there’s a collective
that whole machine all making
each other’s money
In the article, Deranged diners, inflation and staff shortages: American restaurants are struggling, by Rachel Sugar, Ms. Sugar writes:
“It really does change the way the restaurant works,” says Sophie, 30, a longtime server at a casual fine-dining restaurant in Lower Manhattan, who estimates that about a third of people working front of house are new since the pandemic.
(To speak freely, she asked to be identified by her first name only.) “It changes the culture.” It is perhaps less united that it used to be, divided by default into an old guard and a new guard, “which is kind of the opposite of what I would want in a restaurant culture, which would be solidarity and inclusivity”, she says.
Jones, a classical cellist by training, likens restaurants to orchestras. “There’s all these components, but there’s a collective as well,” he says. “That whole machine is what is able to accomplish things. No one part is more important.”
Or as Sophie, whose restaurant pools tips, puts it, less romantically: “We’re all making each other’s money.
No Haiku For You 