Published: July 20, 2008 01:00 am         

They also serve who don’t make you wait

I’ve wondered for some time what the difference is between a “waiter” and a “server..”

I grew up before the Age of Linguistic Enlightenment, when those who brought you food and drink in restaurants were called “waiters” or “waitresses,” depending upon their gender. People who brought you food and drink in airplanes were “stewards” or “stewardesses,” instead of “flight attendants.”

A car you bought from a used-car lot was “used,” not “pre-owned.”

The first time I heard reference to a vittles-bringer as something other than a waiter or waitress was maybe 20 years ago in South Carolina, when The Famous Company of Myrtle Beach Golfers went to dinner in a fancy restaurant and the maitre d’ told us our “waitperson” would be right with us.

We looked at each other in bewilderment until one fellow asked, “Did she say, ‘white person’?” There were shrugs and mutterings of “That’s what I thought” or “Damfino.”

This was part of the Old South, and we were older, set-in-our ways Yankees who knew from experience that we would face some form of culture shock. White men still ran many of the golf pro shops, while black men lugged golf bags around and brought you a golf cart. To complicate matters, an accent was involved. We were clueless.

Another guy said, “I thought she said, ‘waitperson’,” but everybody else dismissed that as being too preposterous for consideration.

Our theoretical “white person” turned out to be an African-American who referred to herself as a “waitperson.” We speculated about how long it would take this particular nonsense to work its way northward, then virtually came home to find it waiting for us.

I don’t hear “waitperson” much these days, probably because my friends and I were right: It may have been too asinine even for the linguistically enlightened.

The difference between “server” and “waiter” might be the same as the difference between a “mixologist” and a “bartender.” High-class places with matching prices tend to have “servers” and “mixologists,” while blue-collar joints are staffed by “waiters,” “waitresses” and “bartenders.”

Dining out during my recent visits to Gettysburg convinces me there actually is a difference between “waiters” and “servers,” and it also involves a dose of culture shock.

What my friends and I always considered a normal restaurant experience is that you order your food, then sit back and cool your heels. How long you wait probably depends upon the swankiness of the place.

One of Cumberland’s famous former local restaurants was so notorious in this respect that you didn’t figure on both dinner and a movie that evening. Dining would be prolonged, but that wasn’t a bad thing because going there was a definite treat. You felt pampered and spoiled, the food was good, and they had the best French onion soup in the world.

Back in the day, taking a girl to this restaurant on your first date was a good move, expensive though it was, because the benefits were twofold:

First, it would impress her that you thought enough of her to take her to a fancy, expensive restaurant. She would be impressed by the atmosphere, particularly by the waiter who came around with a three-foot-long pepper mill.

Second, it would last long enough that you didn’t have to worry about thinking up (or paying for) anyplace else to go — but not so long that you had to take her right home. You had time left to explore the real reason you wanted to go out with her in the first place. The fact that you had dropped major cash on her greatly improved the odds she would look with favor upon you.

Going to dinner with friends, family, your wife or a girlfriend you’ve been out with enough times to know what is (or is not) going to happen afterward is a different story. You don’t want it to last forever, and it became a standing joke among smokers that the best way to get the waiter to bring your food was to light a cigarette.

We ate in a couple of Gettysburg joints where the food arrived so quickly that my friends barely had time to finish their cigarettes. (I gave them up almost eight years ago, by the way.)

I have now decided that when food takes forever to arrive, it is brought by “waiters.” You’ve had to wait for it.

Food you get immediately if not sooner is brought by “servers.” They’re serving you. It’s like they have it ready in the kitchen and just put it on a plate and send it out. We have so-called fast-food restaurants around here that aren’t as fast as The Pike, The Gingerbread Man or Dunlap’s, where my friends’ menu breakfasts arrived not long after I got back from the buffet..

I don’t blame waiters or waitresses for making me wait on my food. It’s a matter of logistics, and a waitress who knows her trade will often apologize for the delay. One of my favorite waitresses did that the other day in my favorite restaurant. She didn’t need to do that, as far as I was concerned.

There are times when the floodgates open and they have to feed 50 or 60 people at once with three or four waitresses and two or three people in the kitchen, and that’s hard work ... so hard that most people don’t have the stomach for it and soon quit. All of those who’ve been there a while are my favorites.

And I don’t mind waiting a bit for my breakfast. It gives me time to relax and read the paper or talk with folks I know.

The closest thing I could register to a complaint is that I almost wish they had a breakfast buffet. It’s probably a good thing they don’t — but we can talk about that next week.