Author: Restaurant Gal

  • Postcards I Forgot to Send

    I know. It’s been more than a month since I’ve written. I should have written! I meant to, but…but I didn’t. Guess I’ve been away far longer than I realized. But I wrote postcards! I know, I didn’t send them. Well, here they are as one, all those postcards that I really did mean to…

  • Here Come the Brides

    One day you’re having the experience of a lifetime during Kentucky Derby Week, and the day you return to work from the experience of a lifetime, your GM says this: “From now on, you’re doing all of our private events.” Oh. Okay. Okay? I have enjoyed the past three years working as a bartender and…

  • I’ll Have Another, Please

    I’d love to have another opportunity to visit the rolling hills surrounding Louisville, Kentucky, Derby Week or not. The gentility and hospitality of everyone we met matches the area’s beauty, and I could not help but say a thousand times or more, “I’m not in SoFla anymore.” I’d love to have another chance to spend…

  • Kentucky Dreamin’

    I am one lucky gal to have landed at the Kentucky Derby! Photos and stories to follow soon when I return to SoFla.

  • Hell on Wheels

    The first time I served Maureen, it was on my second day on the floor at my current job, and I was warned: “She’ll run you and send back everything, and she doesn’t tip.” Apparently, everyone with whom I worked had served Maureen many times; no one with whom I worked could stand to serve…

  • First Time Here!

    They were a handsome family of four. They brought along a handsome friend to complete their party of five, one short of a six-top tag. They triggered my internal server alarm when the wide-smiling father gushed: “It’s our first time here!” “Welcome,” I said, matching his smile. “Do we get anything for that?” the father…

  • Gosh, Moving Sure is Fun!

    Lost: Two small pieces of shelving hardware, without which the very necessary third shelf in my glass-front cabinet is rendered useless, which makes unpacking a bin containing the glass-front cabinet’s decorative contents unlikely for the foreseeable future. Found: One silver hoop earring from my favorite pair, tucked under the bed-frame leg and discovered on moving…

  • Sweetheart Tales

    Bye bye Valentine’s Day. Good riddance to your way-too-ramped-up symbolism that sends us frantically flailing about in retail hell and foists upon us the yearly notion that no matter how wonderful our relationship with our significant other, all hopes and dreams will be dashed if we fail to go out on this specific date for…

  • No Such Thing as a ‘Little’ Flu

    Do you know that ad? I do, quite well. Whoever created the Allstate “Mayhem”-type character to represent the flu season has it down pat–the words “little” and “flu” do not belong together. I have spent the better part of the past month on my sofa fighting two colds and what I thought was a third,…

  • “And I’m Free, Free Fallin’…” –Tom Petty

    When I look back at RG 2007, I am struck by two things: the volume of good writing and the telling writing itself. When one commenter spoke of the dark tone of my posts early in the year, and how she hoped it wasn’t foretelling, she knew what I didn’t at that point–that one of…