Elliott Rosenberg co-publishes Waiting…, a magazine telling the stories of New York City’s restaurant waiting staff, a sector made up of some of the most ambitious and creative of the island’s inhabitants.

‘Some artists find inspiration, motivation, and energy from their time on the clock,’ he tells us, ’and others eagerly await the day they make it full time in the creative space.’ He tells us more as issue three of the magazine goes on sale.

Outside of Waiting…, Elliott is a freelance web designer and design operations consultant for independent artists and designers. He studied Furniture Design and Computer Science at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), graduating in 2024 before moving to New York. He launched the magazine with writer Adele Blanton.

What are you doing this morning?
The morning started with a breakfast burrito on the roof of my Williamsburg apartment. Every Monday I woke up to our weekly À La Carte newsletter (and bunches of the miscellaneous auto-replies) in my inbox, and make sure I didn’t mess up any of the links or buttons.

I’m meeting Adele (my Co-founder and the Editor-in-chief of Waiting…) at a café nearby to top the week, so I went through my running to-dos and organized them for discussion. We’re trying out a new article workflow in Notion for event recaps and artist profiles, so I did some testing on a new board view to help us stay on top our list of active projects and contributors.

Describe your work environment
I live on the corner of a busy street with multiple grocery stores, and the mornings are typically loud with semi-trucks delivering produce and other goods. The weather’s been nicer though, so I suffer through the noise and enjoy the breeze. Tuesdays and Thursdays I usually work from my dining table so I can watch soccer in the background, but this morning I’m at my desk since I have some technical work that the extra monitor is helpful for. I have lo-fi music blasting, a candle going (mandatory), and our kitten is hanging out with me this morning while I work.

Which magazine do you first remember? 
I wasn’t a huge magazine kid, but I did read MAD magazine a bit growing up. I loved the comics even though I didn’t really have any idea what was happening in any of them. The content went right over my head, but I think the illustration style creeped me out in an intriguing way and made me feel like I was older or reading something I wasn’t supposed to see.

Aside from yours, what’s your favourite magazine? 
As a furniture designer, I love everything about Apartamento. I find people’s interior space and what it has to say about them incredibly fascinating, and I think the magazine does an excellent job of framing stories in a way that is unique to the feature and unique to the Apartamento brand. I think the brand identity is restrained in a way that I can appreciate, while still being super fun and engaging to read. Plus, it’s printed and bound well which is a must.


What other piece of media would you recommend?
McMaster Carr and ULine catalogs. I also love looking through the free grocery newspapers I get on my front step even though I’ve never used any of the coupons.

Describe Waiting… in three words
Working class creatives.

Was there one particular moment that inspired you to launch the magazine?
Adele came to me with the idea to write about artists in food and beverage in March 2025. I was eight months out of art school and looking for something tangible to make—I had been designing websites and the physical products I worked on were all designed for production, so I hadn’t worked on anything physical with my hands for too long. It wasn’t until our issue one launch party in May of that year though that I got to see the joy of people coming together over a physical thing and connecting with each other in ways that they otherwise never would have. At that point we knew that there would be an Edition Two on the way.

The idea that New York’s waiting staff are all wannabe artists and actors seems like a cliché, tell us more about the link
Waiting… doesn’t exist to tell you who your service workers are—I know and appreciate both lifelong bartenders and café-hopping musicians. The truth is though that the professional landscape is full of people that are doing things they don’t really want to be doing because they need the money to make rent and pay their bills. We focus on that energy because we believe it’s a core component of why New York energy is unrivaled.


What is it about waiting work that suits aspiring actors and artists?
There is a lower barrier of entry and sharper learning curve to starting out in service, which is a benefit to creatives that don’t know how long they need to stay in a job before they catch their break. Shifts are typically more condensed than a 9-5 and schedules are flexible, so different types of artists might find it easier to build in studio time, perform shows, or submit audition tapes with full weekdays available for their art. The high churn rate, the sheer scale of human interaction, and the vibrant cultural intersection of service in New York–all prominent features of the service industry–means there are always fascinating and untold stories to share.

We find creatives on both ends of the spectrum of enjoyment when it comes to their work. Some artists find inspiration, motivation, and energy from their time on the clock, and others eagerly await the day they make it full time in the creative space. It’s the effect that this tension has on the creative scene in NYC that I hope Waiting… can grow to fully encompass.

The stories are inspirational to anybody, waiting or not, but what has been the response from waiting staff across the city?
It’s a universal human joy to feel genuinely seen and validated. Witnessing that joy firsthand is one of the things (in addition to becoming a magazine collector) that got me hooked on this type of coverage, and it’s always the part of Waiting… that keeps us going. We’re incredibly lucky to have such a talented group of features that have little-to-no experience being interviewed or speaking about themselves as emerging artists, as opposed to just people that do the things they love. I think a primary driver in separating the “successes” and the “failures” in the arts world is who mainstream media decides to cover, and the explosion of indie media is recognizing and (rightly so) rebelling against this trend. What is it about spending half your week taking down lunch orders that precludes you from being interesting, talented, and worth reading about? I think stories like those are just as engaging, if not more.

Highlight one story that sums up how your magazine works
One of our issue three feature artists, Zaïna Gaza, is a singer-songwriter, and works as a maître d’ at a Japanese bar and restaurant in Bed-Stuy. Her profile sheds light on her childhood in France and her journey of building self-confidence and finding an artistic voice. I’m sharing her story because I think she embodies Waiting…: she’s humble, kind, gritty, and entirely dedicated to pursuing her passions.

What has publishing issue one taught you that may be helpful to anybody else planning to make their own magazine?
The advice I’d give to people planning to make their own magazine, is to go directly to the people that you want to buy your work and ask them what they’d like to see. That doesn’t mean you have to implement every piece of feedback they give, but definitely make sure to have your reader in mind when you’re making choices as to what pieces to include. 

What are you most looking forward to this coming week?
We’ve been working hard to make our articles accessible digitally, and to create a consistent publishing cadence for articles on our website. We’re publishing a new piece this week and getting the results back for a photoshoot I’m really excited about for an article coming in late April.

waitingmag.com