‘It was Downton Abbey’: Life as a waitress in an American diner

OVER a decade of waiting tables at diners in New York and Los Angeles, this woman saw the best and worst of human behaviour.

IN 10 years of working as a waitress in New York and Los Angeles, one moment sticks in the mind of writer and director Jessie Nelson.

She was serving a table at a Chinese restaurant when she accidentally spilt a drop of plum sauce on a customer’s silk blouse, and all hell broke loose.

“She had my head, she couldn’t stop screaming,” recalls the filmmaker, who used her experience to write hit musical Waitress. “I said I would pay for dry cleaning, or a new shirt if that didn’t get it out. For 20 minutes, she screamed at me, about what an idiot I was, how stupid, how clumsy.

“I had no money. In the moment, it was Downton Abbey, like I had gotten a drop on the Queen’s gown and no amount of apologies would make up for it.”

Jessie — who went on to co-write Stepmom and direct movies starring Whoopi Goldberg, Sean Penn and Diane Keaton — says waitressing showed her the best and worst of human nature.

Waitresses in American diners experience the best and the worst of human behaviour, says writer/director Jessie Nelson.

“Another night, I had a very different group of people, quite drunk,” she tells news.com.au. “They were rude to me and then left an extraordinary tip, the biggest I’d seen in my life. I thought they were being kind ... then 15 minutes later they called the restaurant to say they had put the comma in the wrong place, they didn’t want to leave me such a big tip.”

Jessie’s takings for the night went from $1500 to a paltry $15 in seconds, from paying her rent for the month to leaving her wondering if she could afford petrol.

Service workers in the US typically rely on tips for a living wage, and those years fighting to keep her head above water helped Jessie understand people from all walks of life and inspired her Hollywood career.

She formed deep female friendships, bonding with other waitresses in an often mentally and physically draining job. And it made her truly believe the old saying that you can tell what someone’s like by how they treat their waitress.

“There were constantly challenging experiences, people who — you’re not their slave, but you’re there to serve them,” she says. “Many don’t see you as human being.”

But she also witnessed incredible “kindness and generosity”, too. “You see both aspects of people,” she says.

Jessie, who co-wrote Stepmom and directed major Hollywood movies, drew on her experience of waiting tables when writing the musical adaptation of Waitress. Picture: Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for CBS Films/AFP

At times, Jessie says, she felt just as singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles writes in She Used To Be Mine, one of the songs in Waitress: “That place and its patrons / Have taken more than I gave them.”

The musical tells the story of waitress Jenna Hunterson, who is trapped in an abusive relationship with husband Earl and is horrified to find out she is pregnant. Jenna embarks on an affair with her doctor, while trying to hoard away the money to travel to a baking competition, hoping the cash prize would enable her and her child to escape her controlling spouse.

The story, and its ending, are far from the typical sentimental Broadway fare.

“We were just trying to tell this beautiful story of a woman kind of finding her voice and authenticity in her life in as real and honest a way as we could, but also create an evening that would be uplifting and fun, as messy and delicious as life really is for an audience,” says Jessie.

The tale is based on a 2007 movie of the same name, whose director and star Adrienne Shelly was tragically murdered before she could see Waitress become one of the breakout hits of Sundance and a Tony-nominated musical.

Adrienne Shelly wrote and starred in the 2007 movie that inspired the musical, but was tragically killed before she could see it become one of the biggest hits of the Sundance film festival.

The story subverts traditionally female activities such as waitressing and pie-making to be about independence and entrepreneurialism. It taps into the #MeToo movement, as Jenna attempts to break free from an unhappy relationship just as she is about to become a mother.

“I love stories about real people — not famous people — and their everyday struggles, what’s courageous in their lives,” says Jessie. “We can all relate to relationships where we’ve shrunk to fit to try to survive.

“Behind every person is a story. Even the abusive husband, when you hear his backstory you realise he’s like the disenfranchised. He hoped to be musician, it didn’t happen for him, he probably had an abusive father himself, he lost his job, probably lost several jobs, there was no place for him to feel valued, he was becoming angrier and angrier and taking it out on her.

“For a while, she hoped he would change, gradually that became him. I don’t think people are born cruel. Life does that to people.”

Waitress is the work of an all-female creative team, a fact that Jessie says didn’t change the process but was noticeable in the group’s treatment of motherhood, as well as during casting, when it was “really import to us the three waitresses were unique and not typically beautiful”.

Broadway has faced similar problems to Hollywood in terms of sexual harassment, assault and the objectification of women. James Barbour, star of Phantom Of The Opera until December, was charged with the statutory rape of a 15-year-old in 2006, and later pleaded guilty to two counts of endangering the welfare of a minor in exchange for a lesser sentence of 60 days’ jail and three years probation.

Scott Shepherd, who most recently appeared in an off-Broadway production of Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure, admitted slapping his then-girlfriend and co-star in 2012 with enough force that he knocked her to the floor and she had a black eye the next day.

Cheryl Hines, Keri Russell and Adrienne Shelly in a scene from the original movie.

“Our character was at the forefront of the #MeToo movement,” says Jessie. “I’m proud of that, putting it front and centre.

“Those issues exist in diners, offices, Broadway, Hollywood. Men and women navigating their way out of an abuse of power.

“In my own experience, it’s not just sexual, it’s power abuse. I’ve had bosses, producers over the years having violent tempers or treating people cruelly and that being sanctioned — ‘he’s just having bad day, that’s how he is’ — people aren’t being held accountable.”

Harvey Weinstein, she noted, was not only accused of sexual abuse but of repeatedly abusing male and female directors and damaging the careers of some of the world’s most talented artists.

“I think our country’s got a lot of things backwards, even what we pay teachers is cuckoo, but that is why I think tips and acknowledging people who serve us is important,” she says.

“When Hillary Clinton came to see Waitress,she came backstage and said, ‘This play is about the importance of a small business loan.’

“I have so much love and respect for waitresses — it’s ushers, waitresses, cab drivers, who are making our lives so much easier and are often invisible.”

Now a successful writer and director, one of Jessie’s “great delights” is anonymously leaving huge tips for people, she says.

“Nothing’s better than making a waitress’s day.”

Originally published as ‘It was Downton Abbey’: Life as a waitress in an American diner