Booth Theater

New Yorkers, tell me: I've only been here a year and a half, so can you let me know if it's a common thing to see waiters in greasy-spoon diners change into their uniforms in the dining area, then stow their street clothes under a hollowed-out, easily removable seat at an unoccupied booth? I've now witnessed this odd, humanizing, but rather gritty workplace ritual twice now, in two separate diners in Manhattan. It almost evokes something I've seen in a play--or maybe the line between the stage and public space has blurred so hopelessly in my mind that it just seems that way.