In Rome there is (or used to be) a restaurant called La Parolaccia (the swearword) where customers would be insulted throughout the evening, and service would be suspended several times a night so that the waitstaff could pull out guitars and sing rude ditties to the cliental. A gimmick, but good fun to go to (perhaps once a decade or so).
I mistakenly thought the world’s most abusive waiter was a manager at a Shoney’s that has since burned down. Fong made that guy, who yelled at customers, yelled at staff, cut fruit with a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth, and sat down with every woman who made the mistake of dining alone, look like Jeeves.
I’m unable to find it now but I remember reading an article in MacLean’s back in the '90’s about a restaurant trend of staff putting on a deliberate show of rudeness. I’m glad it didn’t catch on, but I remembered it when I read a 2009 T&L article that highlights some restaurants where rudeness is part of the service. Call me touchy but I took it as a list of places to stay away from.
Edsel was also known for his crass “flirtation:” an entire wall at Sam Wo was dedicated to Polaroid photos of the waiter in various degrees of groping unsuspecting young females.
Haha! Sexual assault and battery sure are funny! What a loony, lovable character!
Also, it’s great that all the descriptions of the guy groping female customers are from the perspective of the female customers’ male companions. “Gee whillikers, my date sure hated it when the waiter grabbed her butt! Isn’t that just a gas?”
Right? The “enjoyment of abuse” here is clearly a privilege.
Edsel was also very kind, he would see me and my 3 friends splitting something to eat because we did not have much in the way of cash (we were regs good portion size) and many a time a “mistake” would come to our table, sometimes 2 or 3 mistakes. I still remember him saying “you boys look to thin no girl is going to want a stick in bed eat this or youll make me look bad.” Sure he was a rude S.O.B. but he also was very sweet and funny. Oh yea one time he grabbed a handful of our drummers butt, and laughed when he complained saying oh excuse me with that pretty butt and that long hair I thought you were sexy girl…I laughed so hard I couldn’t walk up the stairs.
This story reminds me vaguely of House of Nanking in San Francisco . .not sure if they still are this way, but back like a few years ago their waitstaff was pretty curt, short, and “abusive”, i.e. not being the modicum of courtesy that Westerners / Americans would expect … it was par for the course, you went in there expecting it
apparently some people like to be abused:
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