Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip--Confessions of a Cynical Waiter by Steve Dublanica

From Barnes & Noble

In this book, the pseudonymous Steve Dublanica (a.k.a. Dan John Miller) achieves for waiters what Anthony Bourdain did for cooks in Kitchen Confidential. By the evidence of Waiter Rant, not even his seminary classes or job as a psychiatric worker could prepare Dublanica adequately for what he would experience pulling shifts at an upscale restaurant outside New York City. He tells story after entertaining story about customers, co-workers, and bosses who range individually from the imperious to the clinically insane. Along the way, the author-waiter delivers sound advice on proper tip etiquette and the art of getting good service.

From the Publisher

FROM THE PRIZEWINNING BLOGGER OF WAITERRANT.NET, AN INSIDER'S HILARIOUS LOOK AT A WAITER'S LIFE AT AN UPSCALE NEW YORK-AREA RESTAURANT—KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL AT THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE.

According to The Waiter, eighty percent of customers are nice people just looking for something to eat. The remaining twenty percent, however, are socially maladjusted psychopaths. Waiter Rant offers the server's unique point of view, replete with tales of customer stupidity, arrogant misbehavior, and unseen bits of human grace transpiring in the most unlikely places. Through outrageous stories, The Waiter reveals the secrets to getting good service, proper tipping etiquette, and how to keep him from spitting in your food. The Waiter also shares his ongoing struggle, at age thirty-eight, to figure out if he can finally leave the first job at which he's truly thrived.

The Washington Post - Jonathan Yardley

…amusing and informative…Waiter Rant is as delightful as it is irreverent.

Publishers Weekly

Anonymity is tough to maintain when you want to do a book tour. Such is the case with Steve Dublanica, a seminary dropout and laid-off psychiatric worker who, in 2004, started www.WaiterRant.net, blogging as "The Waiter." His brutal observations on waiting tables at an upscale restaurant he called "The Bistro" (outed as Lanterna Tuscan Bistro in Nyack, N.Y.) are expanded in this entertaining audio. Dan John Miller is pitch perfect not only as the Waiter-who devolves from woebegone rookie into jaded veteran-but also as his customers, co-workers, bosses and brother. Miller's vocal interpretation dovetails seamlessly with the material. He shines when the Waiter is dishing it out, but even more so when he's taking it. Miller's performance is enthralling during passages in which he reveals his crippling self-doubt, overwhelming sense of underachievement and acknowledgment that he's become somewhat of a jerk. An Ecco hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 28). (Aug.)

Lance Eaton - Library Journal

When not waiting tables at a pricey New York City restaurant, the pseudonymous author dishes out insults and shares his observations on the popular blog www.waiterrant.net. He's now turned his musings into a book, and this reviewer feels a "don't quit your day job" is in order. While the autobiographical ramblings can be interesting and even mildly amusing, and actor/musician Dan John Miller narrates with an appropriately benevolent, all-knowing tone, more often than not listeners will wish they'd ordered another entrée. Instead of making a full meal of it, they'd do better to sample this production (audio clip available through library.brillianceaudio.com). [The Ecco hc was recommended "for larger public libraries and those seeking to add depth to their memoir collections," LJ5/15/08; optioned for development as a TV series.-Ed.]

Kirkus Reviews

A popular blogger offers behind-the-scenes tales about working the front of the house. After defecting from seminary and losing his subsequent job, the author took a temporary position as a server in an upscale New York restaurant. Six or seven years later, much to his own surprise, he was still waiting tables and anonymously recording his experiences at WaiterRant.net. In the casual, confessional tone of a seasoned blogger, The Waiter tells of corruption, intrigue, drug abuse, heated romance and of course tips, weaving it all into a humorously detailed memoir. Restaurant work can be emotionally toxic and brutalizing, he reveals. Living outside the nine-to-five world's boundaries warped and changed him and his fellow servers. Holidays became a source of stress, not joy, and accepting a friend's Friday night dinner invitation amounted to sacrificing hundreds of dollars in unearned pay. Worst of all were the bad customers, many of whom exhibited an astonishing level of self-absorption and entitlement. Required to endure abuse with a smile, many waiters unsurprisingly blew their night's tips on drinks after hours. Still, the life of a server wasn't all groveling and bingeing; some learned, as The Waiter did, to wield subtle, psychological control over even the most recalcitrant customers. He's good on psychological analysis too: His taxonomy of tippers comes complete with shrewd assessments of their various motivations, such as the mistaken assumption of "the verbal tipper" that heaping on praise will make up for a shoddy tip. The author began to relish the intimate glimpses he got into diners' personal lives, and underneath his hard-earned cynicism he seems justifiably proud of his progressin a difficult job. A heartfelt, irreverent look at the underbelly of fine dining.

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