Story Time: Me & Topher Grace

The following is a transcript from a video I recorded about waiting on celebrities, systemic racism and the service industry.

It’s the late 00’s and I’m working an unreasonably busy summer weekday lunch rush on the patio at a very trendy Sunset Strip Chinese restaurant. I won’t drop any names, but let’s just say it’s the kind of place you can really imagine Lisa Rinna throwing a glass of wine on someone in.

Out of the corner of my eye I see the hostess has just double sat me by dropping a one-top at the very edge of my section.

This is the sort of things that typically enrages novice servers, but dusty veterans like myself understand that there is an unspoken hierarchy of restaurant seating that goes as follows:

Patios

Booths

1/2 Booths

Open floor tables

Bar

And probably the least desirable place to sit in a restaurant — the Bar high top.

This means that even if you have the plushes booth imaginable — there is a tiny, dark voice within all of us that whispers that our General Tso’s chicken is going to taste just a little better sitting at a wobbly table on a 95-degree patio.

In situations like this, I typically greet the one top first — people eating alone usually mean business and I can usually manage a whole dining experience in as few as four interactions:

Greet/order

Food drop

Table touch

Bill

I can turn a one top thee times as fast as I can turn a four top.

When I get to the table I realize that new lunch patron is none other than the That 70’s show sweet heart Topher Grace.

Given the location and the restaurant — celebrity sightings were a daily occurrence, so I wasn’t exactly star struck — especially given the fact that this was post-sitcom-pre-spiderman era Toph meaning his biggest claim to fame was not being Ashton Cusher.

When I got to the table, he told me that he had heard that we had a famous menu item, but couldn’t remember what it was.

To which I replied, “yeah, our Chinese Chicken Salad, it’s like crack for rich white women.”

So, at the time, it just seemed like some edgy shit that would be fun to say to this walking shrug of a human and I didn’t really grasp the bigger implications of what I’d said -

There was never a Chinese chicken salad epidemic that plagued suburbs. No one ever overdosed or was murdered because of Chinese chicken salads

Rich white women never sold Chinese chicken salads as their only means of climbing out of poverty because segregation and systemic racism had turned the suburbs into vacuums of economic opportunity.

There weren’t racist 100–1 sentencing disparities or mandatory minimums that lead to mass incarcerations of rich white women — that we are still suffering from to this day — for selling or possessing the wrong combination of iceberg lettuce, wonton strips, shredded chicken breast, toasted almonds and a refreshing ginger vinaigrette.

The US government never illegally sold arms to Iran in order to secretly funnel money to Nicaraguan contras and turn a blind eye as they shipped Chinese chicken salads to AYSO meetings in Westlake Village.

What I should have said was, “Hey pal, if your looking for a light lunch that will leave you feeling satisfied, but not stuffed — I recommend going with the dish that shares your target demographic.”

Anyways, Topher responded by raising the awe-shucks-iest eyebrow I’ve ever seen and saying “I’ll take one Chinese chicken salad please”

And for the record, he cleared his plate.