Michael Cecchi-Azzolina - Your Table Is Ready

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To Uncle Rob Dies. Without whose continued encouragement, support, and advice, this book would never have been written.

FROM THE MOMENT I trained as a waiter (wed yet been neutered into servers), inexperienced, eager, excited, I fell in love with the restaurant business. Thirty-five years later Im still at it. I havent served a table in years, at least not all the way through, yet here I am, still toiling away, greeting guests, overseeing staff, and doing my best to create an environment of good food and great atmosphere and hopefully bring a bit of sustenance and joy to my guests. Restaurants have served as the family I never had. Nothing matches the feeling I get when I am in a packed dining room, the bar full, guests talking, laughing, having a cocktail or a glass of wine while waiting for a meal. I get comfort from the families who come, the couples, the dates, the music, the dim lights, the laughter, conversations, orders being taken, drinks poured, the clatter of plates, the clanging of silverware, glasses tapped together in toast, a bartenders shakerthe sound of the ice and liquor slamming against the top and sides of the tin (I still salivate at the sound)the arguments, the nasty customers, its all a grand symphony to me. Its why I love this sometimes-shitty business and why many others like me are drawn to it.

We restaurant workers are a band of misfits, many of us unable to work a real job, one in an office or a factory, or the millions of variants we call normal. Many in the business, especially the front of the house, are transient. I never met anyone who grew up wanting to be a server. Most are there because they needed work in college or something temporary because of a lost position, or they are pursuing other careers and take a restaurant job while they wait for something in their desired line of work. And there are those who do this every day and have made a career out of it. To all of you, I tip my hat.

Restaurant jobs are plentiful, and honestly, what does it take to write down hamburger on a piece of paper, walk to a machine, punch the order in, pick up the food when its ready, bring it to the table, drop a check once the meal is finished, then collect the money. You dont need an advanced degree or to be highly intelligent (though many of those Ive worked with over the years are incredibly so), though it does take a special sort of person to put up with the long hours, the demands of the customers, the multitasking, the sometimes awful ownership, the shit managerial staff, the abusive chefs and cooksyet theres a beauty in all of it. A well-run dining room is an art, a ballet, a confluence of pieces that come together to bring a guest a meal.

Our guests come not just for sustenance, but to celebratebirthdays, anniversaries, a wedding, a death, a date, friends getting together, the pursuit of sex, love, its all happening on any given night, and on any given night most of my working life has been spent in this environment. I am just a piece in the show. For many years, restaurants enabled me artistically, socially, and sexually. Ive met the loves of my life in restaurants, my greatest friends have worked alongside me, and many are still my friends even though the name above the door has changed numerous times for us. Ive had trysts, got naked, fucked, laughed, drunk, drugged, puked, and shared the gamut of our human existence in restaurants. Its now time to share these experiences, the people, the food, the insanity of the places so many of us take for granted.

This industry is composed of misfits and losers, artists and drunks, unbelievable beauties, downtrodden addicts, and some of the greediest and most narcissistic people you will ever meet, all counterbalanced with the most generous, loving, hardworking, and creative people on the planet, those of us who create, inhabit, and give life to the hospitality industry. Ive spent thirty-plus years working with or have been in the company of some of the best this industry has. Legends that turned American cuisine on its head: Larry Forgione, hailed as the Godfather of American Cuisine; Charlie Palmer, who made it elegant and insightful; David Burke, who built gravity-defying structures of food, turned things upside down, and reinvented what we thought was beautiful; Rick Moonen; Buzzy OKeeffe; the Raoul brothers; Keith and Brian McNally; Thomas Kellerthe list goes on and on.

Do I love the industry? Yes. Do I hate it? Fuck yeah. This business helped pay the bills, kept me fueled in booze, drugs, and women. Has given me entre to the richest, the most powerful, the most celebrated of actors, designers, politicians, heads of state, industrialists, stockbrokers, prostitutes, porn stars, alcoholics, millionaires, and billionaires. Ive drunk and played with many of them, celebrated with them, fucked some, shared stories, and, most important, welcomed them as who they arefellow humans with the same desires, drives, wants, and problems we all have. Who am I? Im your neighborhood waiter, bartender, and matre dhtel. Im the one you come to for a table, the right table, at any time, greeted with a hug and sometimes a kissalways a smile, treating many of you as if you were my brother, sister, or lover. I love it because its real, because I love the people who come to me every night. I want to be in their orbit, and because of my position, where I work and have worked, they want to be in mine. I am you. All of you, and you are all of me; we need to escape, celebrate, run, hide, and live. We give one another life.

What follows is my story. As best I can remember, since many of those days are recalled from when I was under a haze of alcohol and drugs. The restaurant industry is not just about truffles and sweetbreads, caviar and cream, a prime fillet of beef or a freshly caught Dover sole. Its also about sex, drugs, and an array of misbehaviors perpetrated by both staff and guests. Its a cutthroat, shitty business, the hours long, the work grueling, at times the only relief being the booze up at the front bar. Sometimes, if you get really lucky, maybe a chance to screw the closing hostess, though that presents its own set of problems. If youve ever dined in a restaurant, partaken of food in its all glories and abominations, if you are a foodie, chef, cook, server, busser, dishwasher, or hungry patron, youve experienced at least some of this, or, I guarantee, you have been in the proximity of it all. It goes hand in hand, from ours to yours. Those EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS signs are no jokeour hands are dirty, very dirty. Will I offend here? I expect so. Most of this book takes place in a very different age from today. The restaurant industry, as many others, has been rocked by abuses of power, horrific sex scandals, and a complete disregard for women. #MeToo is here for a reason, and a very good one. What I chronicle in these pages was of a time, and I write about those times as they were. To edit what happened or to soften some of the details would not be true, nor would it be a representation of the times, which were both amazing and heartbreaking. This is the way it was for me and many of those I have worked with and for.