Happy Birthday. Here’s your cake. Choke on it.

I can still remember the sing-along-song that they used to sing at Ryan’s Steakhouse. All of the floor employees (I won’t call them waiters) would come to your table with a piece of cake, and sing the following little ditty. Imagine it sounding just like every other birthday song….ever:

Happy, happy birthday! We’re so glad you came! Happy, happy birthday from the Ryan’s gang! We’re so excited, and we hope you know it’s true! So happy, happy birthday from all of us to you! Hey!

Then they’d all give you a half-assed golfclap and walk off to go back to their business. Whoopee. Another birthday.

You and I both know that just about everyone goes out to eat on thier birthdays. I, personally like to go to this really nice Italian place for lunch and then seafood for dinner on my birthday. Although I love being the center of attention just like you, and everyone else, I also feel for the waiter who has to give away restaurant product for no charge. No charge means less tip.

It’s your special night, we know. It was the day you were born and you are entitled to spend it however you want and think about how special you are. You gather up all your friends and family and go out for a nice meal at your favorite place, or your friends pick the place and surprise you. Perhaps they buy you a cake, but more often than not you are secretly hoping that the restaurant gives free dessert for birthdays. Some places do and some places don’t. However, in my experience, working at a place that does give free dessert for birthdays makes you start to dislike celebrations.

You see, some people (not most) will take any and all opportunities to take advantage of the restaurant they go to, to the point of saying it is their birthday when it really isn’t. And since you have no shame or consideration for anyone other than yourself, you happily eat your free dessert while your waiter is calling you a liar and a cheap bastard/bitch back in the kitchen. Believe me, we can tell when it’s really not your birthday. Most of us have been doing it long enough to catch social queues and pick up on poker tells when people are lying to us. We just give it to you anyways, to make you happy.

And I swear to God, if you came to me at the place I work now and ask me for a song or dance for your birthday, I’d probably slap you. I worked four years at a place as one of the only people who had to sing for birthdays. I basically was a trained monkey that dropped whatever it was I was doing at the time to go perform for a “birthday”. Often I would fake sick just so I wouldn’t have to do it. Unfortunately, I rarely ever got tipped from doing it, so every occasion seemed to put me further into the weeds with no compensation. I know birthdays are supposed to be happy, but when it’s nine people’s birthdays suddenly on one night between the hours of 7:00 and 9:00, they get really annoying. “Do you guys do anything special for birthdays?” used to drive a nail through my brain each time I heard it.

The seafood restaurant I mentioned earlier does it right. They get your name, address and birthday into a computer system. Then, the month before your birthday they send you a paper in the mail saying that you can come in any night of your birthday month and we’ll buy your entree. This cracks down on people falsifying that it’s their birthday since you have to be in the system and come in with the piece of paper. It’s genius.

If you want to go searching for a restaurant that gives free dessert or food for your birthday, that’s great. It’s your day and you deserve something special. Just don’t abuse it, otherwise it’s lying and that has to be at least four or five “Hail Mary’s”.

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