Mondays Aren't All Bad

Yesterday's shift at the restaurant was a good one. Because of the rain it was a mostly slow night, but towards the end I got a decent number of tables. My first table was two English-speaking adults plus a baby named Jack, who was maybe one year old and said “Txikito” and knew his cabeza and nariz. And helado. I think the two adults were his mother and grandfather. I told Jack he was lucky that his family was raising him bilingual.


Later, another group of three sat at the same table. “Famous actor,” a note in OpenTable flagged the reservation. Of course, I had never heard of him. The famous actor was very old, very nice, and appropriately very enthusiastic about the food.

“Are you an artist?” He asked me towards the end of his meal.

“I’m a writer,” I told him, smiling.

“I had a feeling,” he said, nodding.


A young couple sat at the table next to the famous actor. They looked to be in their early 20s. They ordered a bottle of wine and then were easily convinced on a minor upsell. When I went to ring in the order, I found that we no longer had that bottle in stock. So I brought them what they’d originally ordered, a younger wine that was $6 cheaper. They were not fazed by the back-and-forth.

“We’ve had a bad red only once,” they told me with seriousness. “It tasted like nothing.”

I assured them they’d ordered a nicely full-bodied, spicy, oaky Tempranillo. They smiled and said they hoped they’d be able to taste the descriptors I’d named. I laughed and told them it was my job to memorize those words and tell them to my customers so that they’d know what they were tasting.

Later the young man asked me if he was cutting his cochinillo correctly. I told him that if there were rules, I didn’t know them. I told him he was doing great. He told me I was doing great, too.


Another table consisted of three men who were (my favorite customer quality) as enthusiastic about the food as my famous actor. However, one left during dessert to fetch his “addiction” from our sister restaurant across the street. They all laughed about it, and they called me over to bring me in on the joke.


One woman came in by herself, looked at the menu, sat down, drank some water, looked at the menu some more, and then told me she “just didn’t see anything” and left. I got to eat her amuse bouche.


Another couple I waited on were probably in their early 40s. The woman was way hotter than the dude, which bothered me. When ordering, she spoke for both of them, which I appreciated. Generally, they were standoffish. I did not share any laughter with them. Maybe they were having a tough week. But then again, it was only Monday.

through the restaurant window