Las Vegas Wine Angels and Bangkok Zip-Line Servers, Explained

People do not have a tendency to consider ready tables as a harmful career. The stakes of carrying steaks should not very excessive when in comparison with loads of different jobs. There won’t ever be a Tom Cruise motion film concerning the perils of serving meals in a restaurant. Although ready tables typically appears like an unimaginable mission, the closest we’ll ever get to that type of Tom Cruise film is when he starred in Cocktail in 1988. The worst factor that would have occurred to him in that film was a bump on the brow from an errant cocktail shaker after a very wayward effort of bartending aptitude.

I spent a couple of years serving drinks in a cabaret room in New York City. Carrying overpriced Cosmos on a tray over my head in a dimly lit area whereas performers are emoting on a stage mere toes away is difficult however not particularly hazardous. That’s to not say that everybody who serves meals or drinks has a totally secure job.

The zip-lining servers of Bangkok

A restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand, referred to as The Royal Dragon held the Guinness World Record for 10 years as the biggest restaurant on this planet. It had seating for five,000 diners and coated 8.35 acres. (The present Guinness World Record holder, Shawabet Dimash Rtartauranthas 6,014 seats.) Surprisingly, that was not what it was most recognized for. The area was so large that servers carried meals from one space to the subsequent by means of a zipper line, zooming throughout cables over lagoons, all of the whereas carrying one of many over 1,000 entrées that have been supplied on the menu. It wasn’t each server who used a zipper line and it was in all probability extra of a gimmick than fully vital, but it surely undoubtedly added a component of hazard to an ordinarily innocuous job.

The restaurant closed down in 2002. Its closure could or could not have had one thing to do with the zip strains, however my idea is that staff may merely now not deal with memorizing the substances of 1,000 dishes.

The wine angels of Las Vegas

In Las Vegas (after all) there was a restaurant at Mandalay Bay referred to as Aureole. Most eating places may need a wine cellar, however this restaurant had a four-story glass wine tower with over 10,000 bottles of wine. Bottles have been retrieved by attractive “wine angels,” who have been girls strapped right into a rigging system and flown into the air to put the bottle into their wine holster after which float again to the bottom. It was fairly the spectacle and other people went to see the wine angels simply as a lot as they went for the meals. It was like dinner and a present. There have been by no means any studies of accidents, however no less than 10 bottles of wine have been dropped in its 24-year historical past.

The restaurant closed in 2023 and was replaced with a residency by 2013 F&W Best New Chef Michael Voltaggio and brother Bryan Voltaggio. Rumor has it one of many former wine angels is presently starring in a non-Equity bus-and-truck tour of Peter Pan, however as a substitute of pixie mud it’s a 2018 Château Lafite Rothschild that make Wendy, Michael, and John fly and Tinker Bell is costumed in an all-black catsuit.

The curler skating waiters of Shanghai

There are loads of eating places the place servers are recognized for sporting curler skates as they serve their visitors. Carhops have been notably in style within the Nineteen Forties and ’50s and have been usually featured on the tv present Happy Days. As a child, I bear in mind how thrilling it was to go to Sonic Drive-In and have somebody roll out to our automotive with my chili cheese canine and lemonade.

There’s a restaurant, Hong Zi Ji,  in Shanghai, China, that has gone viral with movies of waiters dashing via the restaurant on skates whereas carrying elaborate plates of meals. It’s very, very spectacular, however my favourite movies are when issues do not go fairly as deliberate and it’s very, very messy. Roller-skating won’t be as dangerous as zip-lining or being suspended 40 toes into the air to get a bottle of wine, but it surely’s tougher than the typical server job, and that is removed from the one roller-skating restaurant within the nation.

Personally, I’ll preserve my nonslip footwear firmly planted on the bottom. If Tom Cruise needs to make a film about my life in eating places, he can re-create the scene the place I dropped 4 plates of scorching fajitas at a Mexican restaurant in Denver. It won’t be worthy of a cinematic masterpiece, however on the time it appeared fairly dramatic.