and a side order of Dignity...

This page, like a lot of you, eats. When I'm not eating at home or from a reusable lunchbag in front of my office building, you can find me eating in one of Vancouver's reasonably-priced restaurants. I greatly enjoy the variety of menu items, the care taken in preparing them, and the competent professional service which brings them to my table.

However, I can do without a side order of low-cut blouses, mini-skirts, midriff-baring tops, and especially high heels. For this page, imposing a dress code on servers only contributes to the runaway exploitation already taking place in Canada's hospitality industry, where workers are expected to rely on customers' generosity because their employers refuse to pay a living wage. Of course, nothing elicits that generosity from (male) customers like low-cut blouses, mini-skirts, midriff-baring tops, and especially high heels, which means that young women who work as servers feel they need to play along lest they end up with the short end of the breadstick.

There is nothing wrong with dressing for the occasion. When I go to a Mexican restaurant, I feel it's a somewhat more authentic experience if the staff are wearing Ponchos. If I go to an Indian restaurant, I like to see someone wearing a Sari. However, I really can't be bothered to go to the Earl's, Joey's, Moxie's, or any of the other "urban/hip" bar-restaurant hybrids because there really is no occasion, other than overpriced pub fare and a side order of stale self-importance.

That would be why these places compensate by insisting that their staff dress in a manner to titillate their customers, which doesn't just brush up against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms like so many drunk patrons brushing up against the rear end of a second-year Arts major trying to pay her tuition, it also brushes up against Occupational Health and Safety Regulations. If your kitchen is anything like mine, it has a number of things that can get very hot, are very sharp, don't treat exposed flesh all that nicely, and aren't that easy to carry while wearing little stilts on the heels of one's shoes.

Remember when the best thing one could say about a meal was that "It's just like Mom used to make"?