The Waitress

Everyone should be one, at least once. Or twice.

Angelo's Restaurant, Ann Arbor, 1981:

The aprons were beyond cute -- black acrylic with double pockets: one for tips and one for straws or little packets of mixed-berry jelly. Specialty of the house was home-made raisin bread prepared daily at 4 a.m. by Angelo, a 60-year old Greek immigrant whose thick accent never waned even after 40 years of being on American soil. The diner consisted of a counter with navy-blue-naugahyde twirly seats, 12 booths and 4 tables. Most of the customers were UM students or hospital employees.

His nick-name for me was "kokino malusa" (red-haired girl), and my waitressing abilities were forever compared to "Tdess" (Tracey), my older sister who worked at Angelo's for 2 years as a UM student and who got me the job. She assured Angelo that I had previous experience even though my resume clearly stated that my previous employment had been as a shipping clerk, a tree-nursery accountant, a corn-tassel puller and a librarian's assistant.

I had heard about Mr. Angelo from my sister -- he was a no-bullshit man who wasn't known to dole out compliments of any kind. He ate lamb-chops with raw onions each afternoon after lunch rush, shouted Greek profanities when the orders got mixed up and constantly wiped off flour and grease from his white apron.

Thinking this was perhaps the dream job I had always wanted, I pulled up stakes from living on Lake Michigan and moved into an unknown life in Ann Arbor, all in a 24-hour period. I had one Wednesday evening in my sister's small campus apartment to learn the intricacies of holding 3 dinner plates and 2 coffee cups (with saucers, of course) on my left arm and serving with my right before I started my first day as a real waitress the following Thursday morning from the 8 a.m breakfast rush ridiculousness until the post-lunch at 4 p.m.

That first day was long, made more difficult by the fact that Angelo's held the tradition that their waitresses memorized the orders as opposed to writing them on those silly green pads. This meant that I had to "hold" orders in my head for, often, 6 or more tables when the kitchen was over-run. Thankfully, Mrs. Angelo taught me her memorization system. It had something to do with dividing the number of eggs by the total number of plates for each table, then adding in the bacon. But it worked like a charm.

She ran the cash-register and counted the money each evening. Mrs. Angelo was endearing, and read the newspaper constantly. We secretly called her Mrs. Malaprop, since she often used the wrong word when describing things: "Don't tell Vickie, but I'm buying her stimulated pearls for Christmas"; "Oh how exciting, the first space shuttle-bus just landed safely!"; and when the hospital CEO came in for lunch one day, she whispered conspiratorily to me: "He's the head poncho!". We loved her. She would, without hesitation, tell the hippies in the front to put out those damn clove cigarettes, give each cancer-patient child from the clinic up the street a reason to laugh when they came in for ice-cream, and loved her children and husband unconditionally.

I did finally "get" the memorization system, learned all the orders the quirky regular customers had, never dropped a single dish, and rarely forgot the daily soup specials: Monday was chicken noodle; Tuesday was barley; Wednesday meant bean; Thursday was split pea; Friday was vegetable which I always called "week in review", because it was composed of whatever was left in the refrigerator from the previous week. I even learned how to eat lamb chops with raw onions.

I spent 2 1/2 years at the restaurant before heading to college. During my time as a waitress I met scads of fun people, including my future maid of honor. I learned how to deal with impatient customers, regulars who were going through final exams, exhausted families whose very ill children were in the hospital up the hill, and the weekly garbage men who sang songs and snuck in the back door. And I cried and cried as I sat in the Greek Orthodox church with all the other waitresses for Angelo's funeral a few years later.

Angelo's Restaurant is still a landmark in Ann Arbor, although it is now run by Angelo's son, Simmie. The naugahyde seats and blue-plate specials are all gone, replaced and updated with specialty coffees and stream-lined furniture. The raisin bread is still made, and I'll bet the waitresses still roll up the quarters and count their dollar bills each night.

I miss it sometimes. And always, to this day, overtip the waitstaff.