In my tumultuous wild ride in Sin City, a brief, but colorful segment was occupied working as a waiter in a high-end casino restaurant on the world-famous Strip.
Talk about characters.
Comps were everywhere, as I am sure they are today. (author’s note: I have not been back to Vegas since I left in 1981) and free food was abundant everywhere.
Free breakfast buffets, lunch buffets with someone carving a fresh prime rib to your desired thickness.
It was crazy.
Like my Food and Beverage Manager told me the first time I brought up the term food cost.: “I don’t give a damn about food cost. Your one responsibility is to keep building our brand by keeping people in the casino. Do they want Golden Iranian Caviar for their blinis?
Get it for them.
Keep them in our casino.”
But before I ascended to the rarified air of Executive Chef, some of my happiest times were spent waiting tables in a major hotel-casino high-rollers restaurant.
It was sinful.
Really.
On a slow night I would walk with seven or eight hundred dollars in tips. Since I was also a member of the powerful culinary union, I also was being paid a decent wage so every week, more cash became available on payday.
She walked like royalty.
The same condescending look of royalty I had seen both in real life, but also in many pictures.
Her entrance occurred nightly and was marked by an omnipresent cloud of cigarette smoke.
The other waiters groaned in unison at her presence and scattered like a covey of quail to feign activity so as not to have to wait on the woman.
Not me.
I liked the old bird.
She was bejeweled from her tiara (yes, she wore an actual tiara!) to her toenails and wore enough gold chains to impress.
“Princess!,” I shouted, putting a big smile on her weathered face as I placed a menu on a table and pulled out her chair.
“Mawk, you spoil me dawling. If I was only twenty years youngah.” The old bat smiled salaciously, making me feel like I wanted to take a hot roman bath.
She didn’t need the menu.
Or anything else that might possibly be associated with the word cost.
The Princess doesn’t pay for anything and hasn’t done so for many years, or so one of the myths goes.
The former actress/dancer/mob wife/singer was a staple at all the casinos. If there was a free meal to be found from Fremont Street all the way down the Strip and out to Sam’s Town in Henderson, chances are you would find her there, chain smoking and availing herself of anything remotely free.
She handed me some Monopoly money to cover the FREE breakfast coupon for her buttered toast (“Mawk, coahnah to coahnah dawling. Coahnah to coahnah.”) Ensuring my complete understanding by spreading the imaginary butter to cover her imaginary toast evenly and completely.
Loved the heavy New Yawk accent.
There were only two certainties when waiting on the Princess: 1) She would argue for more food, or another free coupon, and 2) she would leave a tip NO GREATER THAN 50 cents.
I never knew whether or not the bling that the Princess was sporting was real or not, but those are other stories attached to her legend.
I treated her like she was at the Four Seasons Sunday brunch just as I am sure she was imagining and living it in a playground of her own.
Stay well.
