You can go anywhere in the world, any continent, all nationalities and ethnicities, northern or southern hemisphere, and you'll find someone cooking food and serving it to the public. Why is it that filmmakers can portray wars like Vietnam and World War II so accurately and vividly that you feel like you were there and yet can't seem to make a really great restaurant movie? Although I don't even know what napalm smells like, I think I'd love the smell of it in the morning. I've seen a lot of restaurant and bar movies and while some are better than others, most end up a disappointment. Too many industry movies feel like bad, campy 80's movies? Imagine if the medical community only had Scrubs to represent them? How hard can it be make a movie about the service industry, a huge segment of the population? Isn't that where all Hollywood actors, screenwriters and directors do their internships as starving artists? Whenever a new restaurant movie comes out, I hope and pray that it will depict the industry accurately.

Industry movies are generally not taken as seriously. Now, don't get me wrong, the service industry is fun and light hearted, but the people who work in it are real, with problems and lives like any other walk of life. Movies always try show the human side stories which are great storytelling but the missing element, in my opinion, is the omission of the actual workings of a restaurant.

In movies, there are always the usual, cliche gags...like the complaining customers, the flirting, the dick managers. Rarely do you see some of the real abuses that go on. This industry can be really hard on someone's spirit...demeaning and demoralizing. Alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual, physical and emotional abuse are all common and real. A lot of hard work in a high stress, volatile and sometimes aggressive environment. When shit hits the fan and everyone's in the weeds, it's not always friendly and fun. People yell, shout, swear. If you've had a cook lose it on you, whether it was your fault or not, you know what I mean. There are a lot of 'Fuck You's!' , 'I'm outta here!' and 'I fuckin' hate this place!' Hopefully, everyone can come together in the end and drink it out. That is the beauty of the biz, the ability to take harsh words hurled at you, feeding off it to get through the night and spitting it out in the end.

Most of these people are not considered professionals, although many are lifers in the biz and are really good at what they do. Industry folks have to take whatever shit their bosses, restaurant owners and customers may hand down to them. Cooks are severely underpaid for gruelling, sweaty, back-breaking work and usually shit on by servers, and servers are shit on by cooks. The main contributing factor to the civil unrest between front and back is the customer. They contribute to the love/hate relationship between them that has been going on since the very first restaurant opened. If there were no customers, we would all get along and our night would go by smoothly. What happens? Well, this is the simple breakdown: customer makes stupid request, server relays message to cook, cook goes ape shit, customer doesn't like their food, server relays message to cook, cook goes ape shit, cook goes ape shit, adding stress to server, who is already pushed to the edge, server goes ape shit. Now, add the fact that the hostess heard you said something about her and she seats you everyone with an accent, kids or constantly skips you, the bartender is slow as shit tonight, must be hungover, you ask the kitchen to rush one of your tables that you forgot to ring in and they tell you to fuck off. Just some of the daily trials and tribulations of the industry, not to mention the personal crap you're dealing with at the moment.

The restaurant movie rarely portrays the industry accurately, and if there is a movie out there that does, we're out to find it. This list a work in progress and is updated constantly...please feel free to send some suggestions.