Las Vegas Wine Angels and Bangkok Zip-Line Servers, Defined

Individuals do not have a tendency to consider ready tables as a harmful career. The stakes of carrying steaks usually are not very excessive when in comparison with loads of different jobs. There’ll by no means be a Tom Cruise motion film concerning the perils of serving meals in a restaurant. Though ready tables typically appears like an inconceivable mission, the closest we are going to ever get to that sort of Tom Cruise film is when he starred in Cocktail in 1988. The worst factor that might have occurred to him in that film was a bump on the brow from an errant cocktail shaker after a very wayward effort of bartending aptitude. 

I spent a couple of years serving drinks in a cabaret room in New York Metropolis. Carrying overpriced Cosmos on a tray over my head in a dimly lit area whereas performers are emoting on a stage mere ft away is difficult however not particularly hazardous. That is to not say that everybody who serves meals or drinks has a very secure job. 

The zip-lining servers of Bangkok

A restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand, known as The Royal Dragon held the Guinness World Report for 10 years because the largest restaurant on this planet. It had seating for five,000 diners and coated 8.35 acres. (The present Guinness World Report holder, Bawabet Dimashq Restaurant, has 6,014 seats.) Surprisingly, that was not what it was most identified for. The area was so large that servers carried meals from one space to the subsequent by the use of a zipper line, zooming throughout cables over lagoons, all of the whereas carrying one of many over 1,000 entrées that have been provided on the menu. It wasn’t each server who used a zipper line and it was most likely extra of a gimmick than utterly vital, nevertheless it undoubtedly added a component of hazard to an ordinarily innocuous job.

The restaurant has since shuttered. Its closure might or might not have had one thing to do with the zip strains, however my idea is that staff may merely not deal with memorizing the substances of 1,000 dishes.

The wine angels of Las Vegas

In Las Vegas (after all) there was a restaurant at Mandalay Bay known as Aureole. Most eating places may need a wine cellar, however this restaurant had a four-story glass wine tower with over 10,000 bottles of wine. Bottles have been retrieved by attractive “wine angels,” who have been ladies strapped right into a rigging system and flown into the air to position the bottle into their wine holster after which float again to the bottom. It was fairly the spectacle and folks went to see the wine angels simply as a lot as they went for the meals. It was like dinner and a present. There have been by no means any stories of accidents, however at the very least 10 bottles of wine have been dropped in its 24-year historical past. 

The restaurant closed in 2023 and was changed with a residency by 2013 F&W Greatest New Chef Michael Voltaggio and brother Bryan Voltaggio. Rumor has it one of many former wine angels is at present starring in a non-Fairness bus-and-truck tour of Peter Pan, however as a substitute of pixie mud it’s a 2018 Château Lafite Rothschild that make Wendy, Michael, and John fly and Tinker Bell is costumed in an all-black catsuit.

The curler skating waiters of Shanghai

There are many eating places the place servers are identified for carrying curler skates as they serve their company. Carhops have been notably widespread within the Forties and ’50s and have been repeatedly featured on the tv present Completely satisfied Days. As a child, I bear in mind how thrilling it was to go to Sonic Drive-In and have somebody roll out to our automotive with my chili cheese canine and lemonade. 

There’s a restaurant, Hong Zi Ji,  in Shanghai, China, that has gone viral with movies of waiters rushing by the restaurant on skates whereas carrying elaborate plates of meals. It’s very, very spectacular, however my favourite movies are when issues do not go fairly as deliberate and it’s very, very messy. Curler-skating won’t be as dangerous as zip-lining or being suspended 40 ft into the air to get a bottle of wine, nevertheless it’s tougher than the common server job, and that is removed from the one roller-skating restaurant within the nation, and locations like Riink — additionally in Shanghai — enable prospects to get skating time in as effectively. 

Personally, I am going to preserve my nonslip sneakers firmly planted on the bottom. If Tom Cruise needs to make a film about my life in eating places, he can re-create the scene the place I dropped 4 plates of scorching fajitas at a Mexican restaurant in Denver. It won’t be worthy of a cinematic masterpiece, however on the time it appeared fairly dramatic.