Jennifer Garner has been popping up everywhere lately to promote the second season of AppleTV+’s The Last Thing He Told Me. Some of her many press stops have been appearances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Jennifer Hudson Show, and Kylie Kelce’s podcast, Not Gonna Lie. She’s also done exclusive print interviews with Marie Claire Australia and People. Jen’s latest stop was the Dish Podcast to talk about food! Throughout the entire interview, Jen, who does the delightful “Pretend Cooking Show” on Instagram and YouTube, looked like she was having the time of her life talking about her love of food.
At one point, the topic turned to food in New York City, where Jen lived in the mid-1990s when she was first starting out as an actress. Like many young actors, Jennifer did a stint working in a restaurant. Jen reminisced about those days, revealing how her restaurant would seat people and which celebrity used to regularly dine there. It was such a memorable experience that it still gives her nightmares.
[D]uring her appearance on this week’s episode of Dish from Waitrose, Jennifer opened up about this period in her life — and even name-dropped one of the celebrities that she encountered during her time as a hostess.
“When I lived in New York, and I worked at a restaurant, part of my job for Sunday brunch was I’d get to ride a cab, they paid for my cab, and I would stop at H&H Bagels and pick up, like, several dozen bagels for the brunch,” Jennifer began. “And while I was waiting, while they bagged them up, they would give me whatever was out of the oven. And I still remember just standing there, I’d have one after the other.”
And the star left host Nick Grimshaw stunned when she went on to reveal: “I had to merchandise the restaurant. I had to put the beautiful people in one area.”
“What?!” Nick exclaimed. “So they put the hot people by the front?!” To which Jennifer calmly affirmed: “Yes! You put the beautiful people on certain tables, you put celebrities on certain tables, and if somebody even mildly famous walked in… Well, somebody actually very famous used to come in all the time.”
“Steve Martin would come in, and he had a table that he liked, it was table five,” she then revealed. “And I would have to go to those people and say: ‘I am moving you to the bar and I’m gonna buy you some calamari, and that’s going to be on me.’ And I was, like, 22, and I’m going up to people who are like: ‘Wait, I’m in the middle of a date, you’re moving me?!’ Yes, I am.”
Nick’s co-host, Angela Hartnett, who is a Michelin-star chef, then confirmed that what Jennifer had said is common practice across the restaurant industry, and that some big restaurants call the outer areas “Siberia.” She explained: “They have the real inner area that they sit everyone that wants to be seen, and then if you’re sat outside that you’re basically sat in Siberia.”
“For us, it was if you were a circle,” Jen shared. “So, as we were writing people’s names down, if we put a circle next to them, they got seated in Siberia.”
Seating politics aside, Jen did go on to share how working in a restaurant was “so helpful” to her in life, explaining: “You’re part of a team. Anytime you are part of a team… If you are lucky enough to be in the position as an actor that you’re being interviewed, then you are kind of the tip of a spear, right? But if you see yourself that way instead of just in the muck of the team, I think you’re kind…it’s…you’ve screwed up somewhere along the way.”
“I’ve had more nightmares about my days as a hostess, more work nightmares, than I have had actors’ nightmares,” she then concluded. “And I’ve had a lot of actors’ nightmares!”
I love that Jen is able to view her restaurant time as a life-long learning experience that she still speaks about fondly. She’s so right! I’ve never worked in the restaurant industry, but I did work in retail for several years during and after college. I worked overnight on several Black Fridays during the time period where stores were opening at midnight, but the worst day of the year by far was the day after Christmas. I learned so much during my time in retail and still have residual mind/body fatigue every December 26 that results in me just wanting to hibernate on that day. It’s kind of crazy how our minds and bodies have life-time recall when it comes to stuff like that.
I’ve also heard about restaurants seating more conventionally attractive people in the front so it attracts more customers. Both of my sisters waited tables at a country club on Long Island when they were younger and told me that sometimes the wait staff were assigned to certain areas based on their appearance as well. I don’t know if that’s still a thing, but it definitely used to be.
Photo note by CB: Here is Jennifer Garner outside The Stephen Colbert Show on 2/16/26. She is wearing a Black Bottega Veneta one-shoulder drape slit dress.
photos credit: Janet Mayer/INSTARimages.com, T.Jackson/Backgrid, Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon.
It’s always interesting to me when celebrities reminisce. Just like I always reminisce about her macro aggression against Regina King. I can’t think of anything else when I see her.
I just remembered this incident….
And now I’m contemplating/wondering why she asked the question in the way that she did…
I feel like that entire moment was so misunderstood and taken out of context. The entire interview was everyone going around the table asking each other about their families and histories. I think more than anything it shows that the producers of that interview didn’t actually think it through. And it made Jen look tone deaf and insensitive. I do wonder if she herself didn’t recognize how it would look either. But that whole “controversy” is such a testament to things being taken out of context.
I don’t think she, specifically, was misunderstood. Her facial expression and tone of voice when she asked the question was weird.The actual way she communicated came across badly.
Regina King handled the tone Garner used in asking the question with a lot of grace, which made Garner look even worse.
I think her tone of voice was weird because the question itself made her uncomfortable. Which is why it’s so important to have diverse voices behind the cameras – because if there had been anyone Black behind the scenes they would have known that whole line of questioning was problematic.
Was she forced to ask the question?
She also had a strange facial expression when she asked, almost as if she was offended that Regina King dared to say she was born and raised in LA. She was also holding her folk as if she was ready for an argument. Something struck a nerve or insecurity in Garner, and I definitely don’t think it’s all on the producers.
This is true! I was always asked to wait on the famous people, other waiters not so much.
Working in the restaurant industry as a young person gives you many necessary skills so necessary for life such as speaking to people you don’t know, making eye contact, making conversation, memory, working as a team. Not to mention forever being aware of your attitude toward service workers.
Absolutely. My husband and I both waited tables/bartended in college, and I managed a huge restaurant for a decade besides that. We tell our kids all the time that it’s a job that teaches so many soft skills like the ones you named. You have to learn to talk to lots of different people, prioritize your time and multitask, be a team player, and so much more. It also increases your empathy to work towards a common goal with people from all different backgrounds and proves that people from all walks of life have value and can contribute meaningfully to that common goal. My time in the service industry definitely shaped my opinions on immigration and the American dream as well; everyone deserves a chance to improve their lives and everyone on the team is worthy of respect.
I worked in high-end restaurants all through my early twenties. It’s the best education in the world. I started out as a hostess and graduated to serving. I think Anthony Bourdain really captured the experience in “ Kitchen Confidential “. You work shoulder to shoulder with people of all economic backgrounds. immigrants that don’t yet speak the language and spoiled rich kids working 2 shifts cause daddy owns the restaurant and you have to navigate it all. You can make a lot of cash and get kinda lost in a late night liquor-drug culture if you’re not careful.
Restaurants are meritocracies in the best possible way… you’re not going to make money unless you hustle. I really look back on those days fondly.