bread wasn’t ready yet so the server offered me a complimentary round of “some of this fried air shit” (they meant that soufflé potatoes). He also referred to my extra dirty martini as “fa fa fa filthy” (complete with him shaking his head around when he said it). Great server.
Went for brunch and ordered the half chicken. The server brings it out, drops most of it all over the table, says a quick “sorry” and disappears. No offer to replace it, or even any effort to clean it up, just leaves, never to be seen again. The manager eventually brings us our check and tries to overcharge all of us for our meals, claiming the server “gave us the wrong menu”, even though I went and grabbed another from the stack at the host station and it matched what we had seen before. He eventually relented and fixed our check, but it was such a bizarre experience, and we were one of only two tables in there.
One time I was a server in a white tablecloth type of restaurant and a damn flying roach landed on the customer's shoulder after I brought them their food. Needless to say, the table yelled a LOT, and it was totally understandable, but they got comped over $200 and $0 tip for me of course, haha.
I was at a high end Italian place in Meterie for an anniversary dinner. We ordered the lobster. Server brought it out, grabbed it by the tongs and dropped it on the carpeted floor. He picked it up, put in on the plate and served. We looked at each other and said, "Three second rule I guess?". We never went back.
I worked at Arnaud's. We had a guy come in with his wife celebrating the anniversary of his recovery from a stroke. While I'm making Bananas Foster, this dude gets all red and starts slumping - he's HAVING A STROKE AT THE TABLE. We're running around getting the police and ambulance and moving tables so they can get a stretcher in, and the Maitre D' ends up following the lady into the ambulance to get the check paid before they leave.
I was a waiter for a long time. One time a couple was on their anniversary, argued forever, like very heated, and he tells her to shut up and she stabbed him in his hand with a fork. Another time, some trust fund baby brought his girlfriend to New Orleans for a surprise trip - surprise, as in he hires an escort for a surprise threesome that she had no clue about. They were having dinner after the subsequent fallout and she just laid out all her problems with this dude in this room where it's only them and a party of 12, and everyone in the room just stopped to listen to this lady. After this, she poured the rest of her wine into her glass, chugs it, throws it in his face and storms off while everyone clapped, like something out of a movie.
A friend of mine got fired from a casual tourist restaurant. The funny part, he never worked there. He was just there for the oyster happy hour, as a customer. The owner was so whacked out on drugs, he came out of his office, saw my friend sitting there with his beer and oysters, and starts screaming at him "I don't pay you to drink and eat, I pay you to work! You're fired!!" The owner stormed off in a huff. Flabbergasted, my friend turned to the bartender (who was rightfully horrified), gave her a fat tip, and told her, "If I'm fired, count this as my last shift meal."
A customer was complaining about the light streaming through the window. The management made a server stand in the window to act as a shade for this feckless idiot.
One of the best po boys in New Orleans was out of the back of Molly's at the Market. The guy opened a "poached slider" stand and would hot box all night just making food. Half the time he'd forget to charge. One night he says "Here, try this!" And dishes out a panko breaded coconut shrimp po boy with sweet chili sauce dressed with cabbage slaw on Dong Phuong bread. It was amazing.
The next night we go back (a friend was the back bartender for awhile) and we ask him if he'll make it again. He had no clue what we were talking about. So I described it to him. "Wow, that sounds f*****g awesome! I made that?"
I was working at a downtown brasserie, my first job when I moved to town. We had a bread warmer in the kitchen for biscuits. Inside the bread warmer was a tray. The biscuits came off the line and you plopped them on the tray inside the bread warmer. The biscuits were free. We gave them to every table. The biscuits were also the only thing the staff could eat for free so all of us ate those biscuits every shift. One night while we were doing side work, someone decided to go extra hard cleaning the bread warmer. For one time only someone took the tray out of the warmer to actually wash it and there, underneath the tray in the bread warmer, was a JERKY RAT. A rat that has been dead under the tray in the bread warmer so long that it turned into a dried out husk, completely in tact. The rat jerky had been infusing all of our biscuits for an unknown length of time.
I had a coworker at who had worked at the old Irene’s on Chartres. He had to quit working there after one Christmas season dinner because of the following: An old woman who owned a tourist store on Decatur came in with some folks for a Christmas dinner. She had some kind of medical emergency during dinner and the staff had to lay her on the floor of the dining room. They called 9-1-1, but it took forever for them to come. In the meantime other tables’ plates were coming up in the window. The servers didn’t know what to do, the dining room is small, and they have a regular laid out on the floor dying. The kitchen didn’t care. Ran the food. So the servers end up having to step over the regular’s body to run plates to the dining room. She died. My coworker was justifiably traumatized and quit immediately.
I was working garde manger at Commanders and the food network was filming. I was coming out of the back walk-in, the party plate up table was down. I ducked under it and ripped my chef pants…it was so hot in that kitchen back then I was going commando, I told my sous chef he started laughing, he pointed at his chef coat, I forgot he was mic-ed up.
While dining in New Orleans’ oldest restaurant in December of 2019, a waiter in training accidentally set our tablecloth on fire while making Cerises Jubile (cherries jubilee). The Maitre D’ (finding no humor in the situation) made him stand in the corner by the Christmas tree.
Many years ago eating at a French Quarter “grande dame” restaurant at a table of six-eight. We all ordered turtle soup, which was brought to us in and served out of a tureen. My friend called the waiter over and showed him that there was a rubber band in his soup. The waiter quickly replied, “No extra charge, sir!”
In a well known Italian restaurant the bus boy calmly took his wet cloth and zapped a palmetto bug on the wall in full view. The diners clapped and cheered then continued their evening as if nothing happened
Had brunch at a well-known place in the quarter in the early 90s. Family was visiting me from out of town. We’re in the omelette line. There are two large vats of egg batter to choose from and then the cook makes your omelette. The woman in front of us announces to the cook, “I’m from California and I eat only healthy food.” I’m thinking what the hell are you doing in New Orleans? She then points to a vat and says to the cook, “the egg whites only for me.” To which the cook responds, “Egg whites? There’s no egg whites here. This is New Orleans. Do you want rum or not?”
My sister ordered a Bailey’s and coffee after dinner. The server looked a little confused over her order but said ok. A little while later he brought a plate of carefully arranged bay leaves.
I cooked at very famous restaurant in the French Quarter for six years. One of the craziest things I ever saw was a large mouse fall from the rafters onto a table which the G.M. happened to be chatting with the diners. He quickly grabbed it and jammed it in his pocket before anyone noticed.
One of my guests called me to the table and pulled out a baggie of cocaine from his coleslaw. The table next to theirs, winked at me asked me for the ‘$40 coleslaw’
I was dining in a restaurant/playhouse and the waiter for the table behind us spilled his tray down my back. I had to ask him to bring me some things to help clean the food off my back. Unfortunately the food was spaghetti.
We were seated next to a cabinet that held glassware, a waiter somehow knocked multiple glasses over and they broke all over the cabinet and onto our table.
We took some friends to a very high-end, very well known New Orleans restaurant They were having an off night. I’m not sure if the waiter was new, or just tragically terrible. A few dishes didn’t arrive, and he blamed it on the kitchen when I’m pretty sure they weren’t actually ordered. One of our friends asked for a coffee, to which the aforementioned unfortunate server, replied, “We don’t serve…(disdainful pause)… COFFEE”. Our friend gestured to another waiter laden with a tray of ceramic cups headed to another table, and questioned, “Then what is that?“ To which our server replied, “THAT, is ESPRESSO!”
TALES FROM NEW ORLEANS RESTAURANTS - PART 1: GUESTS' EDITION