Joseph W. Montaperto, click
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Blogs by Joseph W. Montaperto
PROJECTILE CHILI 1/17/2020 7:16:22 PM
The story of one forlorn waiter's adventure as he is thrust onto the busiest station on Wednesday matinee day - the busiest day of the week in a fancy NYC kosher restaurant! November 17th, 1990 - a day that will live in infamy. Unbelievable! I've never seen it happen before or since...I'm talking about 'The Projectile Chilli Incident'.
Before I started catering I worked at a few restaurants. There was one in particular that was really horrible. The Great American Health Bar. A kosher restaurant on 57th Street in New York. Now, at this place I LITERALLY make no money. I'm not kidding. I was living at my parent's house in New Jersey - and commuting to The Great American everyday (curiously, there were no actual Americans working there). I worked upstairs for the lunch shift, in the back right station - the ABSOLUTE worst station. I would serve MAYBE three or four customers for the one hour the place was minorly busy - and then I would go back home! So, actually I was just paying for my bus fare to go back and forth! (Don't judge me - my mind had snapped shortly before that) Anyway, there is this diminutive and ancient manager-cashier there named Joseph, who makes it his life's work to torment me as much as humanly possible. This guy speaks NO English - and was probably herding yak on some mountain in Kazakhastan a few months ago - before he somehow struck oil. Or something. Like Jed Clampett from - The Beverly Hillbillies. Now he was the cashier/manager at The Great American in New York City. In any case, there was this one Wednesday (Wednesday was the busy Broadway matinee day) and in an IMPROBABLE and highly unlikely chain of events, like, three people call out sick - and I somehow inherit the busiest station - THE PLATFORM!!
Everybody stampedes in at EXACTLY the same time because they have to hurry to see The Phantom Of The Opera, or whatever is big on Broadway then.
So, they're all clamoring for their food, lest they be late for the show, and I am scurrying like a rodent, trying to keep up. I burst out of the kitchen with, like, FIVE plates on my arms, as I to try to appease the savage beasts, and put down one of the plates - a plate of chili - on the platform railing. I turn around to serve out the other plates - when, SUDDENLY, I hear
tormented screams of agony! Somehow, the chili - the scolding hot chili -had dropped to the floor - and splatters all over EVERYBODY on the platform! EVERYBODY - incredibly enough! I mean, it could have qualified for a national disaster. One poor lady was standing up, shaking her hands and crying - in a state of shock - miraculously, it had hit her in EVERY possible - place - on top of her head, her white pantyhose - even inside her SHOES!! Another gentleman just stares in a state of shock - as the chili has permeated his very expensive London Fog trenchcoat! Others just sit in stunned silence, some crying, some suffering burns from the errant chili! A horrific scene - if there ever was one! Soon, coming back to life, they clamored for redemption - at least in the form of compensation for their dry cleaning bills! The roar grows louder - and Joseph, speaking NO English, fearing for his very life - and thoroughly befuddled - points at me: "Jo-Jo pays!!" What?! I don't even make any money here! This must be like, at least, $2000 dollars in dry cleaning bills - I would have to work for years - for free. An indentured servant!
The next morning I call up the restaurant, and claim I
somehow had broken my leg last night. I never work for The Great American again.
