You definitely have to be a people person to work in front of the house. I enjoyed the story about the dishwasher who worked his way up to become a chef. This is an industry that still allows advancement through hard work and experience rather than formal education.

These experiences are interesting, but it seemed nobody mentioned the down time! Serving isn't always fast-paced and exciting. There's a lot of down time between rushes or on bad weather days. A frequently used phrase in the industry is "if you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean!" -- You can place a super high value on yourself as an employee if you take this to heart. Managers notice a server who spends their off time scrubbing things down instead of chitchatting or doing a crossword!