Steve Dublanica

I enjoyed this book very much. It offers a bit of insight into what can often be a frustrating and tiring job. The author tells stories about both the good and the bad in being a waiter, but his way of recounting the latter experiences is often laugh-out-loud funny—and makes for quite the entertaining reading experience.

I’ve developed a new appreciation for the hard work and sacrifices waiters make in order to perform their jobs well. I felt that the author was being pretty honest in how he related to restaurant staff and customers in his job. I thought his writing was excellent and am happy that his career eventually turned more completely to writing. I was most sad at the end of this book where our restaurant manager (The Waiter) leaves his job at The Bistro. It reminded me of all the feelings I had when my own full time employment unexpectedly ended. I enjoyed the appendices and found them very useful. I do hope to read another book by this author in the future.… (more)

This book is an insider's view of the restaurant business from the point of view of a career waiter. Apparently, Steve has a very popular blog, which I have not read. In so far as a book goes, I'd say that Steve's account of life as a waiter was a quick, engaging read, but not one that especially moved me. There's interesting stories of difficult customers, and that was probably my favorite part of the book. But I guess Steve felt there needed to be a bigger theme, and the theme was Steve "finding himself". Frankly, I didn't care if Steve felt bad that he was wasting his life as a waiter at the beginning of the book, and that didn't really change for me at the end either. I did come away with the knowledge that being a waiter definitely is hard work, and I appreciated the fact that Steve had deep empathy for some of his customers.… (more)