I came across this book when it was still in its blog form, while it was being written by an anonymous New York waiter. Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip, Confessions of a Cynical Waiter by Steve Dublanica is, weirdly, the biography of a waiter who starts a blog about his life, gets a book deal out of it, and tries to juggle being a semi-professional waiter while trying to become a published writer.
In the first third of the book, Dublanica explains how he fell into being a waiter after a series of failed careers. His brother helps him get a job at a dysfunctional restaurant in New York. Like Kitchen Confidential, which exposed the dysfunctional and maladaptive behaviors at the back of the house, Waiter Rant does the same for the front of house. Having read both books, it’s a wonder that restaurants succeed at all. In the second third of the book, Steve begins his anonymous blog to bleed off some tension and to share the “war stories” that drew me to this book in the first place. Later, he gets and agent and starts shopping around his book proposal. Meanwhile, things at “The Bistro” start to deteriorate under a paranoid and anxious owner who decides to open a second restaurant.
The best parts of this book are the customer stories. I am amazed to see what people with a fierce sense of entitlement and poor social skills put waitstaff through when they dine. Which was why one of my favorite chapters in this book was the one entitled Vengeance is Mine. Steve is above spitting in peoples’ food, creatively punishing the schmucks for their behavior. The horror stories are really the best parts of the book. To be honest, the book could have used more of them. After nearly seven years as a waiter, I don’t doubt that Dublanica had thousands of stories to tell.
Parts of this book are frankly odd to read. I’ve read other blog-based books before. For the most part, the translation has worked well. Dublanica spends an awful lot of time, however, explain the process of writing the book in such a way that I got the impression that chunks of this book was the author thinking aloud about the process. I don’t know what was in the original book proposal, but I doubt that there were a lot of similarities between the plan and the book that came from it. Still, it’s an interesting read. I want to track down the blog and read the early entries that I missed. If you want to follow along, here is the link to Waiter Rant the Blog.