A witty and humble tribute to the sometimes profane, sometimes profound world of waiting tables During a year on sabbatical from his university position, Matthew Batt realized he needed moneyâfastâand it just so happened that one of the biggest breweries in the Midwest was launching a restaurant and looking to hire. So it was that the forty-something tenured professor found himself waiting tables at a high-end restaurant situated in a Minneapolis brewery. And loving it. Â Telling the story of Battâs early work in restaurants, from a red sauce joint possibly run by the mob to an ill-conceived fusion concept eatery, The Last Supper Club then details his experiences at the fine dining restaurant, a job that continued well past his sabbaticalâthat lasted, in fact, right up to the restaurantâs sudden and unceremonious closing three years later, shortly after it was named one of the best restaurants in the country by Food & Wine. Â Battâs memoir conveys the challengeâand the satisfactionâof meeting the demands of a frenzied kitchen and an equally expectant crowd. Through training mishaps, disastrous encounters with confused diners, struggles to keep pace with far more experienced coworkers, mandatory memorizations of laundry lists of obscure ingredients, and the stress of balancing responsibilities at home and at work, The Last Supper Club reveals the ups and downs of a waiterâs workday and offers an insightful perspective on what makes a job good, bad, or great. For Batt, this job turns out to be considerably more fun, and possibly more rewarding, than his academic career, and his insiderâs view of waiting tables extols the significance of our food and the places where we gather to enjoy itâor serve it. Â Told with sharp humor, humility, and a keen sense of what matters, The Last Supper Club is an ode to life in a high-pressure restaurant, the relationships that get you to the nightâs close, and finding yourself throughâor perhaps because ofâthe chaos of it all.