Raising Spirits

If an old job of yours had a reunion, would you go?

I was just telling my mom that class reunions are fine and all and all but what we really need is a reunion of our favorite jobs. (Not like a company picnic, unless the picnic had spiked punch and knife-throwing contests.)

I had this job at a restaurant out of state, and man, it was something. It was one of those times in life that even as you lived it, you knew it was special. Ourselves, our teammates, the work we did--we knew it was all happening on a higher level. The energy was palpable. We fed off of it and others wanted to be near it, which kept our guests coming back night after night.

Am I telling you we were saving the world? At a restaurant? Yes, I am saying that. Every. Single. Night. We were raising the bar on our own lives, making decisions and taking risks. We charged into everything with gusto. We were raising spirits, raising expectations, raising hopes and propelling dreams, one shift at a time.

The serving staff, chefs, bartenders, and hostesses were all think-outside-the-box types. We were all future somethings, authors, artists, musicians, photographers, nurses, business owners… And we could sell the hell out of anything.

The restaurant had a lounge atmosphere with candlelit tables and live music every night. We had a great wine list, great martini list, and we served mostly Italian food.

But there was a season there when we’d come in to the baker hadn’t restocked our desserts. (I guess no one expected us to sell it all.) We’d be about to go into a busy weekend with only two slices of pie and some ice cream to sell. So, we’d raid the walk-in freezer, which never disappointed. We’d find cakes and cheesecakes and chocolate-ganache sweets that we never served in our restaurant. When you have your own baker you typically only serve house-made desserts.

None of us knew why these desserts were in the freezer, but we knew where they came from, Sysco, which meant they were delivered by the food truck so someone wanted them there. Were they there for a special booking? A reservation for a party at the upstairs restaurant? There was a fine dining restaurant on the main floor, above us. Our lounge restaurant was in the basement. Same owners, and a lot of the staff rotated both floors. It crossed our minds that these desserts might be meant for something special. But that didn’t actually stop us.

In a pinch, these frozen discoveries would save us from an embarrassing weekend of telling our guests, “We have no dessert,” and the equally frustrating prospect of creating a perfect evening for someone, only to let it fall flat in the end. Imagine going out to eat at a great place, a place that was almost a secret. You found the door, which was on the opposite side of the building from the parking lot, went downstairs to the basement, and spent a few hours listening to music and eating and drinking only the very best. Then you’re told there’s no dessert? Excuse me? Not on our watch.

So, during the season of no desserts—and it did seem like a season, a whole period of time where this kept happening to us--we’d immediately swing in to action. We got so good at it that we didn’t even need to discuss our parts. Someone would raid the freezer, usually Devon, while the rest of us pulled all of the paper menus from the restaurant. Devon knew where to look and she knew what kind of dessert would work. The serving staff plated our own desserts so it couldn’t be too delicate or we’d destroy it in our constant hurry. When you have a dessert chef, like the restaurant upstairs, you could opt for delicate and intricate desserts. But not where we were. So Devon would find something workable and she’d get a team together to experiment: Did it already have a pretty design, or would it need to be covered with sauces? Was it better when heated or served cold? She and her team would then plate the dessert—literally put it on a plate and dress it with a combination of chocolate, caramel, or raspberry sauce, or chocolate shavings, or whipped cream or ice cream, none or some or all of these things, and would show the rest of us what it should look like and how to do it quickly. Once we were all up to speed, we’d grab forks and take a bite, or a couple bites. Sometimes we’d have to make a second one. Sounds awesome, right? It was. But there’s a method to the madness here. We’d eat and discuss what the dessert should be called. The chefs would get in on this, too, and anyone passing by in the kitchen from the upstairs restaurant would be handed a fork.

[I remember driving with a friend years later in a different town in a different state and we passed one of my fellow servers on the street and I waved. And my friend teased me and said, “You don’t know that person.” And I said, “Are you kidding? I waited tables with her. We’ve probably eaten off the same fork.”]

Back to dessert: Together, we’d come up with a catchy name, a description, and a price, and someone, usually Crystal, would go to work putting that language on the menu. Robb would copy a bunch of new menus, and I would add a button to the computer so it showed up on our dessert screen complete with price and tax, and I’d assign it to print onto the guest checks. Slick, right? In a matter of minutes, we’d have desserts ready for the weekend.

Suffice it to say the owners were almost never around. Can you imagine this crew with supervision? If we had a job reunion today, the owners might not be invited. But we also never got in trouble for selling these pilfered desserts. Not once. And they must have known, right? So maybe they’d get an invite after all.

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I’ve written before about this dessert mayhem in I blog I called Shameless in 2013. Same memory, different point. (One of Devon’s desserts we named Chocolate Dream.) Check it out.