Following an extremely spicy first season, Stan-exclusive series Sweetbitter is back for its second season today and ready to dish out more drama.
Based on Stephanie Danler’s critically-acclaimed novel of the same title, Sweetbitter follows Tess (Ella Purnell), a savvy chick who starts working at a fancy schmancy New York restaurant and soon learns that hospo life in the Big Apple is rife with debauchery (sex, booze, drugs and all kinds of scandal).
As the series shines the light on the wild behind-the-scenes happenings of the NYC hospo scene, we chatted to a bunch of people who have worked or still work in the hospitality field in New York who can confirm that the series paints too accurate a picture of how cooked things really are.
*Names have been changed for anonymity
Tainted love
I was a bartender at a dive bar in Soho. I generally stayed behind the bar and made drinks and served people who sat at the bar.
One time I served a pair who were on a first date – I know this because the dude arrived first and told me he was crazy nervous so I gave him a tequila shot, on the house.
Time went by and the girl was late, it was starting to look like she wasn’t gonna show up so I offered him another tequila shot (probably not the smartest move on my part but I felt bad for the guy).
The girl eventually shows up and they both seem to be having a good time. They start on the beers then move on to cocktails then hours later as the date is wrapping up, they both order a tequila shot each before they hit the road.
She goes to the bathroom as he pays the check. She walks out to find him projectile vomiting onto the bar.
I. Felt. Terrible. I knew I was partially responsible for starting him off on the shots and now he probably looks like an absolute bum to this girl he’s been pining for.
Anyway so the three of us clean up the vom (yep, the girl helped) and they take off.
Ever since then, the pair would occasionally pop into my mind and I’d wonder how things went after that date or if I’d royally cocked things up for them.
A year later they both came into the bar for a bevvy. It turns out they’re now living together and they laugh at their first date story all the time.
-Max, bartender in Soho
What happens in Vegas
I was working in a 24-hour diner in Manhattan to pay the rent while I was studying at college.
Because it was a cheap diner, open at all hours in a booming part of New York, I saw all sorts of shit, but the creepiest experience was one time when I served three middle aged men.
I’ve always prided myself on being friendly and talkative to customers and when they told me that they were on a business trip from LA, I told them how I had been in Vegas a few weeks prior for my sister’s bachelorette party.
One of the men said he’d never been to Vegas before and asked if he could see pictures from the trip. I got out my phone so they could check out all the standard tourist pics from the casinos and what not, and they said it looked like I had a great time.
They eventually finished eating, thanked me for the chat, left me a sweet tip and went on their way.
Later that evening when I was about an hour off from finishing my shift, one of the servers told me I had a phone call… it was one of the men from the booth.
He asked if I had more pictures from the trip that I could email him. He specifically asked if I had, and I quote, some “NSFW pictures.”
I politely told him that it wasn’t that kind of bachelorette party and I said the restaurant was heaps busy so I had to go.
It didn’t stop me from being sweet and friendly to customers in future but you can bet your bottom dollar that I never offered to show folks pictures from my phone ever again.
-Wendy, server in Queens
Snow way
It’s no secret that drug use is rampant in the hospitality industry and you probably assume it’s because we like to have a good time but that’s not always the case.
When you’re doing intense work at all hours, including back-to-back shifts, and serving the most ratchet crowd imaginable, you need something to get you through the day / night / morning.
And it goes without saying that it’s also rampant with the New York social scene so we were always finding little baggies on the floor and having to deal with customers high off their faces.
One time, a group of huge men drank for hours in a booth (they very well may have been football players, but I don’t have time to follow sport).
They were sinking some serious booze, like round after round of beers and loads of shots.
At around 11:30pm, they all got out in unison and filed out except for one dude who walked up and shook my hand, dropping a bag of coke in my palm.
“All good?” He said. He was basically trading hundreds of dollars worth of alcohol, alcohol that wasn’t mine to give, for a bag of coke for me only.
I’m not going to say what happened next, but let’s just say that I hope you don’t put my name or employer on this.
-Sarah, bartender in Lower Manhattan
Whine and dine
I used to work at a huge restaurant with several floors with different styles of dining and bars.
One day during the summer, I approached a lady sitting on her lonesome and asked if she’d like anything to drink. She orders a glass of natural wine.
So I went and asked the bartender for the order and he says they’re out on this floor but he’ll send someone to run to the storeroom to grab some more.
Since the storeroom is quite a few floors away, I go back to let her know. I give her the option of ordering something else or waiting a bit more for her drink.
She snorts and rolls her eyes then gets up and storms out.
About 20 minutes later, she waltzes back into the bar with a glass of wine that she’d purchased from one of the other bars within the restaurant. She gets right up in my face and takes a slurp of her drink then says, “Turns out you do have natural wine after all.”
She smugly leaves. Good.
-Janie, waitress in Times Square
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of
The strangest stuff happens all the time but it isn’t always bad.
One time a man and his daughter were eating at the restaurant where I worked and they bought the most expensive food and drinks on the menu, think lobsters, caviar, basically all expensive crustaceans and washed it down with champagne.
It ended up costing him close to $500.
As he was paying, he asked me how much I thought he should leave for a tip. I said $500 (obviously kidding).
Surely enough, he left $500 for me.
-Britt, waitress in Brooklyn
Catch the season two trailer below and suss out the half-hour series now streaming only on Stan. The first two eps dropped today, so get cracking.
