SEATTLE — "Service sucks now." It's a phrase I've heard uttered a lot the past two years. When pressed, the person might say it was because service was slow or harried, there wasn't enough — or too much — conversation, they felt ignored, or the server hovered too much.
To be fair, it's been a rough two years. It's been tough to figure out how to best support restaurants, and it's been tough for restaurants to figure out how to operate while navigating shutdowns, rising costs, labor shortages and supply chain issues.
Even without a global pandemic throwing a wrench in how we feel about eating at a restaurant, going out to dinner has always been about more than just the food. And people are complicated. Deciphering what a person wants from an interaction during dinner and delivering on that successfully is what separates a good server from a great one. Service is what makes eating at a restaurant special for the diner. But what makes it special for the servers? What draws people to this career path and what makes them stay?
