If you missed the quiz portion, go back and check it out. If you are coming from the quiz, welcome. Please pass your tests to the left to grade. We are working on the honor system here folks. No cheating. Question One: The minimum socially acceptable amount to leave as a tip for proficient, but […]
Most Recent Posts
Weird Restaurant Stories 10/23
Welcome to the first ever bonus edition of Weird Restaurant Stories. This week I am going to try something a little different. The difficulty I have each week in compiling this list is eliminating those last few stories. This week several of the stories I wanted to eliminate all fit into the same theme. So […]
Weird Restaurant Stories 10/16
The deliberations are done. From hundreds of qualifiers, forty made the first cut. The second cut took us to eighteen. After a couple of hours of eliminations, I have the top twelve stories that happened in restaurants this week. Here are the winners. We might as well get it out of the way. “The Great […]
Serving Sober
I am back from vacation and sitting down at my desk again. It feels nice to get back into my writing routine. It was an incredible trip. I was able to hang out with some great old friends, see an incredible show, and revisit my roots. I was also able to share a celebration of […]
Top 10 Songs About Dancing
I will go ahead and say it, this has been a pretty incredible week. You all broke my best traffic day ever on Tuesday. Then you turned around and did it again on Wednesday. This means you crushed my record for most views in a week. I also found out that I was voted best […]
On A Good Night
(Note: I am enjoying the final day of my mini vacation. Having a great trip. Met my favorite musician and a personal hero yesterday. Today I will be taking the scenic drive through the Ozark hills of Central Missouri. This is a post I wrote a couple months ago. Not my standard fare, but I hope you […]
Weird Restaurant Stories 10/9
Welcome back to another week of strange restaurant stories from around the country. I have been writing this column for several weeks now. Those of you who read it every week have already started picking up on trends. This week we have our first follow up story. We also have what I think qualifies as […]
Thank You!
I wasn’t planning on writing today, but a huge thank you is in order to all of you. Yesterday my post titled “Ten Reasons Serving Is Not Like Your Job†crushed my previous best day. Huge props to Tony over at Tony’s Kansas City and Yellowcat at Do You Do That At Home for linking […]
10 Reasons Why Serving Is Not Like Your Job
After 15 years in the restaurant industry, I can still be surprised at how little some people know about how the industry works. Restaurants operate in a manner far different than most businesses in the United States. While most Americans are familiar with restaurants from dining out, very few are aware of the working conditions […]
Weird Restaurant Stories 10/2
Welcome back for another week of weird restaurant stories from around the country and around the globe. Last week’s post sounded more like a crime blotter than a lighthearted romp through the news of the weird. It ended with two pleas. The first was to stop committing heinous crimes at restaurants and return to acts […]
Five Stories Worth Reading
Just time for a quick post today. Â Between campers at lunch and opening dinner, I wasn’t left with much time for writing. Â The upside is that I am not going to try and rush through some great topics I have been working on to finish the rest of the month. Â This week should be filled […]
About The Author
David Hayden was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. He took his first serving job in 1996. Since that time, he has worked for over a dozen different restaurant companies. He has held both hourly and salaried positions at independent and corporate restaurants. He has waited on over 100,000 guests and trained hundreds of servers. He has been named "Best Server in Kansas City" the last three years by the local weekly paper.
