I’m kidding with the title. I think women as barmaids and waitresses is great. It’s just that Sri Lanka/Colombo has so few of them. Except O! Bar (at Dutch Hospital) which has girls working the bar and as waitresses. Which I think is commendable. They’re not dolled up or anything, they wear the same uniform and muscle trays and drinks around like everybody else. Very good. But very different.
Reservoir Dogs on the waitressing profession
I was thinking about it and I can’t think of any bar with female waitstaff. Men in sarongs, yes. I can’t even thing of any restaurants. Shruthi says Royal Thai, but I think that’s a Thai thing. Besides that I haven’t heard of any, which is strange. I mean, even at my usual bath kade, the husband cooks and serves and the wife seems to just cook, or watch TV. If the husband is busy I won’t even ask the wife anything, which I haven’t thought of till now. Waitresses are a common sight elsewhere in the world, but not here.
But they should be. They’re not going to turn into prostitutes by being in public, and they might be better at customer service. So good on O! Bar, which is probably the best bar in Colombo anyways.
I mean, Sonia Gandhi was a waitress when she met Rajiv. Why not.
There are restaurants that have waitresses but they are mostly ethnic cuisine; Sakura, Nihonbashi etc.
Also, the Capri Club in Colombo was the first (and to date) the only social club to have exclusively waitresses. Unfortunately, a few rotten eggs in the membership screwed the place up and all the girls left.
In bars, I can think of Cheers and 7 Degrees North off the top of my head, but many restaurants and cafes have female counter and waiting staff – Green Cabin, Fab, Sakura, Cafe on the 5th, Coco Verandah, Coffee Stop, Pitstop, Union Bar & Grill, that Italian joint on Wijerama Mw, Milk & Honey — the list is actually pretty long.
Up until a couple years ago Haus Chandra in Mt. Lavinia had female wait staff. They were professional, fast, pleasant, and a joy to be served by, as opposed to the lazy staff you get at so many places. Then suddenly they were all gone and replaced by guys who had no idea what they were doing. The owner told us the girls “had all left to get married.” I suppose that local boys had gotten jealous of all the good tip money the ladies were earning, not realizing that those gals had WORKED for their money. It’s a shame, really, and now I seldom go there.
Personally, I don’t think women as barmaids in SL is a good thing. It is completely against the Sinhala Buddhist culture, where drinking alcohol is not considered a good thing since it is against the 5th precept of the Buddha. This is the problem with our people. We just embrace anything and everything coming from other countries without thinking.
Sonia Gandhi is a white. Lot of people forget this. Drinking alcohol and sleeping around with many people, like prostitutes is a normal thing in European countries and it is their culture. I just don’t see why we should do the same.
The person who wrote this article is completely clueless as to what Sri Lankan culture is. .ca should be from Canada. So, this guy is obviously living in Canada. This guy must be seeing the so-called developed west and being mesmerized with it. What he does not realize it that the West is completely broke, riddled with massive debt due to living a completely unsustainable lifestyle, majority of people in the west are on anti-depressants and also are overweight and obese, clear signs of living a life without any purpose (i.e that is why they eat like pigs). The total external debt of Canada is over 1 Trillion USD. So, in another 10 to 15 years Canada could go the same way as Greece. Too bad our so-called educated people who live in the west can’t see through all this and get the correct picture.
LOL the “Makka”
@Sahan. What a hackneyed and oh so predictable perspective.
Let’s say, just for the heck of it, we are a completely sinhala buddhist cultured society.
Have you tried being a woman and taken public transport systems in Sri Lanka? I assure you bar maids are much better off, even among people who might be far too intoxicated.
Don’t point fingers at the guy with the .ca website on his own page, it’s just bad manners, also completely irrelevant.
Thanks for the post, I’ve never considered whether I’ve seen female bar maids as much, but then, I prob need to hang out at these places in SL more :) I will definitely keep an eye out.
Cafe Japan used to have some lovely Japanese waitresses.