It’s a heat Saturday afternoon at Dallas’ see-and-be-seen steakhouse Nick & Sam’s. Contained in the dim, cavernous constructing the place time vanishes, one of many restaurant’s most influential characters straightens desk settings within the eating room earlier than the lengthy evening forward. It isn’t the eponymous Nick or Sam, or the restaurant’s famed co-founder Phil Romano. His identify is Benny, or Shkumbin Bajrami relying on how lengthy you’ve recognized him. He’s, maybe, the town’s best-known restaurant determine you’ve by no means heard of.

Benny buttons his black vest, knots his starched white apron and tucks a worn leather-based pocket book into his pocket. In half an hour, the quiet restaurant will rework right into a rollicking playground for Dallas’ higher crust, and those that attempt to sustain. That is Benny’s area, the place over 23 years he’s served as confidant and confessor for the town’s most elite — and the individuals who need to really feel that approach for only one evening.

For practically so long as Nick & Sam’s has been open, 44-year-old Benny has glided by way of its eating room, ready on politicians, celebrities, billionaires and CEOs, a few of whom have his private cellphone quantity to request tables with him and him solely. Dallas Mavericks level guard Luka Doncic is available in so typically {that a} 77-ounce strip is known as after him.

Benny has essentially rewritten the restaurant’s playbook for high quality eating service. On this evening, 10 events have requested his tables. The restaurant often can’t sustain with the demand for him, however they’ll seat as many reservations as they will in Benny’s three-table part tucked right into a nook.

“It’s going to be an amazing evening,” he says.

Each evening is a good evening to Benny, who considers himself fortunate simply to be right here — on this eating room, on this metropolis, on this nation.

Immigrant beginnings

Benny anticipated to observe within the footsteps of his literature professor father or possibly his lawyer and physician older brothers, however he discovered himself ready tables after a life-altering choice 27 years in the past. Struggle was brewing in his residence of Kosovo, and at 17, he was determined to discover a approach out earlier than being drafted. An escape route got here within the type of a world highschool trade program and a one-way journey to Oklahoma Metropolis.

With a small suitcase and $2,500 tucked right into a passport case, Benny stated goodbye to his dad and mom outdoors of a bus station and set off on a harrowing, dayslong journey to America. His mom sobbed. Conserving him shut meant surrendering his future to struggle and violence. Letting him go meant sending him right into a world she didn’t know and couldn’t defend him from. She feared she’d by no means see her youngest born once more. Benny promised to convey her to America as quickly as he might, however he didn’t get the prospect. She died immediately a number of years later. He by no means noticed his mom after saying goodbye to her on the bus station.

“It was the worst. The worst,” he says.

Benny doesn’t discuss it a lot, however saying goodbye to his dad and mom, one for ceaselessly, profoundly modified him. The stress to make them proud, to craft a future higher than the one he had left behind by no means subsided. After ending highschool in Oklahoma Metropolis, the lure of job alternatives and a contemporary begin introduced him to Dallas in 1997. He enrolled at DeVry College to review telecommunications and waited tables at Sal’s Pizza Restaurant.

A bunch of businessmen began frequenting the pizzeria for lunch, so Benny stored a desk prepared for them and memorized their pizza order. Someday, they requested if he’d like a job. They had been opening a steakhouse known as Nick & Sam’s and will use a server like him, they stated. Benny figured he’d take them up on their supply and work there till he completed his diploma. Possibly he might make a bit more cash than he made at Sal’s.

That first evening on the job on the new steakhouse, Benny was tangled up with nerves. This wasn’t sliding pizzas throughout checkered vinyl. It was the massive leagues. It was studying to pronounce bûcheron, a goat cheese, and miyazakigyu, which is a Japanese beef recognized for labyrinthine marbling. It was memorizing a whole lot of wines and their tasting notes, and understanding what dishes to pair with every one.

He didn’t all the time get it proper, just like the time he spilled a drink down a lady’s jacket, or when a full bottle of wine slipped out of his hand and by some act of God didn’t shatter. He tried to by no means make the identical mistake twice.

Benny preferred the problem of remembering how folks wished their steaks cooked and what whiskeys they most well-liked. By the point he completed his diploma and obtained a job supply within the telecom business, he was making extra in ideas than the wage he was supplied, so he turned it right down to hold ready tables. Because the years went on, his pay as a server ballooned past what he ever imagined.

He received’t say how a lot cash he earns at Nick & Sam’s. It’s too gauche to speak about. However by any customary, it’s rather a lot.

“He in all probability makes greater than everybody else over there,” says Phil Romano, who additionally based Fuddruckers, Macaroni Grill and Eatzi’s.

A lot has modified for the reason that restaurant first opened, Romano says. At first, the gown code strictly required a coat and tie. Then only a coat. Now, folks are available T-shirts and sneakers whereas dropping a whole lot of {dollars} per individual to eat there. What hasn’t modified is Benny.

“I’ve had quite a lot of eating places in my life, and you already know whenever you’ve obtained individual working for you,” Romano says. “Benny’s excellent. It comes right down to his persona and his eagerness to assist and make every thing good.”

Strain and efficiency

By 5:15 p.m., Lamborghinis and Mercedes G-Wagons are lined up in neat rows within the valet parking zone. Frank Sinatra serenades the eating room whereas membership hits thump from the adjoining bar. Tomahawk steaks and gangling carcasses of king crabs are paraded out of the noisy kitchen. Within the eating room, Benny and three dozen different servers fan throughout the ocean of white tablecloths to ship their scripts of the night’s specials — roasted bone marrow with oxtail jam, Chilean sea bass and collards, Kagoshima rib-eye with soy garlic butter. The restaurant will serve greater than 850 folks tonight.

Benny approaches every desk as if he’s giving a personal present for a small viewers. The restaurant’s menu and its 500 wines are his libretto.

“Hey good day, good night. How are we doing tonight? Welcome to Nick & Sam’s. My identify is Benny, and I’ll be your server this night.”

At Desk 28, three males of their 20s are grabbing an early dinner earlier than an evening out. They begin with cotton sweet martinis — a billowing dry ice spectacle poured tableside — tempura broccoli and steamed wagyu dumplings.

“They’re going to need steaks,” Benny says as he faucets their order into a pc and plots the pacing of their meal. “One thing to maintain them going for the evening.”

Most of Benny’s job is studying folks. When first-time diners sit down, the clock begins ticking to assemble as a lot details about them as potential. Some folks need to sit again and have selections made for them, others need to management each facet of their meal from how lengthy the appetizers take to get to the desk to how their wine is poured. Physique language and banter clue him in on what sort of expertise to orchestrate.

Thirty minutes into his shift, all of Benny’s tables are full, and he tag groups a number of different tables with one other server. The fellows at Desk 28 are reducing into rib-eyes and rack of lamb. At Desk 15, a set of fogeys and their 5-year-old triplets are out for a household date evening. They order sushi, wagyu dumplings, medium-rare Chateaubriand, sautéed broccoli and mac and cheese.

“Thanks, thanks. I recognize you. Thanks a lot,” he says after every interplay, like a musician in between units. “We’ll be proper again.”

Benny’s fingers are in fixed movement. After they’re not shuttling platters of steak or trays of vanilla outdated fashioneds, they’re patting mohaired shoulders, shaking manicured fingers, giving fist bumps and hugs, scribbling orders legible solely to their maker, and waving by way of the rundown of the menu like a conductor taking up Brahms.

“It’s stress and it’s efficiency,” he says. “After I get within the zone, overlook about it! I don’t know the place my head’s at. I’m simply in it.”

‘Coach’ Benny

Benny’s superpower is that he’s unwaveringly and virtually unnaturally optimistic, says his spouse, Ardiana Bajrami. She and Benny are from the identical city in Kosovo, however they met 22 years in the past after she moved to america for a similar trade program that had introduced Benny to the nation a number of years earlier. His pleasure intrigued her.

She knew what hell he escaped in Kosovo. She lived by way of it. And he or she knew the ache he carried from shedding his mom and never even having the ability to attend her funeral. However he was all the time fast to smile and beneficiant along with his laughter.

“He’s not regular,” she says. “I’ve by no means seen him mad or burst out in anger. God made him this manner. You can not discover somebody who will deal with you higher than this man. He all the time needs to ensure everybody round him is in the very best temper potential. That’s why I fell in love with him.”

The Benny diners see is the Benny that Ardiana and their two youngsters get at residence, too, she says — all the time smiling, all the time in search of the nice, and all the time straightening the desk settings earlier than sitting down for dinner. He can’t assist himself.

The remainder of the restaurant’s employees name Benny “Coach,” says majority proprietor Sam Romano, son of founder Phil Romano. The primary time Sam and Benny met, Sam was being pushed across the restaurant in a stroller. Now, the 27-year-old is Benny’s boss. He says the restaurant is continually attempting to maintain up with the variety of prospects who name to take a seat at Benny’s tables.

“He leads the cost with our service and the best way we deal with name events,” Sam Romano says about how prospects request particular servers. “He virtually created it, to be trustworthy with you. It’s fairly mind-blowing. It’s virtually like he has a enterprise in and of itself. He’s the framework for what we wish our servers to be.”

A lot of the restaurant’s rigorous six-week coaching program for brand spanking new servers is led by Benny. He stresses the significance of getting over any intimidation and staying skilled however approachable.

“You gotta be clear, you gotta be crisp, you gotta be sharp,” he says.

‘I all the time keep quiet’

Nearly two hours to the minute after sitting down, Benny’s first tables shut out their tabs. Greater than 40,000 of hours of repetition have helped Benny good the timing of a meal and develop the main focus of a NASA flight controller. He leans on a staff of meals runners and different servers to assist him execute. It’s coordinated, choreographed chaos.

One among Benny’s final tables of the evening is the Stefanakis household. For 18 years, they’ve made the journey from Houston frequently to dine with Benny.

The Stefanakises all the time begin with sushi and sashimi, heavy on the tuna with crispy rice. Benny will get the order entered earlier than they even sit down.

“He’s thoughtful. He’s on prime of it. He makes you are feeling like one million bucks,” Jenee Stefanakis says. “He’s simply type, and other people overlook to be that lately.”

You are feeling such as you’re the one individual within the eating room whenever you’re at one among Benny’s tables, says Jimmie Dale, president of Baker Brothers Plumbing, Air and Electrical firm and one other of Benny’s regulars.

That ability has gotten Benny far at a spot that draws folks in search of discretion. Being a server at a Dallas steakhouse the place diners throw down $750 for a steak and, on uncommon event, $35,000 for a magnum bottle of Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon means Benny has watched athletes signal $30 million contracts and heard CEOs focus on mergers that haven’t made the information.

“It’s all the time a bit thrilling,” he says. “However I all the time keep quiet.”

Ask Benny which high-profile folks he’s served over time, and he’ll inform you Shaquille O’Neal is available in from time to time. And one evening, each girl within the restaurant coincidentally wanted a drink on the similar time George Clooney pulled up a barstool. Press him additional and the checklist unfurls: Kobe Bryant, Christina Aguilera, Tobey Maguire, Jeneé, the Jonas Brothers, Troy Aikman, Jessica Simpson, Dak Prescott, Derek Jeter, Carlos Slim, Mark Wahlberg, Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, Joe Rogan, Tony Romo, Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Black Eyed Peas, Puff Daddy.

Benny doesn’t actually get star-struck, however he discovered himself in awe a number of months in the past when Mike Tyson sat down at one among his tables. He watched Tyson’s fights as a child.

“I all the time idolized him,” he says. “ him sitting there I used to be like, ‘Oh my God, this man is so highly effective.’ It introduced up reminiscences from my childhood of watching his fights.”

Tyson ordered sushi and salmon, which stunned Benny, who imagined him as extra of a big-fat-steak type of man.

There are too many encounters with the wealthy and well-known for Benny to recall all of them, however some stand out, like listening to Jamie Foxx play the piano to a cleared-out eating room on the finish of the evening, or watching Mariah Carey make a prepare dinner’s day by saying sure to taking an image collectively.

“Give me quarter-hour,” the singer stated.

She then grabbed her make-up artist from her 20-person entourage and proceeded to have her hair and make-up accomplished proper there within the empty restaurant to take a photograph with the prepare dinner.

Of all of his high-profile prospects, the one he feels a specific kindred with is Luka Doncic, the younger Dallas Mavericks star from Slovenia who typically dines in Benny’s part a number of nights per week. They’re a long time aside in age and from totally different elements of the Balkan area, however there’s a shared understanding of what it’s like to go away all of it behind to create a brand new life on this metropolis, Benny says.

Sowing greener grass

Benny has acquired job affords from numerous eating places over time, and turned down a number of alternatives to hitch Nick & Sam’s administration. He likes what he does and, frankly, he makes an excessive amount of cash doing it to justify leaving, he says. His upbringing has rather a lot to do with why he’s by no means left, too, his spouse says.

“We come from a rustic the place folks don’t change jobs,” she says. “We come from a tradition the place you make issues work the place you’re as a result of the grass isn’t greener on the opposite facet.”

Benny has sown his personal inexperienced grass. He took a stopgap job ready tables and turned it right into a profitable profession. His success has rather a lot to do with an ironclad reminiscence, resilience honed by an immigrant journey and a real curiosity in folks. However what it actually comes right down to is that Benny treats everybody with the identical earnest benevolence no matter how necessary society views them, or whether or not they have $50 or $5,000 to spend. That’s how his mom raised him, and he is aware of she’d be proud.

The restaurant bar remains to be buzzing because the clock nears 11 p.m., however Benny’s final desk has closed out. His Saturday shifts usually finish after midnight, however he gladly takes the uncommon alternative to go residence early. He’s twice the age he was when he first set foot within the restaurant, and the work isn’t type to his physique.

Benny weaves his approach by way of the crowded foyer, fist-bumping coworkers and waving to company as he goes. He pushes open the entrance door and slips out into the evening.