How the Restaurant and Bar Industry Is Filled With Gender Biases Masquerading as Polite Service
Stop giving my husband the wine list and serving me first
I hoped in 2024 I would have heard the last of “ladies first” in restaurants but no, I heard it just three nights ago.
I hoped restaurants would have stopped pushing me and my chair towards the table, but no.
I hoped I would be handed the wine list or the check (or let it rest on the table for anyone to pick up) but again, no.
I truly believe feminism has come a long way in recent decades, but when it comes to service in my industry — hospitality—alas gender biases are very much alive and masquerading themselves as polite service.
And it’s harming the industry more than it thinks.
“It was acceptable in the 80s”
Whilst many other industries have moved with the times, hospitality is arguably not one of them.
Yes, there are modern joints that don’t believe that good service is the same as sexist service. My friend
— an ex-bartender — told me he was trained to take an egalitarian approach to tables.I trained my staff in the same way.
But there are plenty of joints that, when it comes to service, use an out-of-date playbook.
As fashion influencer Agustina Gandolfo found out, that can include “blind menus.” Blind menus have no prices next to the dishes. They were originally designed so only hosts could see the costs to eliminate price embarrassment for their guests.
But that’s not how they are used. As Agustina discovered, if they exist, they are routinely given to the women at the table.
This didn’t happen in the 1980s. It happened in 2021 Italy.
When newspaper The Independent reported on the incident, they found a (female) manager of a three-starred Michelin restaurant prepared to defend the blind menu. In her words:
If there is a couple at table we have the habit of giving the blind menu to the woman. It is not discrimination but a form of gallantry.
It’s not just the blind menu. A recent viral TikTok documented how women were served smaller portions at two-star Michelin New York restaurant Noz.
Blind menus and smaller portions might seem extreme and they are. They don’t exist everywhere. But they are an important marker that, when it comes to gender biases in service, the hospitality industry has a long way to go.
Food critic Eve Hill-Angus wrote the most damning example I came across in my research. She was assigned to write about Dallas’s top steakhouses but wound up writing a scathing review of the misogyny she experienced from service staff in her research:
The kid-gloved mistreatment is not something you notice on the first steakhouse visit…But by number 12 or so, you’re starting to see the patterns, the insistent beat of chauvinistic bias.
A few weeks in, it begins to feel like an out-of-body experience. And the reason your stomach is churning each time you put on your heels is less about cholesterol and more about a radical diminishment of self.
Yes, steakhouses have a reputation for being more like a boy’s club than an egalitarian utopia. But Hill-Angus experienced another level of gendered bias service.
And as I know first-hand, it doesn’t just happen in masculine-driven steakhouses.
You can trace gender biases in service to many root causes but one of the most interesting is the influence of the so-called father of modern-day restaurants, Auguste Escoffier.
He may have lived over 150 years ago, but Escoffier still influences the way hospitality approaches service today.
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The dude has a lot to answer for
Arguably, Escoffier did a lot of good for the hospitality industry. He invented the kitchen brigade system beloved by chefs like Anthony Bourdain. Think a highly disciplined team with a clear chain of command.
He also changed the way we eat at restaurants, moving away from serving every dish at once family-style to the three-course system many restaurants use today.
With this change in food came a change in service. It became more formal and customer-focused, in part because Escoffier’s approach required every person to be served individually.
This was the 19th century so that meant men ordered, women got served first, and would never pick up the check. Why would they? They were barely allowed out by themselves, let alone be able to pay for a meal.
We are, of course, not the 19th century anymore. But some restaurants and bars never got the message.
I remember my silver service training well, albeit a long time ago. I remember the rules over who gets served first, who gets the bill, and who has control over the wine list.
My wine training wasn’t much better. The wine trade loves to use words like feminine to describe lighter, less serious wines and masculine to denote big, tough wines.
It’s not just hospitality veterans like me who were taught like this. When I owned a wine bar I had to knock that sort of training out of some of my staff — even the younger ones.
Escoffier may have made some important — and needed — changes to hospitality but the dude lived in a different time.
The fact that some restaurants still follow his approach to service today is laughable at best.
And dangerous at worst.
Let me eat like a gouty little king
Alas, the hospitality industry has a huge problem with sexism and sexual abuse. 90% of women in the industry have experienced sexual harassment.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission receives more harassment complaints from the restaurant industry than any other.
Restaurants’ insistence on reinforcing traditional gender roles on the floor night after night doesn’t necessarily open the door for sexual abuse behind the scenes.
But that doesn’t mean I would want to work in a place that instigates these policies. I don’t want to work with male servers who only speak to male diners. I don’t want to work somewhere that tells me to give the man the wine list.
And I certainly don’t want to give any money to a place that adopts a “ladies first” approach to service.
This is 2024. Women can make their own money, dine on their own, pay for their dates, know about wine, and eat like gouty little kings.
There is no excuse for sexist service masquerading as politeness or “gallantry.”
Restaurants can do better. They should. They risk alienating a vast number of their patrons if they don’t.
Thankfully, this is not an issue in every restaurant. I’ve yet to visit a modern small-plate restaurant that assumes gender biases in its service. The same goes for what I call Cozycore restaurants. These might sell old-school food in old-school dining rooms but in my experience, the service is decidedly new-school.
Excellent — and gender-neutral.
These are the restaurants I see making waves. The rave reviews, the awards, the recognition.
But still, there is a long way to go.
As for the restaurants who still think gender-biased service = good service, here’s a tip. As a woman, I would love to pick up the check, have control over the wine list and push my own chair in.
I don’t need gallantry. I need autonomy and respect.
I’m an independent woman because of those who came before me. Those who fought for the cause.
Women didn’t die so their successors could be given blind menus and smaller portions. The sooner restaurants recognise that, the better.
Great piece. After three decades in and around restaurants, and someone who owned a corner wine bar - we need more of these types of conversations. It’s a big part of what I’ve started to tackle at The Luncheonette. Thanks for taking another courageous step in our industry with your writing here. It’s important.
There is a big movement by groups of women promoting "traditional" lifestyles.. chauvinism, the stay at home mom while the man works, she is there to serve him lifestyle, and he is the first and final word. Which is fine if that is what you want for yourself and yours, but not everyone does.
They are trying to bring something back that is not gone. Male bias is alive and well today not only in the hospitality industry, but in every industry. Most infuriatingly in the women's health sector. I do not understand how people do not see it.