grantsaylor

“If you worked at Balthazar in the early days, you lived in a bubble,” Erin said. “Everyone smoked. I don’t think the words ‘human resources’ existed, and the majority of people who were working here lived in little shithole apartments, and you probably didn’t like your roommate, but nobody stayed in their apartment, and you got paid in cash, got off at twelve-thirty or one in the morning, went to Blue Ribbon and ate and got shit-faced, and you still managed to get it done. The waiters would come in perfectly pressed, perfectly coiffed.”
― Reggie Nadelson, At Balthazar: The New York Brasserie at the Center of the World