In praise of Busboys.

In the early 90s, I was working at Scoozi!, a 300 seat Rich Melman Lettuce Entertain You monster of an Italian Restaurant. At Scoozi! we would do well over a 1000 covers on each of the weekend nights. And we did it incredibly well! The food quality was excellent, considering the volume, and the service was always a cut above the competition, but with a kind of sardonic edge that I was drawn in to....

Scoozi! was one of the first large scale successful Italian restaurants that was not just 'red sauce'. We were Cucina Rustica, cooking great Regional Italian fare. Of course, to those of us that worked there, we were just the 'pasta hut', schlepping multi courses of Italiano and wines to the masses, be it hip urban, suburban, or the merry traveler. But in the world of Chicago restaurants of that era, we were the bomb, a place to go, a place to be seen, a place to cram into the bar and wait two hours for table, a place so perfect for its time.

One perfect Tuesday night in May, The Restaurant Show was in town, as it is every year at that time at McCormick Place. That meant a busy night at Scoozi! filled with wide eyed Restaurateurs from across America wanting to see the famous 'Pasta Hut' in full battle armor. I would spend most of my night giving Kitchen tours to these curious colleagues, who would marvel at how we could bang out meal after meal with nary a hitch.

Sometimes, amongst the normalcy that putting out a 1000 dinners can bring to those of us that did it regularly, truly remarkable things could occur; Drunk celebrities sleeping on the floor, no tipping sports stars angling for more freebies, couples fornicating in the bathrooms. But, truly, for a restaurant guy, the highlight of all of those great nights there was the appearance of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah Tower is one of the godfather's of modern American cooking. Alongside Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in the late 70s, and then at the iconic Stars in San Francisco during the 80s and 90s, Jeremiah invented the San Francisco's dining scene, and set the bar for the rest of us on what cool was in the restaurant business.

Imagine how hard we worked to make the evening rock for Chef Tower, as he and his party graced our booths on that humble Tuesday in May. The food was abundant, the wine was overflowing, and our best Servers brought their best schtick to Jeremiah's table. And it was good! He laughed, he smiled, he mmmmed as he bit in to the next dish.

But what happened next was the best part, and truly changed my life as a restaurateur. As the trays of dessert were being set down at the table, Jeremiah got up from the table, wine glass in hand and started to walk across the room to where I was standing. My heart was racing, and my mind was numb with thoughts of what brilliance I could muster to impress Chef Tower. He stepped up to greet me and put his hand on my right shoulder. "Larry' he bellowed, "A very nice meal, thank you for all of your hospitality". At that moment, he started to lean forward to say something in my ear and my lizard brain started to go to panic mode. Damn, he hated something! I braced for the worst. "I have dined all over the world Larry" he spoke in calm smooth tones, "but, you have the absolute best busboys I have ever seen, can I take some back to San Francisco with me?"

I was stunned. The Busboys. Always the afterthought. The supporting cast. The Offensive line, the blockers, the rhythm section. They were important yes, but the "Stars"?(pun intended)

As I looked Jeremiah in the eyes, the moment washed over me and all that it had meant. I finally understood why the Busboy was so important. Jeremiah Tower was right. The busboys had made the meal.

Ponder this thought. In the Sequence of Service that is your meal, where is all the emphasis put? The Restaurant puts hours and hours of training and thought in to how the Server will interact with you, the Guest. The Server will entertain you and bedazzle you with their charm, their wit, their knowledge and their passion. And you will love it! The Chef will worry about each and every plate down to the last whoosh of oil squeezed across the culinary canvass. Every bite will be bursting with flavors and textures just as the Chef imagined it for you and cajoled his cooks in to recreating. But, the parts of the meal that you will never remember might be the most important. Quietly, workmanlike, in full concert with the rest of the service team, the busboys will make sure that waters are filled and plates are cleared and all the heavy lifting involved in the meal gets done with no muss and fuss so that you can focus all of your attention on the flash.

It was in that moment that The Busboy ceased to be invisible to me. I have come to believe since that moment that you cannot have a truly great restaurant without truly great Bussers. They are the anchors. They are the facilitators. The best Servers have always understood that, which is why they are so protective and adamant about whom they work with on a nightly basis. Are you a Server with a Busboy you cannot depend on? It is like trying to run the football with no blockers. It is useless to try. Ever sat through a meal with bad bus service or no bus service? It's like sitting in a traffic jam when you are late. The frustration level is infuriating and there is nothing you can do to fix it.

I never have looked at dining the same after that encounter with Jeremiah Tower. Oh, he is an Icon, and he will always be famous for Stars, for how he changed dining in America from a culinary standpoint. But, he changed dining for me and many other since that day almost 20 years ago, when he deftly shined the light in praise of the Busboy, the backbone of the Restaurant Experience.