As Told by the Waitress at That Restaurant You Stopped Into
First Friday is a tradition in my hometown of Canton, Georgia. On the first Friday of each (warm enough) month, the city of Canton shuts down the roads downtown, lets vendors set up on the streets, and hires live musicians. As a kid this is fun because you have enough whimsy not to be irritated by drunk adults and overpriced ice cream. As a young teen, its mildly frustrating because everything is too loud, and the adults are drunk, but you are too young to join them. It becomes exciting again around age twenty, when you land a serving job at a seafood restaurant on main street!
“I’ve been checking the weather. No rain!”
About five days before Friday, September 5, the servers began to buzz: “It should be even better than last month,” “Reservations aren’t looking great yet, but you know we’ll get walk-ins,” “Eh, only bar gets that crazy,” “I’ve been checking the weather. No rain!” I arrived at work that day in my short-sleeve work shirt, stocked with extra pens, and tied on my non-slip shoes. Specials that night included baked oysters, escargot, and scallop polenta. “What’s polenta?” asked at least seven customers, two of whom weren’t listening when I explained it to someone else at their table. The action wouldn’t start in full until just after five o’clock.
Krisytn, working the outdoor bar:
As people first begin to trickle in past our make-shift outdoor bar, I discover the events of this month’s downtown celebration. Not too far from the restaurant, there was some sort of food truck, but according to one darling southern grandmother, the line was much too long for the food to possibly be worth it. According to a guest at the bar, however, the hot dogs were to die for, and we should all go try to get one if we got off work early enough—as if! Around half-past five, bad news was delivered at another server’s table: “We’re in sort of a rush. The concert starts at seven and we want to get decent seating.” The concert? At seven! It’ll kill business right in the middle of the dinner rush, we all thought in unison.
Despair set in over the next hour. A woman waits twenty minutes for her husband to join her; they just wanted dinner, and the couple hadn’t planned on the abominable parking situation that First Friday manufactured. Before my feet had started hurting, before my tenth table of the night, before my sales reached a thousand dollars, our fears came true. As the hour of the dreaded concert approached, business slowed, customers skipped dessert in favor of making a speedy departure, and the indoor servers grew more envious of the girls working the outdoor bar. All hope was lost. Until.
The rain! The weather reports were wrong; the storm had blown in early. Rain is a very delicate beast on First Friday. If it comes too early, people will opt to stay home. If the downpour starts too late, people will dash for their cars. But on First Friday in September of 2025, the timing of a light rainfall gave our servers one last wave of tables, in for a quick bite: “We’ll try to wait it out, y’know, just see if it lightens up at all.”
Lighten up it did, quickly, too. When the last of the rush dies down, two servers make a mad dash for the famed hot dogs (good, but evidently a precursor to a stomachache), and we join together for the monthly First Friday recap. “It was okay, I guess.”
“It was okay, I guess.”
As a server at a seafood restaurant on main street, I can proudly say I over anticipate First Friday on a monthly basis. I always expect huge crowds with fat wallets, but the conclusion I’ve come to this summer is that First Friday must be pretty fun out there! Rumor has it that one out of many food trucks had a Disney-rivalling line all night, but the others weren’t hurting for business either. The concert seemed to be well-organized and highly anticipated. The city found an Ozzy-tribute band in light of the singer’s recent passing, and it brought great business to the girls outside, along with other vendors at their booths. One woman came in bragging about a margarita, another raving about a fancy desert—and she didn’t even think it was overpriced!
When I was younger, First Friday seemed like just something fun to do, and I think it does a great job at being that. If you can find parking (which is free!), you’re guaranteed to find tasty snacks, strong drinks, kind people, and live music. Even though First Friday comes as a monthly disappointment to my bank account, I appreciate the city’s dedication to the community they’ve built as well as the small businesses and local artists that get to shine on the first Friday of every (warm) month. I totally recommend stopping by, grabbing a drink, hearing the first five minutes of a concert, and, I beg, eating at Goin’ Coastal on main street!
