Back in the year 2000 the Cherry Lane Theater hosted the premier of Becky Mode's side-splitting, lightening-paced one man show, "Fully Committed", and restaurant reservationists in basements and broom closets all around town felt seen. And maybe not a little bit exposed.

An updated version of the show moved to Broadway in 2016 starring the great Jesse Tyler Ferguson who won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for his role as Sam, and the other 30-plus characters that populate this 90-minute whiplash inducing romp through the trials--and wins--of a New York City reservationist.

Now Jake Shipley, an actor and FOH restaurant worker since his teens, is performing FULLY COMMITTED at the Phoenician Playhouse in Phoenicia, NY, to great acclaim, for two weekend only.

Jake took an hour during his crazy performance schedule to chat with Maître d' Diaries about the role and the work. And the possible future of taking this behind-the-scenes in the restaurant world play back out on the road.

We are so happy to welcome New York Restaurant World Legend, Melba Wilson, to Maître d’ Diaries. Restaurants are all about creating community. The community that is fostered in dining rooms, across tables, in bars and lounges, AND the community we build INSIDE the restaurants where we work. 

One of the best things about the hospitality business is how it gives us the chance to work with and get to know people of diverse ages and backgrounds we might not meet otherwise. And when f&b folk are lucky enough to be out and about sometimes we get to meet friends of friends, or people we’ve admired from afar, and as a result our personal restaurant community continues to expand. This is what happened when Erica had the pleasure of meeting Melba Wilson at an event last year. 

Melba is the founder of the beloved Melba’s in Harlem, and she just recently opened the 4th Melba’s in Grand Central Terminal Dining Concourse. She is also a fixture on the New York food scene, a food insecurity activist, and a vibrant beacon of glamour and kindness.

Being “born, bred and buttered in Harlem”, Melba knew she wanted to stay close to home so she could nurture and provide an exquisite yet comfortable dining experience to the community that raised her.

Listen in to our chat to hear about: 

~ How Melba learned all aspects of the restaurant business from her aunt Sylvia Woods of the iconic American Classic Sylvia’s Restaurant in Harlem

~ The impact of growing up with grandparents who were gardeners

~ What Josefina Howard said to Melba when she said she wanted to open her own restaurant, and how that changed everything

~ How Melba took Windows on the World’s slow Sunday Brunches and turned them into the wildly successful Gospel Sunday Brunch that ran until Sunday, September 9th, 2001. 

~ The inspiration she’s taken from 114th Street, Harlem’s historic Minton’s Playhouse, and gazing at the monuments of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman

You meet the best people working in restaurants! Case in point, this episode’s guest, Tatiana Mejia, maître d’ at Michelin-starred Francie in Brooklyn, and a dear friend.  

Folks come to restaurant work via all different paths, many of us finding the right balance of physical activity, mental engagement, social interaction, and reliable income in a place we didn’t originally imagine ourselves belonging. 

One of the mission’s of Maître d’ Diaries is to share our love for the vocation of taking care of people through hospitality. To shine a spotlight on how the work of serving and hosting can be  a satisfying, fulfilling, and fun way to make a living. 

Listen in to hear: 

~ What it was like to be maître d’ at the landmark Tavern on the Green (600+ people a night, 1,200 for brunch, in case you didn’t know!)

~ The similarities and differences between working retail and restaurants 

~ How working FOH can develop people skills and build community

~ About crying in the coat check–the FOH version of crying in the walk-in

~ How a weekly sauna ritual helps Tatiana sweat out the stress of the work week

~ Her current favor savory martini

Ever wonder what it was like booking out a restaurant ON PAPER, before the dawn of online reservation platforms? 

At Maître d’ Diaries one of our raisons d’être is building a bridge between restaurant industry old guard and the vibrant, essential Next Generation populating the new post-pandemic workforce. One way we do this is by gathering and sharing stories from the trenches (or the floor, if you will).

This episode’s guest, Roger Raines, has a LOT of stories. Roger started his illustrious hospitality career with one of the most respected restaurant groups in the country—Union Square Hospitality—back when tables were reserved over the phone by humans using a pencil and sheets of paper.

And like many of the very best maîtres d’hotel, Roger is also a renaissance person with multiple cultural pursuits and passions that make him culturally aware and good to chat with at the front door of whatever restaurant he’s running.

Roger’s first restaurant job was reservationist at Gramercy Tavern. He worked his way up through Eleven Madison Park, Tabla, Maialino, and the opened new location of Union Square Cafe. 

Listen in to hear about:

~ How much fun it used to be to run a wait list by phone and on paper

~ What he hates about cell phones in restaurants 

~ The difference of how people treat men and women at the door 

~ What it was like to be James Brown’s road manager

~ The upstate B&B run by USHG alum that we should all visit 

~ What Tabla was like

~ How awesome the Criterion Collection is

You meet some of the best people in the restaurant business. Folks like our guest Olivia Salomon, a server at Le Veau d’Or in New York City, who find joy and satisfaction taking care of other people and helping create memorable experiences for them. 

Whether it’s a warm welcome at the door or a server with a wonderful tableside manner, someone who is called to the work and does it with care can really make a difference in how we feel at the end of the day. 

The word restaurant derives from the French word for restoration. A place where you can restore your body with sustenance. And perhaps now more than ever, restaurants are places where we can revive our spirits and sense of well being. At their best, good restaurants feed our need to connect with other humans. All the more so if our server or maitre d’ is someone who’s passionate about spreading joy and love and positivity in the world.

Listen in to our chat with Olivia to hear about: 

~ How she figured out Pete Wells was coming in and then what happened

~ The importance of mentorship and how we can support the Next Gen

~ Why she loves the Danny Meyer 51% philosophy 

~ How to hold the work of serving so it’s empowering rather than demeaning

~ The difference between being a server and a maître d’

~ The unexpected joy to be found taking care of older clientele

~ Why kindness is the life hack Olivia wants everyone to know about

~ How to deal with challenging personalities at the door

Tom Piscitello is a New York maître d’ legend! He ran the door at some of the city’s best Italian restaurants, including Coco Pazzo, Babbo, Beppe, A Voce, and Ci Siamo. 

Tom joined us from his terrazzo in Sicily, where he and his husband now live the semi-retired life of private hospitality, making beautiful memories for their guests at a 3-bedroom luxury lighthouse with a view of Mt. Etna, hosting and taking care of visiting friends and locals. Che bella vita! 

Tom saw it all working in the hottest spots in the 1990’s and turn of the millennium New York dining scene, and in this episode he shares some glimpses from behind the scenes and among the celebrity-filled tables at the restaurants that had the bella fortuna to have him as their host. 

Join us as we talk about: 

~ How to make a good first impression on the welcome

~ The two words that people always say when they’re lying

~ The thing he can’t tolerate from guests or staff

~ How great Esca was and what a genius Dave Pasternak is 

~ One way to make a guest “yours for life”

~ The time some old guy punched him for a table

~ The qualities he looks for in a maître d’ 

~ The one thing you should never ask on a first interview

~ Tom's favorite part of Italian hospitality 

Welcome to our 3rd “We’re Booked” episode. Our guest is author, cookbook collaborator, and podcast host, Andrew Friedman.

Andrew has made a career chronicling the life and work of some of our best chefs, and is currently collaborating on a memoir with Daniel Boulud, to be published by Grand Central Publishing in 2027.

Andrew is the author of Chefs, Drugs and Rock & Roll: How Food Lovers, Free Spirits, Misfits, and Wanderers Created a New American Profession. Chefs, Drugs and Rock & Roll (Ecco 2018) tells the story of the evolution of the American chef in the 1970s and 1980s, and is essential reading for anyone in love with restaurants and restaurant history. 

To write it, Andrew interviewed more than 200 industry figures including legends such as Wolfgang Puck, Jeremiah Tower, Alice Waters, Jonathan Waxman, and Ruth Reichl. 

We started this podcast to have a place to share stories and preserve the rich history of the exciting world of restaurants we’ve been blessed to be a part of. 

Listen in as we:

~ go back in time to the incipience of “California cuisine” and its impact on the development of a distinctive American cuisine

~ discuss the confluence of the Blue Ribbon after hours culture and the dawn of the food network in the early 90’s which ushered in the now seemingly perennial era of the celebrity chef

~ highlight the importance of FOH staff being able to call a play in real time

~ hear a real life example of the kind of hospitality behavior Andrew would like to see 86ed.

Fasten your seat belts for a spirit-driven ride through NYC modern cocktail culture with the beloved, legendary, Sarah Morrissey who worked on the front lines of the cocktail revolution in New York from almost the beginning. 

Recorded one Saturday over bagels pre-service at Le Veau d’Or, where Sarah’s the AGM and Bar Manager, if you don’t already have the pleasure of knowing Sarah, you’ll feel like you do after joining us for our chat. 

One of our main purposes at Maître d’ Diaries is sharing stories and preserving the incredible history of our ever evolving F&B business. During this episode you’ll get a comprehensive overview of all things cocktail, learn what a Sasha Bar is, and stroll down the streets of early 2000-2010’s New York City, past the legendary speakeasies and cocktail lounges that started it all, many of which are sadly closed, each of which played an important role in the way spirit culture has evolved in the 21st century. And you’ll meet some of the major innovators in the bartending world who directly impacted what we now experience as standard when we go out for a cocktail. 

Sarah epitomizes the amount of hard work, enthusiasm, and devotion to information acquisition required to work in beverage at a high level restaurant or bar. Her knowledge of all things spirits–and insider information about how the city’s most popular bars are run–is matched only by her incredible warmth and the down-to-earth genuine affection and appreciation with which she welcomes every guest she comes in contact with. 

You’ll also hear about Erica’s new favorite gin–just in time for the upcoming G&T season. Cheers! 

A “We Can Transfer That” episode happens at least once a season on Maître d’ Diaries. These episodes are designed to highlight the many transferable skills one can hone working the door and floor of a restaurant. It's sort of a "how did you get from there to here" interview that showcases the incredibly satisfying and multi-faceted careers that sometimes get their start when someone becomes a server, a host, or a busser. 

One of the best things about the hospitality business–and this podcast–is the people we get to meet. This year at Will Guidara’s wonderful Welcome Conference, Erica had the thoroughly joyful experience of meeting Bradley Knebel of Empowered Hospitality. Bradley was studying Mathematics at Georgia Tech when he got a job as a server and fell in love with hospitality. He turned his passion into a career, moved to New York City, and began working for Union Square Hospitality Group where worked in a variety of roles–which we elaborate on during our chat. 

Bradley is an impressively well-rounded F&B guy. He’s earned his Level 2 Sommelier Certification, taught classes at Murray’s Cheese, and in 2022 he was the opening general manager of Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi, which earned a 3-star review in the New York Times, and two years in a row topped Pete Wells’ list of best restaurants in New York City.  

Listen in to hear about: 

~ What it was like to be involved in the Hospitality Included movement at USHG

~ Bradley’s thoughts on the pay disparity between front and back of the house workers

~ What working in HR can teach you about running a business

~ What an independent HR company can offer smaller operators

~ Why Bradley thinks that egos are the biggest killer of restaurants

~ How it all sort of started for him at Longhorn Steakhouse

~ How to help people become better leaders and how satisfying that can be

~ The power of mentorship on both sides of the relationship

Maître d’ Diaries is a front of the house industry podcast designed to build community with other dining room professionals, foster pride in the art of hospitality, share stories from the front lines, facilitate conversation among OG restaurant folks and the Next Gen, and address the very real challenges that are facing the industry we love.

We are delighted to introduce you to Sabrina Marte, an up-and-coming FOH star who has recently taken on the position of maître d’ at NoHo Hospitality’s Bar Primi in Penn Center. Sabrina is one of those people who lights up a room and exudes a welcome at the door that embraces each guest as they cross the threshold. While she may be what some people call a natural, you’ll learn that she also puts an enormous amount of thought into how she executes hospitality.

Listen in on our chat to hear about:

~ How she got into the business

~ Who inspires her: shout outs to Sean Prinz, Inta Erglis, Trisha Devila, and Justin Sievers!

~ All the love she has for NoHo Hospitality

~ How what managers remember about us can make all the difference

~ Pretty much the weirdest guest interaction you’ve ever heard of

You’ll end up feeling that the future of hospitality is in good hands!