The general hotness of the food service industry, as I understand it, boils down to this: Restaurants and bars deal in appetites, and a good deal of our appetites is sexual. While the chemistry of this equation remains a bit fuzzy, I know plenty of men and women hired for jobs at bars and restaurants on the basis of their looks. “You’re searching through our menus for something exotic to satisfy you,” many places seem to say. “Search our employees as well!”
So I did. This year, for the Hottest-looking Wait Staff, you selected Zocalo, Mas and Bang!. And, seeing as how I am happily taken and do most of my drinking on porches, I was a prime candidate for the job. In a single night filled with cleavage, whiskey and a whole lot of leering, I paid a visit to each hot spot. Here are my notes.
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Second runner-up: Zocalo
I must’ve picked the wrong night. It’s about 9:30pm and the Downtown Mall is plenty busy, but Zocalo is reasonably empty, so the wait staff is slim in numbers. I grab a seat at the bar near a couple sampling tequila and order a Starr Hill Jomo Lager, then try to size up the dude fetching my beer. So far, my hot wait staff odyssey looks more like every frat party I ever went to at UVA, only I’m not looking in futility for the keg.
The bartender is a carefully assembled man’s man, the kind of guy that looks like he puts away cans of Pabst and hours at the gym in equal measure. He speaks eagerly with the couple about tequila; his hair is attractively assembled from messy odds and ends. While he talks, a slender hostess and a waitress in chunky earrings appear from the back of the restaurant and slip outside to gather glasses from tables; both are dressed like customers. It reminds me of an old “Kids in the Hall” sketch in which a real estate agent shows a house with a “Hot Chicks” room, and I start to wonder if Zocalo has a similar spot for their hotties. If so, I think the room is closed for the night.
First runner-up: Mas
“I think we’re literally the hottest,” says Sarah, a bartender at Mas, and I have to agree: Belmont’s Spanish tapas joint feels a bit muggy. But the gravel-colored bar and dark brick keep things sultry, and the amber lighting shines on the foreheads and necks of four sleek waitresses in black, their skin glowing in a range of honeyed tones. “Mas,” Spanish for “more.” Yes, please.
A group of smiling girls wave their lacquered fingers and call goodbye to Juan, a handsome cook with a confident strut and a goatee. (I detract points for the facial hair. If Juan can’t commit to a beard, he can’t commit, period.) A second bartender looks at customers with actress Charlotte Gainsbourg’s “dare- you” eyes and a waitress walks past with skin that resembles milk chocolate near melting point.
Sarah makes a whiskey recommendation and things ease from “literally hot” into “uncannily hot.” The bar is playing Air’s Talkie Walkie, an incredibly sexy record, and the warmth of the whiskey and the room starts to get to me. A second waitress walks by; her cheeks and forehead are flushed from the heat, and her slightly damp hair hangs in ringlets. Everyone looks either post-coital or pre-carnal.
Winner: Bang!
How appropriate that the name of the restaurant with the hottest wait-staff is…well, you know where I’m going with this. Other establishments may hint at sexuality, but Bang!’s electric red lighting and imperative name—Bang, already, why don’t ya?—smacks you in the face with it. There isn’t much room between the bar and the barstools, which puts those lucky enough to grab a seat into intimate proximity with the staff.
Tonight, that means Alexis, who has all the taut muscularity and unnerving sexuality of a tigress. Her plush lips smile and she maintains eye contact with me from beneath heavy lids; she asks me my name and drink and sets about making it, catwalking behind the bar while she mixes it. Everything about this woman seems created to give others the impression of “exotic” and, though she’s the only member of the staff I see tonight, I imagine that she sets a high bar.
I finish my drink, close my tab and head home, slightly amused. I wonder if Bang! would consider changing their slogan to “Bang!: The Hottest Wait Staff in Town”?
