On Thanksgiving Day seven years ago, I had the worst shift of my restaurant career. I was waiting tables at a high-profile restaurant in midtown Manhattan. Instead of opening for normal business hours, the restaurant served continuously from noon to 8 p.m., offering guests a lavish $195 turkey feast with all the trimmings.
Within hours of opening, the wheels started coming off the wagon. The kitchen couldn’t handle the volume of hundreds of guests being seated all at once. Aggrieved parties stormed out in the middle of their meals after waiting 45 minutes in between courses. Babies cried. Managers were summoned. Most guests left feeling cheated — like we’d ruined their holiday. I suspect that none of them realized (or cared), but they had also ruined mine.
Looking back, what I remember most about that day — aside from flambeeing about 30 orders of bourbon-spiked gravy table-side over a 12-hour shift with no breaks — was how cruel some guests could be. One woman admonished me for causing her children to go hungry, her Cartier bracelet jingling as she angrily waved her hand in my face. Some people took pity on us, but the majority were outright nasty, seemingly unable to recognize that, even if the experience was disappointing, the staff were still forfeiting their own holiday plans to provide them a space to celebrate with their loved ones.
Restaurant workers carry a heavy burden this time of year. They’re expected to work extra hours, and guests are much harder to please. If you’ve developed close relationships with staff at your favorite restaurant, consider doing something special for them in the coming months. A nice bottle of wine is always appreciated, but there are plenty of other ways to acknowledge someone who’s taken special care of you in a restaurant all year round. Here are some other thoughtful ideas:
Treat your favorite waiter to a spa day: Restaurant work exacts a steep physical toll and hospitality workers often don’t have the time or energy for self-care. Treating someone that spends 50-plus hours a week on their feet to a full body massage is like giving them a new lease on life. Wellness gifts of any kind — manicures, pedicures, facials, acupuncture sessions, or even some aromatherapy candles to help them decompress after a rough night — would be warmly received.
Gift items that staff can use at work: Any server will tell you that pens are a very precious commodity, so gifting them a quality pen to jot down orders would be useful. For sommeliers, a Laguiole wine key might be nice: They might already have one, but it always helps to have a backup in case one breaks. Restaurant people also burn through work shoes quickly, so a gift card from Shoes for Crews, a company that specializes in footwear for hospitality pros, would be a godsend. For your favorite chef or line cook, a high quality chef’s knife, a versatile two-sided whetstone, or a sexy chef’s sling bag for their kitchen tools would also be killer.
Bring cold drinks or icy treats for the kitchen: Back in my server days, we would always bring cold beer for the kitchen whenever we came in to dine in our own restaurants. Guests rarely ever acknowledged the kitchen staff, so we made it a point to never arrive empty-handed. Sobriety is more common in restaurant circles nowadays, so bringing a six-pack of chilled Phony Negronis might be a better alternative. Some ice cream sandwiches or a package of freeze pops would do the trick as well.
Send an edible arrangement or a holiday fruit basket: Years ago, a gracious regular sent two enormous edible arrangements to the restaurant as a holiday gift for the staff to share. We initially snickered, but at the end of the night we housed those cantaloupe lollipops, mango flowers, and chocolate-dipped strawberries like it was our last meal. Eating nutritious food can be challenging when you work in the restaurant business. Staff meals are typically carb heavy and devoid of fruits and vegetables unless the chef needs to get rid of them.
Give the gift of knowledge: Hospitality pros love learning about food and drinks, so cookbooks, bartending manuals, and food writing anthologies make great gifts. For wine lovers, there are plenty of great oenology books out there — from iconic classics to new school tomes. There’s also an array of new memoirs by restaurant industry luminaries like Keith McNally and Gabrielle Hamilton published to acclaim. A vintage or antiquarian cookbook from a specialty culinary bookseller like Ominivore Books in San Francisco or Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York City would also make an elegant gift.
Be a “good Karen”: If you’re unable to shower your favorite restaurant workers with physical gifts, there are other more modest ways to show you care. The easiest one is to ask to speak with a manager to share positive feedback. If the staff took great care of you, consider hand-writing a letter to the restaurant thanking them for their hospitality and mailing it to the restaurant. Management often reads these letters aloud to the entire staff, which can provide a nice morale boost over the holidays.