Rating: 
Summary: I'd rate a six star, but.....
Review: As a long time server, I can understand and agree with everything that Ms. Ginsberg has to say about the restuarant business. I'll be recomending this book to all of my server friends. Thank you for such a wonderful book.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable reading
Review: I worked as a waitress in the past and shared some of my "days of slinging hash" stories with my husband. I picked up this book after reading an excerpt from the center. I figure if a book gets my interest in the middle - it will have it from beginning to end. This book did not disappoint me as it lived up to my expectations. I laughed through personal collection of stories and events beyond her control - shared with tips of insight to why some of these occur and just how out of control of the "front floor" a waitress can be. I nodded my head in understanding at the same time. My husband read the book and said he could now understand better my personal horror stories of those days - so even an outsider to the "biz" can benefit and gain some insight to the serving life. He laughed at her recounts as well, so one does not need to have had a past as a server to enjoy the humor in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Wait not longer. Read it now.
Review: This is a delightful memoir which engagingly describes the various emotions experienced by wait staff everywhere. I especially loved the apt description of sexual tension. Ms. Ginsberg reminds us that there is no shame in earning a living this way. Whether a means to an end or an end in itself, waiting provides a living for all those willing to grind it out. As a former Catskill waitress, I loved reading about my old haunts as described by this great, young author (and former student)!
Rating: 
Summary: Whiney and lots of filler
Review: I was looking forward to reading this book because the premise looked good -- a book by a woman who's been waiting tables for 20 years. I thought it could be an interesting insight into her character or insight into the restaurant biz. Unfortunately, the book fails on both counts. As to her character, she comes across as whiney and passive. All her life decisions are made for her. She graduates from college and becomes a waitress in order to write. Does she write? Very little. She just drifts around from one dreadful restaurant to another. Even when she turns up pregnant by a long-gone boyfriend, there's not a even a moment of introspection. No thoughts as to how being a single mom might affect her life, or the baby's life. Just a "oh I'm pregnant...going to be a mommy."
Only one of her many sisters is identified by name. Other weird things are dropped into the text without explanation. When her father ran the pizza parlor in Portland, she says her mother would come in after work (no mention of what sort of work) and sit in a booth until closing time. Just sit and stare off into space, apparently. Why? What was going on? Most of her family remain shadowy background figures. (And she herself is pretty much a cypher so interesting people are scarce in the text.)
Instead, chapter after chapter are filled with horror stories of terrible restaurants with even more terrible patrons. (I have worked as a food server and it's astounding how many awful co-workers and customers she encounters.) These stories are told as "here's a typical day at retaurant X." So even these descriptions are pastiches and "not real." In fact, that's what was missing in this book, a sense of truth being told. It feels dishonest. (And loads and loads of filler -- a whole chapter analyzing movies with waitress characters, for example. A dumb idea and executed without insight.) After reading "Kitchen Confidential," this book was a real letdown.
Rating: 
Summary: Send This One Back to the Kitchen: It's Cold and Lumpy
Review: I actually bought three copies of this book so its author can hopefully go on with her writing and never have to return to waiting tables again. I'm certainly glad she's not my waitress. After convincing us that waitpersons can't survive unless we tip them generously (which is to say, at least 20% of the tab), she warns us that they really often do spit in our food, pick slices of pepperoni off our pizzas and pop them into our mouths before serving us, and insult us in languages we might not understand, occasionally just because we've been "sized up" as demanding diners. Far from making me laugh, or even smile, the book made me wary of ever dining out again. Her descriptions of what goes on behind the scenes at even top-notch restaurants is nothing less than horrifying. I gather that she wants her readers to feel her pain. I know I did. The trouble is, Ginsberg seems to have no genuine respect for the people who ultimately pay her wages. Her descriptions of restaurant work and its "vagaries" -- a word she uses again and again -- are detailed, and certainly accurate from the perspective of a server, but the biographical narrative woven around it keeps coming unraveled amid fuzzy flashbacks and flash-forwards. We learn little about why her relationships with men regularly fail, for instance, or how she could write off the father of her child so casually. I also think she has a lot of nerve characterizing so many of her co-workers as recklessly lustful, especially after her baby is born. The burnout that presumably led to the writing of the book comes suddenly, almost inexplicably, and then just as quickly subsides, leaving little time for the reader to adjust to the transition. Ginsberg's style is studied but promising; she simply doesn't inspire our trust in her judgment before she launches into her sometimes poignant, but more often scathing, exposé of the foodservice industry, in which many people clearly feel trapped...
Rating:
Summary: Fun, light read
Review: An enjoyable bit of escapism for anyone who has ever "waited" themselves. Just don't expect the gritty brilliance of "Kitchen Confidential." This book is a far rosier and less interesting look at the restaurant biz, but it's likeable. I do think Ginsberg spends a lot of time justifying why she's college-educated and waitressing. In my book, it's okay, and it gets a little tiresome that she goes on about it.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Look at an Old Profession
Review: The job of waiter or waitress has been around nearly as long as another form of work I can think of, yet you rarely see anything written about. If you should stumble onto the subject in written form, it rarely, if ever, raises it to the level of profession, yet that is what Debra Ginsberg has done. She gives us a look at a job that is usually frowned upon as a career in a way that will make you realize that maybe it is a career, and a good one at that. I found the stories about the activities at the estableshments where she worked funny, interesting and at times, disgusting. But, whatever the story of the moment, it is told in a well written and enjoyable fashion. In addition to the waitressing stories, we are treated to a look inside her world growing up from mid teens to late thiries. This is intertwined with the stories about the restaurant business and makes for a wonderful read. Anyone who has ever eaten in a restaurant should read this book....it will give you a whole new way of looking at your surroundings.
Rating:
Summary: From A Person Who Totally Relates ....
Review: I,also, have been "waiting" for many, many years. This is the first book I have ever seen that humanizes a server. We are out there and will stay out there but Debra Ginsberg is the first person who has made the server into a real person. People assume that you are a waitress because you are not educated for anything better. Like the author I am college educated but chose "waiting" because of the hours I could work and the great pay. This is "THE" book to read for people who are currently serving and feel doubtful about their occupation ... also for frequnt diners ... see what the "wait" staff really thinks about you If this review is not published please send this to the author: thank you Debra. Your book has validated my feelings on being a server. I relate to your feelings on society's perception of a waitress, on your analysis of restaurant managers, how people who work in this profession tend to bond ... EVERYTHING .. thanks for a GREAT book
Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: Waiting, the true confessions of a waitress, goes next to my favorite all time book The Thornbirds. I wish everyone that ate in restuarants would read this book. I am a slow reader and sped thru this book. I couldn't put it down. I too,am a waitress and have chosen it as my career for the same reasons as Debra,my children.I can so relate to everything she saids in her book. Everything in the book is so true to life about working in a restuarant,the people, coworkers, managers,what goes on behind in small, closed places........When I finished the book I told my managers and coworkers that I believed Debra was a Writer/Waitress that worked in our restuarant under another name and that one of the stories in the book was about me and she gave me another name!!I wish we could sell this book at the door of my resturant to educate guests. I'm passing the book around to my coworkers because they are in it also and my server at a mexican restuarant that we are regulars at. Hats off to Debra for such a great book.I really can't say enough about how much I enjoyed this book.My baby is in college now and I am still waiting!!
Rating:
Summary: An entertaining look at the industry
Review: If you have never worked in the restaurant field, you are sure to find this book entertaining with the colorful people Debra encounters through 20 years of waiting on table. If you have worked in the industry, as I have, as a waiter, cook, bartender and now manager, you are sure to be able to relate with Debra's experiences. One I started reading, I found it hard to put the book down. Several times I laughed out loud as one of her recollections prompted me to recall an experience of my own, be it a colorful co-worker, or a guest that either made my night, or made my night an unbelievable problem. She has shown that waiting tables is not just a job, it's an adventure.
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