Odds of Hanging On
Okay, so even habitually terrible waiters can fool a restaurant into hiring them and keep a steady gig for a few months. If you're actually good at what you do, there's no reason you can't do it for years on end.
If you can put up with the physical demands, the uncertainty of how much you're going to make on a weekly basis, the constant change-up in management, and the occasional degradation from your customers, you can work in this field for a long time.
The real question is: do you want to?