Between Wag's, Denny's, Piccolo's, Big Louie's
and The Brass Rail whether I was in
New York or South Florida I always had
a job to come back to as was the case in most places I worked. I was good, fast,
could handle a big station and had a
lot of people who would specifically ask for me which were all
pluses.

Over the years I waited on
a few celebrities, mostly in New York when I started out. On the graveyard shirt
at Ham 'n Eggs--which if I remember correctly was on 52nd street and 7th Avenue--I waited on Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward who were rehearsing a
Broadway play near by. At Dan Stampler's Steak Joint, on Greenwich Avenue
in the Village,  one night Diahann Carroll and her English boyfriend,  David Frost, came in for dinner and sat at my table. She was so gorgeous
and nice I didn't care that Frost
tipped like an Englishman!!

Talking about tipping, one
of the worst tippers was Milton Berle--his wife, Ruth, would come back the next day, apologize
and make up for the bad tip 'Uncle'
Miltie left. There was the time I was working at the Gas Pavilion on the World's Fair grounds in Flushing,
New York, when Ike & Mamie Eisenhower came in and were seated at my table. After catering to them
in every way I was rewarded with a
card that said something like, "Thank you for your service..The President and Mrs. Eisenhower"--I tried to pay my rent
with it but the landlord wouldn't
accept it! :O)

One of the easiest restaurant jobs is working in
hotels. There was very little sidework, the kitchens were big and there was
always a clean up crew so we didn't have to vacuum around our stations. I worked
at Holiday Inns in Fort Lauderdale and Plantation, Florida and the Hilton on
Griffith Road in Hollywood.

I started in this business
at an Italian restaurant that was a
large place with a big kitchen and the last job I had was at Big Louie's, a
smallish dining room with the kitchen
in the center of the restaurant making it very easy to pick up and serve orders. Oh, yes, the sidework was almost nil!

Mexican restaurants, Steak
houses, business lunch restaurant on Wall street, Dan Dowd's, The Brass Rail, AdLib...more to come.