My first restaurant job came the summer after my freshman year of college. I went to Florida to spend the summer with my dad, expecting to work an administrative job at the plumbing supply house where he worked.
When that didn’t happen, I got hired as a server at Texas Roadhouse.
Being from New England, I had never heard of Texas Roadhouse. The casual-dining chain hadn’t reached my part of the country yet.
The Fort Myers location was rarely very busy, which probably made it an excellent place for a newbie like me to learn the POS system, memorize the menu, and understand the basic flow of service.
It was also the first time I’d ever seen a salamander, the high-heat broiler kind, not the reptile kind, and finally understood why cheese fries and nachos were always so much meltier when ordered at a restaurant.
That Texas Roadhouse was filled with characters, but the person who still stands out more than twenty-five years later is Bea (name changed to protect the guilty).
Bea was a manager with two front gold teeth and flexible values.
“Now, whenever you get a cash check, folks paying in cash, you come get me,” Bea instructed me sometime during my first week.
I nodded, always eager to please.
The first time a customer paid in cash, I did as I was told. I watched Bea void the entire check and split the money between her pocket and my apron.
“They got enough here, you know what I mean?”
I did. And I did not like it.
From then on, I spent my shifts dodging Bea and racing to close out cash checks before she noticed. I had no idea who owned the restaurant or how any of its bills got paid, but I knew the cash wasn’t ours to take.
Also, and more importantly, I am and have been a lot of things. A thief isn’t one of them.
Before the end of the summer, Bea was fired. A new manager arrived from “corporate,” whatever that was, to figure out why the location’s numbers were so far off.
No one ever asked me anything. I was relieved they didn’t.
Near the end of the summer, the corporate manager asked why I was leaving. I told him I attended college up north in Connecticut. He said Texas Roadhouse would be coming my way soon and suggested I work for the company again once it reached my neck of the woods.
I was quick to pass. I only worked in restaurants while earning my undergraduate degree. I was sure it would be a phase.
Twenty-six years later, I work in a restaurant again.
A lot happened between then and now. I graduated (twice). I built a career. I’m raising a son. I survived cancer. I lost the professional life I thought I understood and began trying to figure out what I could still do.
Apparently, one answer is restaurant work.
Only a few shifts a week. This time, I’m a host at a very busy independent brunch spot, and this go-round, no one is stealing anything.
During any given shift, I typically clock 14,000 steps. I always leave exhausted and slightly revived.
I know I’ve done something. I know I’ve helped. I know I don’t have very much left to give. I also know I don’t need to carry one bit of it home with me.
There is a joyful stress to the constrained strategy of it all. Sitting guests in the right spots so, hopefully, they don’t ask to move. Managing a waitlist. Gently selling seasonal items. Meeting server expectations for how often their sections are seated. Plus the variety of side work that needs to be done before, during, and after service.
Anyone who dismisses restaurant work as simple has clearly never done it.
It requires presence, grit, composure, and a kind of stealth finesse.
There is also something deeply satisfying about work that shows you exactly what you accomplished. People arrive hungry. I help them find a place to sit. I help clear tables. The restaurant fills and empties. I seat more guests and clear more tables. Then I go home.
I don’t need to build a brand around it. I know it mattered. The evidence was right in front of me.
Even though I initially left restaurants more than twenty years ago, I never let go of the belief that if I could work in a restaurant, I could do anything.
I still believe that.
Now I need more people willing to hire me to believe it, too.
There are so many important life skills learned in restaurant work. Executive function, resilience, planning ahead, helping others, working as a team, thinking on your feet, grit, even when someone treats you badly, and how to handle a customer who won't stop saying sexual comments or slapping your butt as you walk by....
I think every young person should work for a bit in a restaurant. When I've hired people the ones who have worked at summer camps or in a restaurant posess so many more "soft" skills than those without that type of work experience.