The Last Supper Club: A Waiter's Requiem

Matthew Batt, a tenured professor, took a sabbatical from his university position and worked as a waiter at a high-end restaurant in a Minneapolis brewery. He shares his experiences in his memoir, The Last Supper Club, which convey the challenges and satisfaction of meeting the demands of a frenzied kitchen and an expectant crowd. The book offers an insightful perspective on what makes a job good, bad, or great and extols the significance of our food and the places where we gather to enjoy it.

Format: Unspecified
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 24 November 2023
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

A witty and humble tribute to the sometimes profane, sometimes profound world of waiting tables:

During a year on sabbatical from his university position, Matthew Batt realized he needed money—fast—and it just so happened that one of the biggest breweries in the Midwest was launching a restaurant and looking to hire. So it was that the forty-something tenured professor found himself waiting tables at a high-end restaurant situated in a Minneapolis brewery. And loving it.

Telling the story of Batts early work in restaurants, from a red sauce joint possibly run by the mob to an ill-conceived fusion concept eatery, The Last Supper Club, then details his experiences at the fine dining restaurant, a job that continued well past his sabbatical—that lasted, in fact, right up to the restaurants sudden and unceremonious closing three years later, shortly after it was named one of the best restaurants in the country by Food & Wine.

Batts memoir conveys the challenge—and the satisfaction—of meeting the demands of a frenzied kitchen and an equally expectant crowd. Through training mishaps, disastrous encounters with confused diners, struggles to keep pace with far more experienced coworkers, mandatory memorizations of laundry lists of obscure ingredients, and the stress of balancing responsibilities at home and at work, The Last Supper Club reveals the ups and downs of a waiters workday and offers an insightful perspective on what makes a job good, bad, or great. For Batt, this job turns out to be considerably more fun, and possibly more rewarding, than his academic career, and his insiders view of waiting tables extols the significance of our food and the places where we gather to enjoy it—or serve it.

Told with sharp humor, humility, and a keen sense of w., The Last Supper Club is a must-read for anyone who has ever waited tables, or for anyone who has ever wondered what it takes to be a great waiter.

Weight: 540g
Dimension: 161 x 243 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781517914851