From Love is My Favorite Flavor by Wini Moranville

By the time I was sixteen, I had worked more than two years at Baker’s Cafeteria. That changed when, the summer after my sophomore year in high school, my friends Cindy and Kirsten started working at a local Country Kitchen. A twenty-four-hour casual restaurant franchise with a few relatively new outposts in town, Country Kitchen had this annoying jingle on the radio:

     Just down the road, there’s a place like home . . . Country Kitchen . . .
     Where wearin’ a smile is right in style . . . Country Kitchen . . .

Cindy and Kirsten’s hours were longer and less school-kid friendly than mine at Baker’s. While I worked from 4:30 to 7:30, they had to work from 4:30 to 9:00. But the difference was this: when they got off work, they had a pocket full of change—and that change added up. They worked for tips and made twice per hour what I was making. For a teenager—at least for one like me, whose basic needs were met by their parents—that brought the potential for a lot of cheap makeup, dangly earrings, record albums, and cashews.

And so I handed in my notice at Baker’s. I put my deposit down on the required light-brown uniform with its contrasting dark-brown apron and the annoyingly uncool brown-and-white checkered bandana, I polished up my white work shoes I had bought for Baker’s, and I went to work serving Country Boy and Country Gal combos (burgers or sandwiches with fries and coleslaw), breaded chicken likely pulled from the freezer and thrown in the fryer, low-grade steaks that came frozen in a box, chef’s salads with planks of yellow and white cheese and processed meats, Reubens with corned beef that looked more like bologna, and other stripes of mediocre chain food.

Even at that early age, I knew there was a lot of difference between the mostly house-made food they served at Baker’s and the stuff they served at Country Kitchen. The first time I sampled one of their food-truck-purveyed apple pies, with its goopy filling of uniform tidbits of mushy apples in a weirdly soft, oddly bitter crust, I wondered if anyone would willingly eat such a thing, much less pay to do so. But diners seemed to put up with it—the pie was served microwave-hot with cinnamon ice cream. When I worked there, Baker’s didn’t even own a microwave; at Country Kitchen, I learned that many people liked hot, mediocre pie just as well as they did room-temperature homemade pie—especially if it was served with cinnamon ice cream and cost a few cents cheaper a slice.

I soon found that working for tips made the night go so much faster, as there was always a bit of anticipation and excitement to see what, if anything, would be left on the table for me. Back then, in my experience, only about half of the population tipped, and usually, it was just a few coins (rarely even 10 percent). Still, it was thrilling, walking out of work with the uniform weighed down by a pocket full of change. I always had cash, and because I also got a paycheck every two weeks to go into the bank for savings, the jangle of change always felt like mad money. 

Finally, after years of wearing hand-me-downs from my older sister, or clothes my mother had made (the memory of which I cherish now, but back then, I wasn’t a fan), I was able to buy clothes I loved. I could wear them immediately off the rack instead of enduring that long wait (probably a few days, but an eternity to a kid) between when I picked out patterns and cloth at a fabric store and when Mom finally completed the project at her sewing table in the basement.

And yet, the extra money came at a price—something known in the restaurant industry as “sidework.” For the privilege of working a shift and making tips, after your section was closed, you had to spend another hour—in which you were not earning tips—doing the work of keeping the restaurant clean. The tasks you were assigned depended on the section you worked that night. For instance, the Section A servers, in addition to dusting, vacuuming, and replenishing the salt, pepper, and sugar in their own sections, might have had to tidy the bathrooms. For Section B, the extra job could be to clean and replenish the ice cream freezer and refill all the more-than-half-empty ketchup bottles in the restaurant (a gross job that required pouring the contents of nearly empty bottles into a plastic funnel, refilling the half-empty bottles with the ketchup from the funnel, then wiping the tops of the crusty bottles “clean” with a rag). Section C might have to do something like straighten up the break room, sweeping up and emptying all the dirty ashtrays and clearing away sticky soda glasses that had sat all day—some with cigarettes butts in them when the ashtrays overflowed. God only knows what Section D had to do, but all of it was much grubbier work than I had ever done at Baker’s, because at Country Kitchen, in addition to being servers, we were, basically, sixteen-year-old janitors.

On weekends, after leaving work at Baker’s, I could generally go directly to whatever the rest of the evening held for me—movies or basketball games, or hanging out in the basements of friends. In the ladies’ room, I’d slip out of my white uniform and into my hand-me-downs and be on my way. After a shift at Country Kitchen, however, I felt grimy; after five hours of wearing a bandana, my hair would be flattened into a style we called “bandana head.” I’d have to go home and scrub myself clean and completely rework my hair. But at least I slipped into store-bought clothes that were all mine.

The management style was different at Country Kitchen as well. The Bakers made it clear that school always came first: if you had a schedule conflict due to something school related, the Bakers would always work around it. Kids who went to church were allowed to clock in later (yet had to leave later) on Sundays than those who didn’t. You could always have Wednesdays off if you attended Wednesday after-school church programs.

At Country Kitchen, sometimes they’d work around your school schedule, but generally, they wouldn’t. If you couldn’t work a particular night you were scheduled, you had to find someone to replace you.

With very few exceptions, the Bakers would never let a slew of teenage workers loose on the floor without supervision, but that’s exactly what happened at Country Kitchen. Sometimes, the manager on duty would disappear into his little windowless office for much of the shift. On the busiest evenings, the place could descend into bedlam, and you’d be left to fend for yourself: arguing with the cooks over incomplete orders, dealing with annoyed patrons whom the indifferent hostess had seated at sticky tables that you hadn’t yet had a chance to wipe down, going into the dish room and washing silverware by hand when the dishwashers decided to disappear for a smoke during the middle of a rush. 

When things broke down, the management’s attitude seemed to be, “If you want to make your tips, you’ll figure it out.”

No wonder sometimes when Cindy, Kirsten, and I would drive to work together, we’d sing, “Just down the road, there’s a place like hell . . .”

Serving mediocre-to-bad food also wore on me. Most of the time, people were satisfied enough; the breakfast dishes and burgers were the most popular items, and they were fine. But I was heartbroken when people at my tables weren’t happy with what they ordered. I can still recall the disappointed face of a young man dining alone as he ate one of our low-grade steaks (likely a splurge for him). He left much of the dry, gristly thing on the plate. As I cleared his dishes, I told him it didn’t look like he enjoyed it so much. He said, mustering a smile as if I were the one to be consoled, “That’s okay. Next time I’ll just order something else.”

I could hardly bear that he took such a letdown so easily, as if it happened daily. And it pained me even more that I had been the conduit to his lousy meal. We had not held up our end of the bargain, and I was the face of his disappointment. 

While I never once saw anyone steal anything from Baker’s, at Country Kitchen, management sometimes complained that the cash register came up short. I remember seeing someone on staff steal steaks by hiding them under their coat as they walked out the door after their shift. I saw servers load up the tables of their friends with food, then charge them only for the price of a few Cokes. Even I didn’t think twice about putting a couple of individually portioned hot-fudge packets into my apron before I walked out the door.

I also got a taste of the bitterness that could emerge among servers in low-end restaurants of the time. Hollywood would have you believe that such servers are either upbeat, wisecracking sages or else simply sad and kindhearted (à la Michelle Pfeiffer in Frankie and Johnny). While such clichés had some basis in some of the older servers I encountered, a few others I worked with both at Country Kitchen and elsewhere went through their days with a petty meanness that came with either mounting years of disappointments or a sense that this would be their life. 

Once, when a new female manager was hired, I thought the other waitresses I worked with would be pleased that for once we had a woman as a manager, rather than the usual slew of almost-middle-aged men. But the consensus among a few other waitresses was that the new manager had attained her achievement “lying flat on her back all the way.” 

One slow night at Country Kitchen, I went back to the break room to tell a server named Patty that some customers in her section had been waiting a while to get their check. I thought I was being helpful—perhaps saving her from being stiffed (industry speak for losing a tip). Instead of thanking me, she stamped out her cigarette and, as she walked past me, blew smoke in my face. The other workers in the break room laughed.

I learned quickly to stick to my tribe—Cindy, Kirsten, and others I’d grown friendly with—and avoid as much as I could those who seemed beaten down by the biz. Even then, I could understand why they were bitter, but that didn’t mean I liked being an easy target for their resentment.

And yet, for all its downsides, working at Country Kitchen had its moments. It was the mid-1970s: Fleetwood Mac played from the mini jukeboxes at each booth almost all the time, and when it didn’t, I’d plug in some quarters from my pocket full of tips to hear some more. Bussing tables and doing sidework to “Over My Head”—while feeling a bit over my head about someone myself—beat carrying trays to Baker’s fuddy-duddy Muzak tapes of “Satin Doll” any day.

Getting into a groove and keeping ahead of it all during our busiest times, while scooping loose change from the tables into my apron pockets, was a blast. And, for the most part, I liked the clientele. Taking care of a party from the moment they sat down until they left was so different than merely carrying someone’s tray at Baker’s. I got to know them a bit. It was here that I first discovered that I enjoyed making people happy at the table. I sometimes wonder if my stretch at Country Kitchen was a harbinger to my later work as a restaurant reviewer. I tried to steer diners toward something they’d enjoy, and it pleased me immensely when they did but crushed me hard when they didn’t.

I still remember a little blonde boy ordering pecan pie for dessert, but he didn’t know how to pronounce it. He said, “I’ll have the peek-in pie.” The older men at the table laughed meanly at him, and later when I set the slice down, they razzed him: “Oh look, there’s your peek-in pie, Davey!” “Yeah, you’d better peek in and see what’s there.” Hardy-har-har.

I wanted to think this was all some kind of good-natured ribbing, but then I saw the boy’s lack of delight as he slowly ate the pie, the way his mother put her arm around him as if trying to comfort him. That pie should have been one the sweetest parts of his day, but it wasn’t.

On rare but splendid occasions, later in the evening boys we liked from school came in and sat in our sections to tease and cajole Cindy, Kirsten, and me while we finished up our sidework. Those were the best nights of all.

I had joined the high school marching band, playing cymbals (it was the only thing I could play; besides it allowed me to hang out with cute drummers), and I had been unable to get someone to cover my shift on a key game night one Saturday. A few days earlier, when I went in to plead with a manager to let me have the evening off, he refused, telling me I’d have to quit before that night if I couldn’t get someone to work for me. To make sure I knew who was boss, he told me that effective immediately he was also planning to extend my hours from 9:00 p.m. on weekends to 10:00 p.m.—something my parents patently forbade. I had been pushing it with the 9:00 p.m. time, they said.

That Saturday, I came in and told the manager that I would have to quit, since I could not work that night and had found no one to cover my shift. I handed in my uniform, for which the restaurant was to refund my deposit. I went into the break room to say goodbye to the few people who cared. When I saw the schedule grid posted by the time clock, with my name and all the nights I was to work the next week, I took out a pen and scratched a line through my name. I didn’t want people to think that I simply wasn’t showing up for my shifts. Or maybe I was, as the manager later deduced, being a little snotty.

As I walked out the back door, he caught me and admonished me for touching his schedule. “I’m the only one who gets to write on the schedule board,” he bellowed. “That is not your property.”

He handed back my uniform and told me the restaurant would not reimburse me for it. The reason? He was just sticking it to me.

The following Monday night, my father drove me back to the restaurant. I sat in the car while he went inside with my uniform to see the manager. I have no idea what my father said to him, but when Dad got back into the car, he handed me the money for my uniform in cash.

“Hash-slinging is no business to be in,” he said.

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Just Down the Road, There’s a Place Like… is the third chapter of Wini Moranville’s forthcoming book, Love is My Favorite Flavor, to be released this year by the University of Iowa Press. This chapter is printed with permission. Click here to preorder Love is My Favorite Flavor.
Copyright © 2024 by Wini Moranville

Photographs courtesy of Andy Lyons/ Cameraworks, Melissa Walker Horn, Lachlan, Catt Liu, Paul Gaudriault, Stephen Hocking, and Joshua Olsen.