Last Call

"I loved the restaurant business. I just hated the people."

For fifteen years, Matthew Serson worked inside a busy 235-seat Ottawa pub. He started as a bouncer, then worked his way through DJ, bartender and manager, and finished as majority owner. He has the scars, the stories and the hearing damage to prove it.

Last Call is what a restaurant looks like from the other side of the kitchen door: the regulars who demand the good table every time, the table that camps out and won't leave, the money that quietly walks out the back door, the kitchen crew nobody out front really knows, and the nights that were so busy they were a blur.

Inside you'll find:

• How servers read a table in six seconds, and what they get wrong
• Where the money goes, from tipping and cash to why a side of guac costs three dollars
• The ways staff help themselves, and the holes every owner has to plug
• What really happens behind the line, and why the kitchen and the floor are two different countries
• The weight of the job: the drinking, the harassment, the toll on your body, and why he finally got out
• A bonus chapter on how to be the customer every server hopes gets seated in their section

It's funny, honest and occasionally raw. It's for anyone who has ever waited tables, owned a place, or wondered what's really going on on the other side of the kitchen door.

Matthew Serson now works as an economist for the federal public service and runs Serson Restaurant Consulting, helping independent restaurant owners with the practical side of running a profitable business. Last Call is his first book.