On Sunday Toby and I sat down to watch The Restaurant on NBC. I was intrigued by this concept as anyone who has ever worked in the service industry knows that pretty much anything can happen there. You may find yourself calling 911 after a fellow employee comes into work drunk and punches the time-clock, breaking the plastic and severing every tendon in his hand. You may find yourself naked in the walk-in freezer. You may find yourself asleep in the bathroom with you pants down, around your ankles. The dishwasher may carry a bat and he may use said bat to threaten and abuse unwieldy frat boys. The cook may like grabbing your ass while his girlfriend is at table 5. And someone may actually pass out in their dish of mac and chez. While working in a restaurant, pretty much everything and everyone does something or someone, which creates a story they can tell for the rest of their life.

But I digress, this reality TV show has the potential to be great. And I can see TV reps everywhere scratching their heads, muttering to themself,

God damnit, why hadn’t I thought of that first.

The show seems exciting. It combines many popular trends decorating current television. For example, watching hot people cook, watching people get voted off or fired, or watching gay people, straight people, big people, small people hook up with almost strangers, run off with someone’s other, and fight. My only criticism, thus far, is that for whatever reason they blast rather loud “background” music while people are talking. I guess the producers do this to spice it up or something, but it leaves me and my shot to hell ears tweaked.

So Sunday, we sit down to watch this.

This show is a great idea. Given that many waitresses, waiters, bartenders and maitre dis are indeed actors, it kind of works out well, you know? And I wouldn’t be surprised if we see someone we know on here.

Toby nods over his paperwork.

And then, there she was. One of the bartenders looked familiar. I knew her from somewhere. I looked on google, briefly, that night and found nothing. It was driving me crazy. I think I lost sleep. The following day, I found images of her and then her name. As it turns out, Lola Bell, a woman who used to serve the Williamsburg hipsters drinks at Enids, is on the show. We used to go on Mondays for karaoke night. She would put on quite a sexy version of “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”.

Anyway, that’s pretty cool. I do look forward to watching this show. I hope it ends up being “real”. If not, I fear it’ll just end up in the trash with all the rest of reality television. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing who else ends up on there and who ends up off. And to Lola, a once hipster-serving bartender who slung booze from a corner in Brooklyn, I say

fire away.