The servers: The highs and lows of waiting on tables
The Food Chain
BBC
4.7 • 545 Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What are the highs and lows of waiting on tables? Ruth Alexander speaks to restaurateurs from London, New York and Mumbai to find out about the inner workings of one of the hardest jobs in the business.
Ruth hears from French celebrity Maitre D, Fred Siriex, Mumbai based restaurateur Gauri Devidayal and Michael Cecchi-Azzolina, the New York based author of Your Table Is Ready. If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk
Image: The torso of a waitress, carrying two plates of food, against a purple background. Credit: Maria Korneeva/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | I'm no longer ravenous. I'll no longer eat until I fall asleep. |
| 0:11.0 | The Hunger Game, a new five-part series exploring the meteoric rise of weight loss drugs. |
| 0:16.0 | It's been an incredible story with these drugs. |
| 0:18.1 | The uptake, the amount of product that's been sold, the amounts of money |
| 0:21.2 | is cost. What the drugs do, how they work, and the knock-on effects of their widespread use. |
| 0:26.5 | We'll be sitting here in three years' time going, oh, it caused problems that we're now going to have to |
| 0:31.6 | fix. The Hunger Game with me, Professor Gilesio. Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:38.4 | Behind every relaxing evening in a fancy restaurant. |
| 0:41.9 | The sound of the glasses tinkling, the bartenders shaking them, the martinis, people |
| 0:46.5 | chit-chatting and all of that. |
| 0:48.0 | There is a crew giving it their all to make you feel looked after. |
| 0:52.2 | I want our team to pass on to our guests, the feeling of being at home away from home, |
| 0:58.1 | making them feel like, you know, they're the most important people in the world. |
| 1:01.5 | While bosses watch on with standards that are merciless. |
| 1:05.2 | How could you put a glass with a fingerprint smudge on it on the table? |
| 1:09.0 | How dare you? |
| 1:10.2 | And tensions are sky high. |
| 1:12.5 | I remember being kicked in a restaurant once in the shing |
| 1:14.9 | because the MetroD was just nuts. |
| 1:16.8 | And I thought to myself, I'm just going to punch him. |
| 1:19.2 | This is the food chain from the BBC World Service with me, Ruth Alexander. |
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