MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—After years on the job, members of the Manilla Grill waitstaff reported Monday that they are tired of having sex with each other.

Four members of the Manilla Grill waitstaff.


"I'm closing tonight, so I'll probably end up sleeping with [assistant manager] Robert [Stein]," waitress Katie Glenn said. "A few months ago, I would've been excited. He's really cute, and [coworker] Lynette [Hardy] says he's a great lay, but now… I don't know. We have nothing in common, except that we're both working a double and neither of us can stand [manager] Dan Musket."

Glenn said workplace stress, youth, and access to the restaurant's tap beer contribute to the waitstaff couplings.


"When I first had sex with [hostess] Tracy [Ballucci], I thought she was the one," waiter Kevin Cobb said. "Two months later, I had sex with Katie, but I still had to work with Tracy. I should've learned my lesson when Tracy 'accidentally' threw away a shrimp scampi that was supposed to go to a 14-top. But it's a little too late now, since there's not a waitress left that I haven't slept with."

"Oh, Kelly [Spencer]—I haven't had sex with Kelly, yet," Cobb added. "Man, I'm not looking forward to that."


While most of the intercourse occurs off the premises, the waitstaff said they sometimes have sex with each other in the restaurant's storage areas.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take," hostess Jill Stern said. "I've gone through every waiter and even two waitresses. Maybe I should get a new job. I definitely need a change."


"But there is the line cook," Stern added. "It might be fun to back him into the walk-in cooler and fuck his brains out. I've never had sex with anyone from the back of the house before. Kelly said it's pretty hot."

Stern listlessly observes Cobb bend over.


Psychologist Dorian Ledin, an expert in workplace relationships, said the best way to solve the problems brought about by sleeping with too many coworkers is to find a new job.

"Jill would do best to follow her first impulse," Ledin said. "Quitting is the best way to break the cycle. This behavior is inhibiting her ability to forge permanent relationships. And it's also keeping her from refilling her customers' glasses of ice water."


Ledin said food-service employees may initially be disoriented when they start working at new locations, but after a short adjustment period, a new sense of purpose will often fill their lives.

"There is hope," Ledin said. "Many former waitstaff members go on to form long-term, monogamous relationships with people in fields such as telemarketing or hotel management."


Former Manilla Grill employee Greg Nelson agreed with Ledin's theory.

"Almost immediately after I quit, I got work at Loews Cinema," said Nelson, who tendered his resignation in August 2004. "That's where I met this totally hot usher. We've been going out, like, six weeks."


Nelson added, "I went back to the bar at Manilla Grill last week, and I barely had anything to say to those people, much less a desire to have sex with them."

Regardless of the easy solution leaving offers, many waiters and waitresses try to modify their behavior by refraining from having sex with their coworkers. They report little success.


"When I left Pizzeria Prima, I had a motto: 'Don't get laid where you get paid,'" waiter Jack Dulles said. "Then I started working at Manilla Grill. One night after a football-game rush, I wound up sleeping with Pat in what's turned into a three-month, eight-waitress binge. I keep telling my roommates it's the last time, but even I don't believe it anymore."