Is it an exciting world, or a pathetic one? This story tells it in a depressing way, but it was still so nostalgic, and entertaining, and fast-paced, to read about this Red Lobster's last lunch shift with the typical bratty kids, oldsters who don't tip, delays in the kitchen, cigarette-smoking employees, and the feeling of looking at an empty, shining restaurant first thing (or last thing) on a shift.
The snow outside on the walk frosted red from the red neon Red Lobster sign...the peaceable quiet of prepping the sides for the day's lunch with a fellow cook...the detailed descriptions were what made this little book so imminently readable.
I did wonder what had happened with Manny and Jacquie, though I know that the book left out detail after detail on purpose. When the leftover employees were sitting in the dark swapping stories about their lives in that room, the book listed names we'd never heard. Who were they? What made Fat Kathy so crazy? But it didn't matter. In every restaurant, there's such a huge turnover that it's natural to hear about past staff, and there's so much of it that you don't need to know who they were. Unless they start working there again, it just doesn't matter.
Understated, delightful, and bleak (though I almost hesitate with using that adjective, if it would make people avoid the book). We never even know where this place is, although a few terms might make someone guess (UConn, New England). I would wonder if someone with no food service history (and who among us has none??) would follow the mundanity of Manny's day with as much relish I did, but I think I'll look up some reviews (EW recommended it to me, so it shouldn't be tough) to find out.
A great read, a short one, and that made my pissy-mooded Saturday absolutely better.
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