New York City Restaurant

Having lived in New York for over six years, I have close friends and favorite places that connect me to the city, but I found that without a permanent home I needed another consistent commitment to ground me. Thus, I was a weekend hostess at a restaurant for six months. This was not your average hostessing job. This was an intensely busy New York City restaurant. Most of the time when I was working, there were four hostesses on duty, and the wait time was as long as three hours. Early on, I became the exclusive hostess for large parties. I started doing it because no one else wanted to, since large parties were up a long flight of stairs and were also more unpredictable than smaller parties. Over time, four of us gravitated toward large parties: two servers, a busboy and I. We became our own little crew within the larger system of the restaurant. We saw it all. Birthday parties are a competitive sport in New York City, filled with demands from the person throwing the party. On top of that, our section hosted celebrities, some of whom were more polite than others. The extra challenges drew us together. We moved chairs, dishes and food up and down the stairs while appearing calm and accommodating for the guests. We embraced the challenges, learned to communicate despite language differences, and trusted one another to do what needed to be done. By the end of each night, around 2am, we'd take a collective sigh of relief and recount that night's highlights. With the right people committed to excellence, tough jobs become rewarding. Now that I am away on tour, I miss what one of the servers affectionately called "Team Awesome."