1983 - Niterider

I've been trying to find a premise for a blog for so long now - because the best ones I've read have a central theme. It finally came to me in a dream, when after many years behind a computer or a microphone, I found myself dreaming about taking food and drink orders. That led me to reminisce about my time behind the tray, and think about all the jobs, I've done and the places I've lived in. So here's my first blog entry, about my year with Niterider Theatre Restaurant.


Following a wild long weekend at the Narara Australian Music Festival I decided I needed to find a weekend job to help me pay my way through university. After a discouraging day of confessing my complete lack of skills to various restaurants - and the discovery I was under-qualified for a position at a topless bar* - I was relieved to pour my tired sunburned self down the stairs of Chequers, where Niterider Theatre Restaurant had been yeehawing for a few years.

*Card-holding member of the committee* for many years.
*The itty bitty titty committee, sheesh! Do I have to explain everything?

Following a brief but brisk interview by co-owner Doug Malcolm I was told to "buy a pair of cowboy boots, a pair of moccasins and be sure to bring stockings" - but was assured the rest of the costume would be provided. He told me to turn up for the next show "to see how it all works" and then I'd be rostered on. Although the prospect of forking out my non-existent cash for footwear I'd otherwise never consider dismayed me somewhat, actually gaining employment without the faintest idea of what I was doing gave me a great feeling. I was also pleased to be hired despite the fact that my burnt skin had begun to slough istelf from my body in large strips, and from my face in great flakes.

It was possibly the best place I could have found a job, as the set menu required no food service. The kitchen provided soup for the first course, sliced beef, potatoes and vegetables for the second, and apple pie for dessert. All I was responsible for was serving the food and bringing the drinks, which the patrons required in large quantities and as quickly as possible. Each table had a card, on which the waitresses wrote down their drink orders. The bar staff would then load trays with these orders, placing the cards on top. At the end of the night, the bar staff would total the orders, the tables would pay and tip the waitresses, and amble home replete.

In theory, at least. I've seen some almost stand-up fights over the bar tab, when some on the table were drinking wine while others were downing cocktails. And my job wasn't made any easier by the fact that although I am chronically short-sighted, my vanity meant that I wouldn't wear my glasses in public. Too poor for contact lenses, I would instruct my tables to "wave vigorously" at me if they wanted service.

The staff were a motley lot, many of them the actor/model type, who felt that working at a theatre restaurant was better than hauling plates in a cafe. Of course the waitresses* were "part of the show," beginning the night as cowgirls, in a hat, shirt, fringed vest and skirt, and cowboy boots. A quick-change during the show meant whipping off the shirt, hat and boots, adding a feather, some war-paint and moccasins to transform into Indian squaws*.

*Pre-equal opportunity, the floor staff were women and the bar staff were men. No exceptions.
*Not Native Americans, either.

After a bit of a rocky start, a year working at Niterider meant I was often given tables of 20 or 30, with big bills and therefore big tips. I was pretty good at my job, often upselling wines, pushing the more-expensive cocktails, and talking patrons into liqueur coffees. A couple of the waitresses were hoofers, so they got to have less tables and put on frills and feathers to dance the can-can with the cast. We all envied them, although doing the splits every night seemed a high price to pay for an easy ride. One of them, Viv, became my closest friend for many years, and I believe she was responsible for suggesting the infamous "waitresses' party" which caused Doug to almost have heart failure that New Years' Eve.

As I lived in the nearby inner-city suburb of Surry Hills, I was the obvious hostess for the party. A group of waitresses gathered in the early afternoon to celebrate before New Year's. Because as anyone who's had to do it can tell you, working on that night - especially handing drinks to revellers - is one of the most depressing things you can do. So we consumed champagne, Peking duck pancakes and several expertly-rolled joints, before teetering down the stairs in a pile of giggles.

I still have photographs from that party, and we all look - besides ridiculously young and thin - so happy. That's despite horrific unemployment in Australia, coming off the back of a recession. Maybe we were encouraged by winning the America's Cup. I suppose I had reason to be happy, as I was about to embark on a round-the world holiday paid for by my mother, as a reward for completing and passing my first year at uni. How poorly I was to repay her, dropping out within a month of returning, as I thought I'd been bitten by the travel bug and wanted to earn money. And within a year I'd be married - in a relationship doomed to failure.

But I look at Sue and Viv and all the other girls on my sofa in that Surry Hills terrace and I remember singing "Maxine" in the dressing-room before the night's work, dancing to Hayzee Fantayzee and Boston after we'd booted the punters out for the night, and getting my first (and only, to date) tattoo. It's funny but while my memories of university seem faded and patchy, my recollections of Niterider are clear and bright. I must have been having fun.