Without waiter jobs, what happens to creative New York?

[brooklynite]

New York Daily News

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s been the story for many a starry-eyed creative type looking for a big break in the Big Apple — wait tables to pay the bills while auditioning, performing, singing, painting, dancing, writing, whatever it takes to make the dreams of success come true.

But there's been a plot twist, thanks to the coronavirus putting food servers out of work in recent months as restaurants were forced to shut down their dine-in services. And much uncertainty remains over what restaurant dining will look like even as New York City reopens.

Questions of whether there will be enough business for establishments to stay open and even have waiter jobs to fill are causing concern about what that's going to mean for the city's creative class if the jobs that helped them be able to live here and add to the city's artistic culture are no longer readily available.

"It really is a part of the artist's life in New York, so I don't know what that's going to look like if it's just suddenly not an option anymore," said Travis McClung, 28, who has spent close to nine years waiting tables while doing theater, singing and more recently, trying to build his career in video editing and post-production.

[exboyfil]

1. My niece and her husband have been living in my BILs

basement in Iowa for several months now. They are both musicians in New York. Not only are waiter jobs not available, performance and performance support jobs aren't available either. They just got married last year.

[underpants]

2. Interesting twist

I’m sure it’s the same here

[jimfields33]

3. Hopefully they are spending the last 4 months writing, painting of whatever

Artistic gift they have. Obviously that depends on if they get the extra 600 a week. Some may not be able to survive if they don’t get unemployment.

[Nature Man]

4. They go back to mom and dad's house

in whatever backwater hellhole they came from?

[exboyfil]

8. Backwater hellhole?

That kind of elitism is what damages the party. There are good people everywhere.

[Nature Man]

9. Give it a rest

[exboyfil]

11. Amazing enough

In these back water hell holes we actually do have our own small art museums, community orchestras, and theater troupes.

[Nature Man]

12. umm

youngsters leave their backwater hellholes for NYC because they are backwater hellholes.

Otherwise, they'd stay in bumfuck Midwestistan and do community theater and work at Olive Garden.

[FBaggins]

5. Likely far more "waiter jobs" than auditions these days

Broadway is close through at least the end of the year.

[Johnny2X2X]

6. Waiting and bar tending jobs are a huge part of the economy

Waiting tables is tough work, but if you're good at it and find the right place you can make a decent living doing it. Even more so with bar tending. That is all shut down most places right now.

i know people who've spent their whole lives bar tending and own homes, cars, and put their kids through college on tip money. Really trying times for them right now.

[exboyfil]

10. My mom did really well for many years

As a waitress at high end restaurants.

[Johnny2X2X]

14. I know bar tenders in big cities who made six figures

I'm in West Michigan and some bar tenders here can make $60K+ a year. But in Chicago and New York, 6 figures if you're good and get into the right spot.

Heck, in Detroit I know a bar tender who worked 2 nights at 1 bar and pocketed $2000 in tips, he was bale to use that money to buy his own bar.

[tinrobot]

7. Similar story here in Los Angeles.

Restaurant workers here are HURTING.

[Apollo Zeus]

13. Left the City 10 years ago

I loved living there in the early 1990s but much of what I loved about it fell away one change at a time.

rents went up
boring banker people moved in
the cheaper ma & pa businesses got priced out
machine gun wielding security forces came in
the dot com boom went bust
cell phones curtailed street interactions

And now the City is losing more big chunks of what made it unique.

The last time I went to Vegas (2008) I stayed in the New York New York hotel. It is like NYC turned into a little theme park. It embraced the uniqueness of NYC but also was sad because it confirmed that NYC isn't like that anymore.