# A Love Letter to Waiting Tables

By Pamela Vachon•7 min read

### Quick Answers

- After years in administrative work, Pamela Vachon found restaurant service more energizing, dynamic, and intellectually engaging than her previous office jobs.
- Serving gave Vachon a hands-on education in food, wine, cheese, hospitality, and guest experience.
- Vachon makes the case that waiting tables can be a meaningful, financially rewarding career and not just a fallback job.

“When I grow up, I would like to be a waitress.”

That’s what is written in my 9-year-old scrawl on a bit of school artwork: a mirror made out of tin foil with the title, “A Reflection of Me.”

There were only so many professions that I was even aware of at that age, but it turns out there was some serious self-awareness at work. I liked to eat, and I especially liked to eat at sit-down restaurants, a rare treat at the time. But obviously something deeper appealed to me about the act of serving. It would be a long and circuitous route before I actually tied on an apron — I waited my first table at age 35 — and it was a love story from the start.

## The Long Road to the Front of House

Most people don’t end up following their 9-year-old dreams, and I was no exception. Working in a restaurant wasn’t generally encouraged for smart, ambitious young people, so I spent my young adulthood chasing other interests.

In my mid-30s, however, following 12 years of administrative work, I was restless, miserable, and frequently fantasizing about quitting my job to be a server. I read every server memoir that was available — even “Waiter Rant” — and still came away with the same gut feeling: Yes, this is for me.

The problem was that I had no experience, no knowledge of front of house structure, and lacked the moxie to apply for a restaurant position. Instead, I did what any master’s-degree-holding adult fantasizing about working in restaurants would do: I went to culinary school.

## Finding the Work That Finally Fit

I finally got the courage to apply for and was offered my first restaurant job as a server assistant. Assuming that I was heading for a future in the kitchen from my in-progress culinary degree, I took the server role just to keep myself afloat financially.

After my first few training shifts in the front of house, I felt the unmistakable glow of self-satisfaction; I had been right all along, even since childhood. Working in restaurant service was fun, really fun. I liked the energy and motion of it, the camaraderie among the staff, the interaction with guests, and all the little ways in which we could enhance the dining experience.

## Why Serving Stayed with Me

Serving is incessantly portrayed as a job, and a fallback one at that, rather than a career. But for me — and many other service professionals I’ve encountered in my restaurant tenure — it is nothing short of a calling, and the time I spent in restaurant service came with a wealth of personal and professional growth.

## Serving is Brain Work

Serving for me was indeed fun, but it was also much more than that. I found that waiting tables at any level required more and a better use of my brain than any of the “professional” jobs I had previously done. The constant prioritizing and re-prioritizing of tasks, recollection of information, and communication, coupled with the motion and choreography that serving entails made for a much more satisfying workday than anything I had previously experienced.

Despite feeling physically tired after a shift, I still felt energized — much more so than I had ever known slogging it out in front of a computer for eight hours. Following culinary school, I made the decision to continue in the front of house, where I made my way up from being a server and bartender at an upscale casual restaurant to eventually becoming captain at a fine dining one.

## Serving is Learning

My time spent as a server was arguably the most educational period of my life. Even having attended culinary school, it was from my angle as a server that I put to use the knowledge of ingredients, flavors, and techniques — and I was introduced to many more.

I took every opportunity that was afforded to me for excursions or tastings. On my way to the interview at The Modern, I was googling, “What is Burgundy?” Eighteen months later, I was a certified sommelier. When the restaurant rolled out — literally — a tableside cheese trolley, I stepped up to learn as much as I could so I could confidently drive it. Now I write about cheese and teach classes on the topic.

Some of that was self-directed study by a lifelong nerd, but a lot of that was just showing up to work every day like it mattered to me, which it did.

## Serving Can Be a Career

Justifying being a restaurant server, especially after a master’s degree and culinary school education, is something I was still sometimes asked to do. One of my previous employers actually called me to offer my job back early in my tenure, after hearing that I was “only” waiting tables. I politely explained how they could no longer afford me, financially or emotionally.

For anyone who needs to hear it: Serving can be an edifying, stimulating, often financially lucrative career. Yes — career. Anyone who feels, as I did, that restaurant service is a path worth taking, especially at an earlier age, should count themselves lucky. If I had to do it all over, I’d happily do it again, only sooner.

Pamela Vachon is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Bon Appetit, Wine Enthusiast, and VinePair, among others. She previously worked for 10 years as a server, bartender, and captain, between Union Square Hospitality Group’s Blue Smoke and The Modern.

This article has been updated from its original posting, and staff members’ roles or locations may have changed.