For most of his life, Rich Oettinger's mother made a living either as a waitress or restaurant owner (server or restaurateur in modern lingo). Like any career serving the public, it involved an ever-changing cast of interesting—and sometimes irritating—characters, and their quips, comments and questions, painstakingly recorded on the pages of order pads over the course of decades, are compiled here in a hilarious book that will resonate with anyone who's spent any amount of time working in the restaurant or hospitality industries.

Collected with loving care by her son, now a restaurateur himself, it includes real quotes from real people met over the course of a decades-long career.