The Expectation and Anticipation

While growing up in St. Joseph—a small and overwhelmingly white town—my family ate out mostly at Ponderosa, Pizza Hut, or Big Boy. (Disgusting in retrospect.) If we were hungry for something a little different, we ate Chinese takeout, Greek Gyros or Americanized-Mexican, being that those were the only foreign cuisines in our town of 9,000. Since coming to Kalamazoo I've fallen in love with Indian and Thai food, eating almost exclusively at either Saffron or Thai Cuisine when eating out (if you don't count Taco Bell, that is).
Last fall, when I was new to Kalamazoo, my mother, her boyfriend, her boyfriend's brother, my brother, and I tried to eat at Saffron, but finding it closed, ate at Zooroona instead. At that point they had just opened, and it showed: the metal tree sculpture above us was only half-finished, they were without a liquor license, and the lighting was rather inadequate. The service, however, was incredible. Although they were fairly busy on this Saturday night, both the host and the manager came by during our meal to ask how things were going, and toward the end of our meal our waiter, Paul, sat down with us to explain his conversion to Islam. I don't remember much about the food of the meal aside from the Turkish coffee and Baklava, but I remember them fondly. Paul showed us how to properly pour the coffee into the cups—explaining that bubbles should form while pouring and that we shouldn't drink the contents on the bottom of the kettle for fear of drinking grounds.
Since then, I ate at Shawarma King with a big group of my friends, and although the food was good, the waitress seemed unwilling to take orders for each of us, and encouraged everyone to eat from the buffet. I was unimpressed. After spending this summer working as a busser for Timothy's Restaurant in Union Pier, as a cook for Cravings Catering in Stevensville, and as a barista for Bearclaw Coffee Company in St. Joseph, I am very aware of all of the components of restaurant life and business, the stress of cooking, and the careful art of customer service. Because of this knowledge, I can recognize the immense work that waiters and waitresses put into their jobs, and I tip heavily for a job well done, but I also have become less forgiving for poor service.