As an organic chemistry tutor, an HIV-testing volunteer and a pre-med, senior Alexa Monroy already has a lot on her plate—and that’s including the ones she serves.
Every Wednesday from 5 to 10 p.m., Monroy checks her academic persona at the door, dons a white apron and embraces her role as a waitress.
“I like interacting with the students who come in and looking at the dynamic on the other side—it’s a stress-relief thing,” she said. “When I’m in that room, nothing else exists but what’s going on in [the restaurant]. For five hours, my biggest stressor is getting someone their bread.”
Monroy is one of eight undergraduate students serving on the wait staff at Plate & Pitchfork, the nighttime rendition of the Faculty Commons restaurant. Relatively few students work at on-campus dining establishments at Duke, representing a small slice of the employed student body.
Several other eateries enlist student help as well, including Armadillo Grill, La Dolce Vita in the French Family Science Center and Bella Union in McClendon Tower, though Plate & Pitchfork employs the greatest number of undergraduates and has recently seen large increases in dinners served and sales.
Executive Chef Chris Holloway credited the “big upswing” in business partially to his servers, the majority of whom are students working between five and 20 hours per week.
“This has been the best wait staff I’ve probably ever had,” he said. “They’ve all been wonderful, confident, competent and just with it.”
The direct student-to-student connection has played a significant role in the restaurant’s success, Director of Dining Services Jim Wulforst said.
The price of a Dukie
Sam Clowney, co-owner of Bella Union and La Dolce Vita and a partner at the Faculty Commons, said there are downsides to working with students. During crunch times like finals, students can be unreliable and may miss shifts, he said.
“It can be difficult [to work with students],” Clowney said. “It does get tough during exam week, but you know what, it’s one week. What you get in return... are people who already know your customer base.”
As such, student workers tend to comprise only a subset of overall employees, adding to the general obscurity of the positions. Some eateries do not employ students at all.
The sole undergraduate bartender at Armadillo Grill, senior Metty Fisseha, who writes a biweekly column for The Chronicle, snagged her job through her personal connections with the manager.
“In the past, Duke students have been hard to rely on,” she said. “I was the only student [the manager] hired, and she wanted to keep it that way.”
Though only one undergraduate is working at Bella Union this semester, averaging 25 hours per week, Clowney said he typically hires 15 to 20 student employees each year.
Students may pose logistical issues at times, Holloway said, but they make up for it with their enthusiasm and quick learning,
“I was just amazed with the applicants,” he said. “To have a talent pool like the Duke student body, you don’t get that out in the real world.”
Resume-worthy
Though the positions exist, student waiters said some of their peers do not see the use of working in Dining.
Duke undergraduates tend to take on academic jobs that look nice on their resumes, Monroy said. Though working in eateries may not be “glamorous,” she added that waitressing gave her a valuable skill set she can use in future jobs.
Indeed, service jobs can give students practical experience, Wulforst said.
“It’s not easy to be a server, to wait on people,” he said. “You have to have a lot of confidence to win over those customers and make them feel comfortable. There is a lot of life experience gained in being in this business.”
Senior Bibi Tran had previously served as a research assistant for a Fuqua School of Business study and as a tutor for the Teach for America program before becoming a waitress at Plate & Pitchfork—a job she called “15 times better.”
“Companies want someone who has experience in different ways, and I like the sides of me that can emerge in this job,” she said. “I learn a lot, and waitressing is always entertaining.”
Taboo?
Some students may dismiss Dining jobs because of the stigma associated with them, Monroy said. She added that some people are surprised when she tells them she waitresses, but she is proud of her work.
“After you push through the initial awkwardness, then it’s not a big deal,” she said. “If you own it and aren’t ashamed of it, then no one will contest it.”
Additionally, working in the service industry does a lot to break down student-employee barriers, she said.
“I think it’s a really good change on campus that students are getting involved in the service area,” Monroy said. “It eliminates the conception of who works in the position to serve Duke students and kind of equalizes who we are.”
Fisseha said she wishes Duke students were more interested in taking on service jobs, which she believes would help improve relationships between students and employees.
“Just walk through the Great Hall, and you can see... an obvious racial and socioeconomic divide. There is a very separate culture of people who serve you and people who go here,” she said. “It’s not to say that everyone has a huge taboo against working in the food service, but there’s definitely some room for improvement.”
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