My first waitress job was at Ted's Big Boy Restaurant, which - in the summer of 1968 - had just opened for business.
I was in the first cadre of waitresses hired, and we were trained by "girls" - as they and we were then known - who were brought in from the original Bob's Big Boy in California as part of the deal to set up a franchise.
The girls from Bob's were really something.
At a time when most girls wore their hair long and straight, a la Mary of Peter, Paul, and Mary, the Bob's waitresses had big hair.
Wanda had a giganticized version of the dark black Lucy Baines Johnson (LBJ's younger daughter) flip. Porta was about 6 feet 2 inches tall - at least she was with the stovepipe cone of honey blonde hair perched on top of her head.
Both Wanda and Porta gobs of make up, and us Big Boy's waitresses had to don - at minimum - lipstick, which I had never worn.
My color of choice was the trendy corpse-white, or a sugary cotton candy pink. These colors were an ultra-nice complement to the yellow (what was I thinking?) eye shadow I also wore. What with my self-created orange-ish hair streak - done on the cheap with peroxide rather than Lady Clairol - I must have been quite a sight. (The things you can get away with when you're 18.)
Being a Big Boy waitress came with lot of rules.
You had to wear your name tab well above your left breast. If it got anywhere near bust-level, Porta told us, some wise guy was sure to ask, "What's the name of the other one?"
We also had to address the cooks as "Sir," which seemed especially dopey as the cooks weren't much older than the waitresses. One cook - the younger brother of the store manager - was, in fact, only 16. Yet we had to call Timmy S, along with his brothers John S. and Danny S. - a crew of very cute Irish boys from Providence - "Sir". Just as we had to call Bob L., Mel A., and Don I-can't-recall-his-last-name "Sir."
Most of the cooks were pretty good humored about it, but Bob L. was kind of a bully, defensive, I think, because most of us were college girls who were there for the summer, while being a Big Boy cook was, more or less, his career.
Mel A. was an interesting guy. I think he went to Clark, and I wonder whatever happened to the book he claimed to be writing, 86 That Dream.
There were lots of cooks to "Sir" over my two summers and one Christmas break at Big Boys. Ex-cons, Viet Nam vets.
Ordering involved addressing one of the "Sirs" and announcing that you were ordering a Big Boy, a Brawnie Lad, a tuna wheat.
Portions of the food - mostly deserts - that the waitresses doled out on our own followed paramilitary precision. I felt bad for those who ordered the hot fudge sundaes, with their monitored teensie-weensie cup of fudge sauce, barely more than a thimble full! At Friendly's, they put more fudge on the sundae - especially if you knew someone who worked there.
Even when there was no one in the restaurant in the break between breakfast and lunch, or lunch and dinner, there was a hard and fast rule that you couldn't sit down. You had to be rinsing out towels in soapy, bleachy water. Or scrubbing down tables. Or straightening menus.
One time my friend Kathleen took a tiny break, sitting down for a second or two at a table she'd been scrubbing. And there was John S., outside policing the grounds, tapping on the window and wagging his finger at her.
I actually loved waitressing at Big Boy's.
Every night, I would come home and count my tips in the living room - change, mostly - and record the amount in a little red spiral notebook. I worked very hard, but don't imagine I made very much - the food was inexpensive and there was no alcohol served.
After counting my tips, I took a shower, trying to get the burger grease smell out of my hair and off my skin, and then threw my uniform in the washing machine.
Although I worked at least 5 days a week, I had one uniform: white blouse, orange apron, and brown skirt. And the entire kit needed washing every night, save for the clip on brown bow tie.
You had to give back your uniform when you quit, so my second summer at Big Boy's, the uniform I had was used to begin with.
How charming!
My Big Boy stint came to mind the other day when I read an article on a fellow in Kentucky who'd been offered a job at the local Big Boy's - only to have the offer rescinded when they couldn't find a uniform to fit him.
Well, 2X was not big enough for Charles Compton, who weighs in at 349. Since that was the largest size they had, he was promptly unhired. What with the bad publicity and all, Big Boy called big boy back, apologized, and offered him the job again.
But Compton was no longer interested.
From Big Boy's point of view, this is probably just as well.
In this day and age, with all the attention paid to the correlation between fast food and obesity, probably the last thing you want - especially in a restaurant named Big Boy's to begin with - is someone that large reminding people that they just might want to skip that hot fudge sundae. Even with the skimpy portion of fudge sauce, that's still a lot of empty calories.
5 comments:
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I am so glad I found this article. I am a huge fan of 1970's Bob's Big Boy waitresses. I was born in 1970 and my parents brought me to Bob's just about every month or 2 throughout the 70's. I have nothing but fond memories of the interior, exterior, the food, waitresses and the Big Boy statue. They always bought me the Big Boy comic book.
The one thing I loved about Bob's was the hair on all the women and I've been looking for pictures of the hairstyles for my blog because I'm trying to show people what they looked like to elaborate on my obsession with the place lol.
A Bob's Big Boy just opened here in Bakersfield, CA and so I've very happy to have them back but unfortunately the only thing that is the same is the statue and the food and the statue was stolen before they had a chance to open but finally returned a day or 2 ago.
Anyway, thanks for your blog post.
I was just thinking about my first waitressing job in 1977, (I was working there the day Elvis died)
I remember the white top, brown bow tie, skirt and orange vinyl skirt. What made me think about it was my hair.
We had to wear our hair up, in a beehive kind of do. We had to buy a hair piece to wear over the bun n the top of our heads. I have really long hair and keeping that on was a task.
My first day in store after training at the original BBB on Colorado Blvd. Big Boy store #1 I hadn't a hair piece and my mom did mine up in a wonderful french twist. The manager made me take it out and put it in a bun.
(She never liked me. There was another girl with extra long hair who was treated nicer, oh well, her loss!)
The special way they had you "86" the tables and the rules. The thing about working for Big Boy was that you got trained and other restaurants wanted you and paid more.
I did good on tips, I am big busted and dipped just right serving. I filled cool whip containers with quarters and stacked them in my closet. Each container held $100.00
In hindsight, it was an experience I will never forget, and an era that will never return. Big Hair, vinyl aprons...........oh yeah the make-up. I wore a slight cover girl brand tint, as it was mandatory to wear make-up as well.
I also loved the slang we used to order up at the chef station, and learning to make a cherry-lemon OJ.
Thanks for the memory!
It was my first job too. 1982 (I think) in California.
I too had the white blouse, brown skirt and clip on tie. The apron was striped, if I recall correctly. And yes, we had to wear at least lipstick. We also had to wear hair pieces to make our hair look like a fancy high piled bun. Just wrapping your hair into a bun on its own wasn't good enough.
I did get out of having to call the cooks "sir." Except for the manager who cooked, most of them were Mexican with limited English.
I served this party with a couple of really small children who screamed the whole time and made a huge mess. They walked toward the cash register and I went to clean the table. I saw the guy had left me a penny. I guess he didn't like the service. Undaunted, I ran after him. As I caught up to him I said "Sir! Sir! You forgot this," and handed him back the penny. Still really proud of that moment. haha
I had fun there too. Interesting that the uniform stayed so constant way past its time.
I worked at Marc's Big Boy #1 in Milwaukee, WS in '67 and late '67 moved to OKC, OK and worked for Kip's Big Boy restaurants and had the best training and time of my life! People were serious about working hard and paying bills and did not want to live off their parents then. The waitresses were always crisp and clean and even inspected before coming on to the floor. Training was essential as the "Big Boy" way and concepts were unique to the operation and very professional. Waitresses did make a lot of tips and small paychecks. Meals (free) were provided and uniforms except the waitress shoes. Many a lady who worked at a Big Boy restaurant would travel 10 or even 15 miles each day on her shift! I was a dishwasher,busboy,line cook, and a manager trainee and eventually a shift manager and then over all store manager for Kip's Big Boy. I remember many fine young and older ladies who served customers daily and took a lot of pride in doing so. As part of the management training program I had to work several shifts on the floor as a server to live the experience the girls go through each and every day. I enjoyed it and learned a lot and have great memories of those days and times. Later I changed careers and went into law enforcement and private corporate and industrial security. I will never forget the people and times I had at the Okla. Kip's Big Boy locations and being part of the management team of winning people with winning attitudes! The 60's and 70's were great to experience life in. Thanks! Mark G. former Kip's Mgr.(fry cook)
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