Women's Short-Shorts - Restaurant Waitstaff

Women’s Short-Shorts — Restaurant Waitstaff

My business partner and I have been arguing over the waitstaff dress code at our family-style restaurant. He’s all for having college girls wearing women’s short-shorts that look like undergarments. My wife and I feel it is humiliating for the girls to show off so much flesh in public, let alone in a family restaurant. Additionally, it makes the vetting process more about whether the young woman has a good figure, than if she is a smart waitress. He’s not hiring women who don’t look well in short-shorts.

He says it’s good for business. I say it makes the waitresses feel self-conscious when they have to expose their upper thighs.

–PO, Newport, RI

In my opinion, women’s short-shorts are not professional waitress attire for a family-style restaurant. Or for that matter, in any restaurant.

Your business partner may still be getting a rise fantasizing on a carhop waitress from his youth. Tell him that it is super cool to encourage, or provide, uniforms that are appropriate to a family dining establishment.

The key to short-shorts is balance. They say that short-shorts are the Yin to Sports Bras Yang. Athletic short-shorts for sports are another matter. The wearer isn’t looking for tips.

Suggest that your partner gets over objectify women and adheres to the standard dress code of black slacks and shoes and a white top with a collar and either a short sleeves or long sleeves.

Whether the short-shorts are high waisted or low rise, if the length is shorter than where the tips of her fingers touch her thigh, they are too short for restaurant waitstaff.