Smurf" Is a Racial Slur

In the summer of 1992 I worked at Uno's in the South Street Seaport. Like many restaurants in the city, both then and now, Uno's was essentially a segregated work place. The waitstaff was white, the kitchen was black and Latino, and there was always a slight tension between the two.

Jill, the bitchy bartender, was a sexy blonde who worked in short shorts so that when she bent over you could see her panties. She was funny and very good at selling drinks, but she was also a fount of racist slurs. She referred to Jones Beach as "Chicken Bone Beach."

One afternoon I was waiting in the kitchen for a pizza. It was empty except for me and Carter, one of the line-cooks. Carter was a tall and skinny young man with dark black skin. He had a reputation as a ladies man, and later he caused a small stir when he started dating one of the white waitresses. He and I waited together in silence.

Jill rushed into the kitchen waving her arms and fussing in an exaggerated schoolmarmish voice. "Who's making that noise? Boom, boom, boom! I can hardly hear myself think. It sounds like a whole tribe of Africans banging on the drums!"

For a moment Jill looked quite frantic; then she pulled up short at the order window and suddenly relaxed again.

"Oh Carter, it's you. The drumming must have been in my head."

"That wasn't drumming in your head," said Carter. "That was the sound of me banging your idiot mother."

"Yeah, okay. Well, quit banging my mother and get me an order of buffalo wings."

Despite the tension between the kitchen and the waitstaff, the worst aspect of race relations at Uno's had to do with the customers. I have worked at a number of restaurants, and for some white waiters the complaint is always the same: black people, it is said, don't tip well. At Uno's the waitstaff even had a code name for black customers. They were called smurfs. In theory, smurf just meant anyone who tipped less than 15 percent. In theory, then, French people could be called smurfs. In practice, however, the racial connotation of smurf was no secret.

It was commonplace to hear waiters talking about smurf drinks (cognac and Coke) and smurf pizzas (the Sea Delico came with cheese, shrimp and fake crab meat), and when a table left a bad tip the waiter would say, "I got smurfed." Some waiters also talked of getting smurfed whenever a party of black people was seated in their section. I once heard an angry waitress say to Rodney, a black host, that he'd been smurfing her all night and he'd better stop. Rodney told me later that he'd given her only white trash and minorities for the rest of the shift.

The controversy surrounding smurfs came to a climax with the arrival of a new waiter named Dave. Dave was a chubby fratboy who wore Ray-Bans and was always flipping his hair back and running his fingers through his part. He wanted to be cooler than cool. One of the ways Dave showed that he was in the know was by complaining louder than most about smurfs. Bad waiters often deserve to get stiffed, and Dave was the worst waiter imaginable, but every time someone left him a small tip he'd throw his nose in the air and say to the world, "Fucking smurfs."

One Saturday night I was working next to Dave. We were extremely busy. Although Dave had just five tables, he was hopelessly overwhelmed. Rather than ask for help, he reduced his workload by only waiting on his three white tables. The decision was probably unconscious, but it was obvious what he was doing. After a while, two of the Hispanic girls whom Dave was ignoring figured out what was going down. They were furious.

One of the girls stormed up to the front of the restaurant to talk to Rodney at the host's stand. Rodney calmed her down and told her, "Some waiters here are assholes, but the restaurant wants your business." Then Rodney talked to Alice, the manager, and Alice pulled Dave aside and asked for an explanation. Flustered, Dave went on the attack. He said the smurfs were picking on him because he was white. Rodney lost his temper and there was a brief shouting match before Alice managed to restore order. The Hispanic girls were moved to a different section and given dinner on the house.

The next morning, Alice called all the waiters together before the shift and gave a speech about not saying smurf anymore. Anyone who said smurf would get fired.

The next week Uno's hired three new waitresses, all of them black, and after that the word smurf faded into obsolescence.