Notes from Underground

or My Life in Nightlife

Down the Rabbit Hole

 

The Initial Descent

It was just under a year ago and I was sleeping on a twin-sized mattress on the floor of my new apartment in Bed Stuy. Roommate was set to arrive in a few days from the Boys Camp where he spends his summers (as the music director, not as a boy), but for the time being I had the place to myself.

I had been running around with a Pseudo-Rock-Star who had blacked out on our first date. But he was pretty cute and I was severely rebounding so I let it slide.

A friend from Oberlin had offered to refer me to his former employer who was opening a new restaurant. At this point my serving career was approximately six weeks long and confined to Cambridge. However, I did know how to shuck my own oysters. Probably one of the few tangible skills I acquired the entire time I was there. That, riding a bike in city traffic, and being able to talk loudly without losing my voice.

Joking. I’m joking! Grad school was an infinitely valuable experience. I would never have achieved such a finely developed sense of cynicism without it.

Anyway I needed a job. And I wasn’t going to get one in a restaurant without a reference. Sign me up!

I emailed Female Co-Owner of Mexican Restaurant, who in her response requested that I send a resume and PHOTO to the General Manager. I barely had time to acknowledge that this was a strange request before I got an email from GM telling me to just come in with my resume.

Later I learned that this practice of asking for photos for serving jobs is, while commonplace, actually discriminatory and illegal. But as an actor I was like, oh, you want my picture, cool, headshot of full body?

GM said to come by any time between three and five. I said I’d be there at four, but of course at this point I was terrible at navigating the city, and what’s more, this restaurant was in Chinatown. Chinatown! Who (besides those who live there) knows their way around Chinatown?

So I’m booking it down Canal, and then I turn onto… Mott? But then… wait… how did I get back on Centre street… fuck, this is Broadway again, OK…. Finally I find the tiny little street that leads to the even tinier street, but where #11 should be there is no door. Only a concrete staircase. And a sign advertising a Vietnamese restaurant. An extremely attractive guy in a Henley tee with rolled up sleeves emerges carrying a ladder and places it on the stoop of #9, also unmarked. Signs of life. OK, I figure, down the rabbit hole it is.

At the bottom of the stairs there are two doors. Behind door number one is a bicycle and some cardboard boxes. I open door number two. Straight ahead of me is a wall. I feel like I’m trapped in the labyrinth in King’s Quest VI.

But wait! If I look to the right there are some tables that look like they could be part of a restaurant. If I look to my left there are… people! And a bar! OK.

The bar is detailed with brass plates and poles. A man in a white labcoat is cutting open a box of produce on the tile floor, while another guy in a vest yells at him in Spanish from behind the bar. Another extremely attractive scruffy guy is attending to some construction issue in the corner, while talking to a smaller bespectacled guy with a bowtie.

I clear my throat. “I’m looking for GM?”

They all stop and look up at me, but only one says anything. “I’m GM, can I help you?”

“I’m Annika, Oberlin Friend’s Friend? Sorry I’m late, this place is kind of hard to find…”.

We sit at a booth. I give GM my resume, which I took the liberty of attaching to my headshot.

“Ha. Are you an actor or something?”

“Female Co-Owner asked for a picture in her email, so….”

“Wow, master’s from Harvard.”

“Um, yeah, sort of….”

“Yeah, no, that’s a good program. I’m an actor too. I have a theater company.”

“Oh really? Awesome. Anything I would have heard of?”

“Our last production was a couple of years ago… how long have you been in New York?”

“Um, a week as of yesterday.”

“Oh wow. So this would be your first New York serving job?”

“Yes. As you can see from my resume, I don’t have a ton of restaurant experience, but I learn really quickly….”

GM laughs. “Don’t worry. I mean Oberlin Friend recommended you and obviously you went to Harvard, so I’m sure we’d be happy to have you.”

Does that sound like I’m hired? To me that sounds like I’m hired….

“I don’t know how much Oberlin Friend told you, we’re going to be doing authentic Mexican food, and then the bar is going to focus on tequila, mezcal, and pulque. We’re the only restaurant in New York, maybe even in the country, I don’t know, to serve pulque.”

“Wow, that’s amazing. Why does no one else have it?”

“Because it’s disgusting. Have you ever had it? Do you know what it is?”

“Uh, no, I guess not….”

“It’s fermented agave. It tastes like snot. It’s foul.”

Wow, what a resounding endorsement….

“Well, anyway,” he continues, “we’ll definitely be in touch.”

The cute Henley guy from upstairs has joined the other scruffy guy in the corner, and now yet another scruffy thirty-something jogs across the tiled floor, wallet chain dangling out of his pocket. They’re multiplying.

“Oh, Chef,” GM catches the one with the chain, “This is Annika. And Annika this is our Executive Chef, and this is Investor (Henley guy) and Male Co-Owner, Female Co-Owner’s brother.” All three of them have that look that says “Nice to meet you but there’s no way I’m going to remember your name”. Oh well.

Upstairs on the corner of Street I Don’t Know and Street I Sort of Know, I call my Mom. “So, I think I got a job…. No, no, like a day job. Well, more of a night job, I suppose. At a restaurant. Yeah. Um… it’s a Mexican restaurant. In Chinatown.”

I guess I was wrong because three days later I got a group email from GM inviting myself and several other qualified candidates to a final interview with the owners. Ugh. One interview is always better than two. Just like hiding is always funny.

But! Tuesday morning I was roused from my sleep on my tiny twin mattress on the floor (which I happened to be sharing with Pseudo Rock Star at that moment, corpse-like physique, arms akimbo, still passed out in his tighty-whiteys) by a call from GM, asking if I could work an event that night. I took a minute to pretend to check my calendar before informing him that yes, I could make it. Great. But I still had to have a “final interview” that afternoon.

About twenty of us sat in the dark basement and didn’t say much. GM told us a little more about the project and brought us one by one for an interview on 16 (the VIP booth) with both Male and Female Co-Owner.

Eventually some conversation broke out when an ominous rumbling seemed too extreme to be blamed on construction. I suggested that it was an earthquake, but everyone looked at me like I was crazy.

“Ah, you’re the one that went to Harvard,” Male co-Owner said when I sat down in the booth across from them. I don’t misrepresent myself on my resume, I swear, people will believe what they want to. We touched on how great a guy Oberlin Friend is and my “style of service”. Female Co-Owner finished the conversation by saying that they’d let me know. There was an awkward moment when GM had to inform her that I had already been hired and was working the event that night.

“Oh, I see. OK, well in that case, yeah… just… wear black. Something cute.”

I was wearing a long black dress.

“Sure,” GM chimed in, “what you’re wearing is fine.”

“Yeah…” Female Co-Owner added, in a tone that indicated it clearly wasn’t.

“Oh, no,” I reassured them, “I wasn’t going to wear this.” I totally was.

Cut to me in a trashy-trendy clothing store with blasting house music. I found a little black skirt, black shirt with a cut-out back, and some cute-ish boots that I could mostly walk in. My limited serving experience had involved a treacherous staircase and I could never possibly serve in heels, I thought. Oh, if I only knew….

Above ground I notice that my twitter feed is blowing up. Fuck. That was an earthquake. Does anyone remember that day? Yeah all this happened on that day.

Fake It Till You Make It

Meanwhile back in the dungeon I am introduced to the guy I’m going to be working the event with that night, and GM informs us that we are the “first hires”. I think that’s kind of like making the dean’s list.  Apparently tonight’s event is going to be a five course tasting featuring different pairings with a featured tequila, and there should be “a lot of VIPs”.

At this point we commence a montage of me pretending that I know how to do things. We have to make roll-ups, so I cleverly convince Other First Hire to show me how to make roll-ups “his way”. In discussing how we are going to prepare for various courses, GM and Other First Hire talk about whether or not they’re going to “mark” courses. “Sure, yeah, that sounds like it would be helpful,” I chime in. I have never felt like such an imposter in my life.

The fancy tequila retails for something like $350 a bottle. I’m told that it’s a “joven” tequila… yeah I forget what that means. Anyway. A fancy lady in a fancy beige suit gives me some to taste and we talk about the “notes”. It tastes more like water than other tequilas which I guess for tequila is a good thing. Or a bad thing, depending on how you want your night to go.

GM, Other First Hire and I painstakingly arrange the room, but then some girls in six-inch glitter heels with their hair piled high on top of their heads come in and reconfigure everything. “I hate promoters,” GM mutters under his breath.

So I stand by the door with a cocktail tray of champagne flutes full of this fucking expensive liquid asking people if they want some when they walk in and basically running a constant internal monologue of “please don’t drop the tray please don’t drop the tray please don’t drop the tray.”

Nobody seems to know what they’ve signed up for. I say the name of the tequila when I offer it to people and they look at me like I’m crazy. “Oh, wait, it’s tequila? Yeah, no, I don’t want that….”

Now everybody’s seated family style and those who are drinking are drinking really fast because the food is coming out really slowly. Every time I bus a plate back into the kitchen I can feel the frustration radiating off the line. But if my six weeks of serving experience prepared me for anything, it’s this: crazy mean chefs. I was so terrified of the chef at my restaurant in Cambridge I could barely form a complete sentence in front of him. The things that came out of this man’s mouth…. OK I’m done shuddering now.

One of the promoters beckons me over, pulls my ear close to her mouth and tells me to keep everyone’s glasses full. So I do a round and pour out one of the bottles (which is made of crystal, did I mention that?) but then Fancy Beige Suit Lady pulls me her way and mentions that we might be low on product so “pour light”. Cool.

The doors to the kitchen don’t swing yet, they still have handles. So I’m trying to open the door with an armful of dishes, half-way into the kitchen when I realize that Female Co-Owner is in there yelling at Chef about how the food is too slow. My hands are full and I can’t go back out, but I don’t want to go all the way in either. Female Co-Owner exits through the other door and Chef turns around exasperatedly only to see me lurking. He seems on the verge of yelling but then throws his hands up and just says, with an air of extreme disappointment, “Don’t be coming through here all the time.”

Oh God. The Chef hates me. The event that I’m working is a disaster. I can’t simultaneously keep everyone’s glasses full and “pour light”. I am so fired.

I really have no idea how we got through that night except that GM gave us some shots of tequila and everyone was pretty drunk by the time the entrees came out. None of the alleged VIPs showed up, but no one seemed to notice. Male Co-Owner was holding court down on one end of the table, with a girl on each arm of his chair. So he was having a good time. In fact everyone was so drunk and that a lot of them were leaving by the time the entrée course came out, so there were several untouched plates of red snapper in the kitchen. I found Female Co-Owner back there chowing down, and she handed a plate to me and to Other First Hire.

“It’s so fucking good,” she was praising Chef with her mouth full, then turned to us, “Don’t you guys think this dish is amazing? And it’s beautiful, too….” I guess she really was a fan of his, on some level. Why else would she have hired him.

I walked out with GM and Other First Hire. GM congratulated us on doing a good job. He and Other first Hire were headed to some club, turns out they were already friends from some other places they’d worked. I guess that’s why he was the other guy they picked. “Aren’t you going to invite Annika to come with us?” GM asked. Other First Hire stared bashfully at his feet and then tried to toss off a casual “Oh, yeah, wanna come?”

I looked at my phone, expecting to have heard from Pseudo Rock Star by now, but nothing. Maybe he would text me in a bit. I declined their offer and headed back to Bed Stuy to pass out in my tiny twin sized mattress on the floor, alone.