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Jodell started working at the Pie N' Burger in Pasadena, CA in 1965. She's vibrant, full of stories and unforgettable.
...on starting out...
Well my mother worked at Van De Kamps as a cashier and
they needed a pie girl. I was 17 and they hired me to
cut their pies and then one night he needed a waitress,
my maiden name was Bently and so he said, "Ms. Bently
take the floor!" Then we had 3 tables, now I could run
this whole place by myself.
...work ethic...
I've been waitressing for 52 years and there's nothing I dislike about being a waitress. I enjoy it very much. I bought a home, my hobby is antiquing, I love flowering and my garden is beautiful. It's a wonderful life, waitressing. So even if I've got a backache or a sore foot, I just come to work. In all the years I've been here, I can count on one hand all the times I've called in sick and I'd have 3 or 4 fingers left over. I just come to work.
...the pen story...
Well my very favorite story is about the pens. People
write checks and they don't have a pen, so they ask
to borrow mine and I give them a pen and if I don't
stand there and watch the pen, they just put it in their
purse and then I'm out of a pen. It's an honest mistake
that we all do. So one night when I came home from work,
Lilly my Whippet dog, she had found a pen and chewed
it up, so I picked it up and thought, "Oh this is wonderful.
They'll never take this pen." Sure enough someone
took it. I have 3 pens that I loan out. It appeared
in the Los Angeles Times about a year ago and people
started sending my pens back. Someday I hope to find
my pen that Lilly chewed up. When I got a new car last
year, I had to change the plates, and I changed the
plates to say, "Got A Pen?"
...regular customers...
Probably about 75% of my customers are regulars. They
keep coming back, sometimes 2 and 3 times a day. They
love the place. It’s like a small town in here.
I’m in my 4th generation of my customers. Fantastic.
I started out with the grandparents and then their parents
and then their children and then their grandchildren.
But it's been fun staying here through the years. I
love my customers. I can get on a plane to go see my
son in Washington state and I know there's somebody
on the plane, saying "Hey Jo! Got a cheeseburger?" I'll
say "Yep. Right in my purse!" True story.
The regulars usually order the same thing. Sometimes they'll change their order and I say, "You're going to be sorry if you change, you won't like it." And sure enough they change and they say, "You know I don't like it, bring me a cheeseburger." I tell them, "Well you've got to listen to mom. I'm mom!"
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