Navajo City Roadhouse

FaceBook Experiment

2010-04-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

The Waitress: All kinds of small dramas happen right infront of one's eyes if we pay attention. Two kids needed to get a rope to tie their door shut on their way home from a party at the lake. The bumper was totally gone and they only hit two cars on their way out. I think the girl will cry if she ever sobers up.
April 18 at 11:06am Friends of Friends · Comment · LikeUnlike · View Feedback (21)

NWK likes this.

The Waitress: White water truck rolls up with smoke billowing from the back wheels. Driver borrows the phone. Rear seal is leaking on the breaks. They tell him to just try to get through the day with it.
April 18 at 11:08am ·

The Waitress: Lylbun wants to check the statistics on Zenyatta's lineage. He is impressed with a horse named Kris S, but he won't have money to go back to the track until after his social security check comes in May.
April 18 at 11:12am ·

The Waitress: Dan called to see if anyone could come give him a jump. His truck died over at Keiths' last night and he had to walk home. John took off his apron and started up the welding truck to go help.
April 18 at 11:14am ·

KB: well it sounds like life is staying interesting for you!!!
April 18 at 11:30am ·

The Waitress: Troy spends 20 minutes telling me about the Ubuntu operating system and we look up Mark Shuttlesworth who funded it at one time. Interesting character. Troy has the internet part of the cafe working in top form. Sometimes there are more people on the computers than not... like me here by myself. Mike is hooked on Farmville. John is hooked on government surplus auctions.
April 18 at 12:04pm ·

The Waitress: Biker gang stops outside, but when they find out we don't serve alcohol, they head on.
April 18 at 12:05pm ·

The Waitress: Ex-waitress comes by to borrow a hammer so she can nail the back door of her mobile home. She moved out last summer to go to work in town and the big winds on Friday blew it open. John makes her a deal to move it over here. She's got to move all the Amway motivational CDs out of it. The tires and wheels were taken off of her trailer and Tim put it on his trailer, but Tim's moved to town to and his place was repossessed. John will just go over and take the axel and tires. He might get Tim to come fix the clutch on the semi before he moves the trailer.
April 18 at 12:42pm ·

JKL: You need to go back to the waitress blog!
April 18 at 12:44pm ·

The Waitress: I think it's more fun writing it in facebook entries.
April 18 at 2:10pm ·

The Ex-Nun: I love your varied entries. Lots of drama, Mama. It also reaches more people right now. They navigate FACEBOOK, but don't search out a blog.
Keep 'em comin'.
April 18 at 2:55pm ·

The Waitress: Navajo family from Farmington stops in out on a Sunday drive... he's a heavy equipment operator, she works in a nursing home. I try to get them to talk about the Dinetah but they look at me like I'm talking to someone else.
April 18 at 3:00pm ·

The Waitress: John has an electric reciprocating saw and is cutting a new door on the north side of the building. It opens into the little "drive through" they attached a few weeks ago. It won't be long until you don't have to get out of your car to have one of Navajo City's finest burritos.
April 18 at 3:02pm ·

JKL: Wow! McNavajo's!
April 18 at 3:06pm ·

The Waitress: End of the day. The floor is mopped. I just have to get the daily report from the cash register. The tip jar was a little light with only $5 for the day, but hey, I only had one table (of 5 plus a baby). This is mostly a convenience store sort of truck stop.
April 18 at 5:40pm ·

The Waitress: We are driving two trucks home so I can have the welding truck to work on my mustang receiving pen. Anyone want to come help?
April 18 at 5:41pm ·

The Secret Service Sends a Surrogate

2009-06-12T15:50:00.000-07:00

One of the Ex-cooks got involved in something very very bad.....Getting people to take counterfeit checks and send him real money. Yep, one of those crazy internet scams where the crook is buying something from you, and pays you more than they need to, and then asks you for change. Well, thank goodness this ex-cook doesn't live around here!

But part of that scam is that they have to get the counterfeit checks to send, so some kind of criminal organization exists that produces them and sends them to intermediaries, like the ex-cook, to send on to the victims. So the idiot ex-cook has a shipment of these checks sent to the Roadhouse, then calls and tells us there is some stuff that we need to send along to him.

The ex-cook (whom you may remember as getting locked in the cooler over the Cody Special) was arrested about the time the package arrived. When I found out the reason for the arrest, I knew it was probably a package of counterfeit checks.

I called the arresting police officer. He was non-committal about the package.... said he would get back to me. Over the weekend, the cooks face showed up on the front page of the state's biggest newspaper. I am sure the arresting officer was having fun with the media and couldn't bother about evidence. After four days and a box of counterfeit checks just laying around here, I started thinking it was sloppy investigative procedure. If there was any evidence in the package or leads to the sender, the trail was growing cold. I finally called the State Police to see if they would take it off our hands. The State Police recommended mailing it to the arresting officer. Right... like pay out my hard earned tips to send them something that is really none of my concern!!!! Take time out of my day to drive 50 miles to the post office!!! Don't they get paid to take care of things like this?

I looked at the newspaper article again. The Secret Service is involved. Is there a public phone number for the Secret Service? Hey, there is.... I got the right officer right away. Yes, he would drive the 400 miles to pick it up. No problem. Well, then practicality must have taken hold of him and he called one of his buddies in the FBI that are in NW New Mexico. When the Roadhouse opened then next morning the FBI agent was waiting outside to pick up the evidence. That is almost enough to make us feel really important.

The Celebrity Waitress Program

2009-06-12T15:11:00.000-07:00

I've been training the Celebrity Waitresses as they come in. Today I am training Lucy, from Bristol in England. Of course the oil field men give nice tips to good looking women with foreign accents. Even the the men that have to ask for translation services from the local staff leave five dollar bills in the Celebrity Waitresses tip jar.

Thanks to the Self-Service Customers

2009-02-20T07:02:00.000-08:00

Last night I had locked up and was sweeping the floor, anxious to get home, when Scooter drove into the parking lot. At the end of the day I usually have a few left over burgers in the hot case that I take pleasure in giving away, so I was happy to unlock the door and let Scooter in. He bought a soda and took a bacon cheeseburger for his ride home.

I finished sweeping, put some new paper in the bathrooms, and counted down the cash in the register, leaving $150 to start the morning. John finished cleaning the grill, sweeping the floor, and we jumped in the car to get to the bank and make some deposits. I went into the hardware store to get some glue to fix the womens toilet and John went to the grocery store to pick up tortillas and cheese. It looked like we would get home well before dark, with a good days work under our belts.

Then the cell phone rang.

It was Fidel Candelaria. The door of the Roadhouse was wide open. They had called the State Police. He was there. We turned a sharp u-turn and headed back down the Largo towards the highway. I realized that I hadn't re-locked the door behind Scooter. For some reason we didn't worry too much even though the last months inventory build up and the register were at stake. We were prepared for what ever we found.

Two police officers and Fidel were sitting at the counter chatting when I bounded in the front door. There was a little pile of money on the counter near the cash register. A note on a napkin around a couple of dollars read "2 packs of dentyne". The $150 was still in the register and the self-service customers had left $11 to pay for their purchases. It had been at least 2 hours between when we left and when the place was secured by Fidel. It kind of restored my faith in the world.

Thanks unknown customers!

Good Buddy, Sad Story

2009-02-16T08:48:00.000-08:00

Dear Rita,
We went down to Largo last night to get a new wood stove to put in up
here at the City. We are trying to not run out of propane up here since we
don't really have the spare change to fill up the propane tank again. When we
were loading our gear into the truck to head south, Joe Smith came
walking around the corner. Totally drunk and looking for some shelter from his life.....

We took him down to Largo with us. Lylbun was there taking care of the
critters for us. We pulled the new wood stove out of the guest wing
and replaced it with the Franklin that was on the front porch. Joe
built a big fire in it and slept on the couch with Chica and Lylbuns
dog, Julie. This morning he was sober enough to want to go back home
and try to salvage his life.... all his kids are off living with their
other parents. He might pull it off, but crushing debt and a very
materialistic ambitious wife are not good things in a tough economy. When an alcoholic is looking for an excuse to drink, it doesn't take much, does it?

We dropped him off in Blanco at 5:30 this morning and zoomed up Manzanares
pass back into the snowy landscape of Navajo City. There is no snow
down at Largo and even the mud has dried up, so the two places seem
like they are on different planets. In a way, it's nice to know that
other people would see our space as a place of refuge from the rest of
the world. But of course we know better.

Those days of warmth really whet your appetite for spring. Time to
peruse the seed catalogs.
Yrs,
Patricia
ps. I called Joe a couple of times later, but he's not returning his calls. It doesn't bode well for his sobriety.

The Last Cold Day

2009-02-12T07:39:00.000-08:00

It's cold in here this morning. The propane stove keeps the other side of the dining room habitable, but here behind the counter I have my coat still on. Drinking my 5th cup of hot tea. Knees moving to the beat of the radio.

Customers ordering ham & cheese omelettes even though omelettes have never been on our menu. These guys ordered the same thing yesterday morning, but I only know one of them by name. John is cooking. He's turned into a great cook over the past four years. It's surprising that we are both back here.

On the 20th of December, he turned it over to a couple of guys that landed here last spring out of gas and money. Over the summer they had gotten settled in and one of them had been working for John on and off. The guy had some restaurant management experience and aspirations to own the place, we let him try. So leaving $7000 of inventory and $150 in the cash register, John went home to live.

It was really questionable if the oilfield would accept a gay couple running the Roadhouse. Sales remained strong for the dead of winter. What caused them to fail was keeping too much staff absorbing the cash flow. They couldn't refurbish the inventory. What kind of hamburger joint has only one patty on hand at lunch rush?

But they had cable TV put in. John let them stay until after their big SuperBowl bash. They vacated the next morning leaving $3000 worth of inventory and $30 in the cash register. I disconnected the cable and moved the TV to the back door. Took down some decorations I didn't want to have to dust, and filled the pepper shakers. Business was slow on that Monday and with the groceries he brought with him John got through the day. Customers are glad to see we are back.

That was two weeks ago. It's good to be back with my tips accumulating to buy some hay. I'm going to try to keep up on the adventures here. We are putting in a woodstove this afternoon. I look forward to taking off my jacket.

Gossip Avalanche

2008-09-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

Rita Mae is off living in Canada and just wrote me an email asking for all the latest gossip. She does not know what an epic job it will be to tell the story of now, or even to read the story of now, but I might as well post my letter to her on the blog.

Dear Rita,
I haven't heard from that no-good-nic since he came into a pile of money from the lawsuit he had for police brutality. Apparently he is withdrawing his money from the bank at about $1000 per day, which indicates that me must have found a source for his favorite flavor of drugs. You will probably hear from him when his bank account is empty if he is still alive. Sad. Yep. I can't figure out what you see in him!

Well, actually almost all of the cooks are showing signs of mental illness. There were two primary cooks earlier in the summer. L was doing the morning shift, M was doing the afternoon. L started talking to himself. It got louder but the waitresses got used to hearing him back there. Then it started seeming like he must be arguing with someone back by the stove even though he was all alone. Then it got to be a big fight with himself. He finally just couldn't hold it together to get to work and he ended up checking himself in for treatment.

Within a day of that happening, D (the fluffier waitress), came back to M with an order for a WaterHaulers Special, eggs over easy, no hashbrowns, with wheat toast, which she wrote out as WH oe, Ø HB, wheat toast. This made him angry. He said, "I don't understand that." She said, "What is there to not understand," and read it to him. He said he wasn't going to take it anymore and he got on his motorcycle and left. He stayed gone for almost a week, living in some cheap hotel, watching TV, and eating junk food. A city binge.

When that cook quit, the boss was up in Colorado picking up some printing he had done. Lucky for the boss, his new "assistant manager in training", was at the Roadhouse and stepped in to figure out how to cook roadhouse-style. I was coming home from a trip to town to buy dogfood when my cell phone rang. It was kind of an emergency and could I get to the Roadhouse ASAP? What could I do but turn the truck around and zoom back to the highway. It was nearly lunch when I got there and the oil field has really been busy, so we were slammed right away and it didn't stop until late in the afternoon. Mr.Assistant did really good for not knowing what an enchilada was.

Okay, so all the cooks are out, right? Well, you remember that skinny waitress with the big family of adult sons? She took to feeding her family and letting them walk out with who knows what. Those men all have jobs, so it wasn't like they were broke and hungry. Then none of the family would be in to do business except on the days that she worked. They were all just ripping the Roadhouse off. The boss tried to just ignore it, but it was really making all the other employees quite mad, so he just stopped scheduling her in, without actually firing her. I got her shifts. I am starting to feel just a little bit overworked.

The other waitress gone is a really sad story. She moved to the area last year with her husband who was fighting cancer. He is in the final stages now and hospice has started to make regular visits to keep him out of pain. She was working for a while, mostly to get out of the house for a few hours every week, but now they are saying he won't make it more than a few more days so she is staying home. I don't know what she will do after he is gone. She is in her mid '60's and not nearly as fit as you. She's staying strong for now though.

The other waitresses are doing fine. They both always have a positive attitude. I read a statistic that 96% of restaurant employees won't stay in their current job for a whole year. The fact that D and W are here after so many years is a blessing.

Okay, now about the crazy boss. You remember how he had run up his credit cards to pay for the installation of the fuel system? Well, he got this idea that the west end of the Roadhouse could be used to pay for the east end, so he cut off the living quarters on the west side and has it jacked up, ready to move to his vacant property 13 miles east of the Roadhouse. He got one of those adult-sons of the non-scheduled waitress and the cook who talks to himself to build a cinder block stem wall to put the building on. The crazy owner had to jump through quite a few official hoops to get the permit to haul a 20ft wide slice of the Roadhouse down Highway 64, but the permit is in hand and the building is waiting for the trailer to glide under it and carry it away. When it is in place, stuccoed, with an attached garage, someone will be able to get a mortgage to buy it. The owner will pay off the credit cards. Only the crazy boss would hatch a scheme so intricately involving moving heaven and earth.

The other thing the crazy boss did was buy another business, which he has me working on too. He's now publishing a weekly shopper/classifieds paper. I got handed the job of organizing and growing the classifieds. He kept the old employees: a salesman and a display ad producer. Right now the boss is fetching the papers from the printers, which is what he was doing last week when the cook went wacko. My job is kind of fun. I get to talk to people about stuff they would like to sell.

Two days ago, the boss tried to get the cooks back on board because he was having to do so much cooking. L walks by D's house on the way to work, she heard him arguing as he went by at 5:30 a.m., but he never stopped at the RoadHouse, we think he may have gone off in search of a mental health facility. Too bad, he was a good cook. M came back, he's been at work for two days in a row. He's a good cook too. Mr.Assistant is going to make a good cook when he learns the Mexican food preparation, meanwhile he is fixing things and organizing life at the Roadhouse.

I was definitely not planning on working so many shifts and having a second job. I just took on a new horse to train when the Roadhouse vortex sucked me back in. Sigh..

Hope you stay warm up there in the north country,
yrs truely

Rita Mae Objects

2008-04-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

Rita Mae says what I wrote about the cook is kind of unfair. She says that his eggs had gotten less crispy before the Cody Special Disaster happened. That may be true, but the customers have been saying nice things about the new cooks eggs and tips have improved. The bottom line, money in the tip jar, is a pretty clear measure to me.

To be perfectly honest it should be disclosed that Rita Mae is kind of infatuated with the brother-cook anyway. She thinks he is just misunderstood. Well, I am going to say some nice things about him in my next post, but not because she tells me I should, it's because it's part of the story. He was doing some bad stuff at that point, but he is actually not a bad person. I can understand why she likes him when he is sober.

Yes, those two have a little thing going on. You remember when I told you that Rita got a breast reduction operation? Well, she still has plenty for that cook to cry into about loosing his job, having a bad liver, and getting 7 stitches in his nose. Rita doesn't mind at all.

Gossiping about the Cooks: The Cody Special Disaster

2008-04-21T05:01:00.000-07:00

There is really not time to update this blog, but hey, there is TOO much gossip not to.

It's spring and business is cranking up as the oil field unfreezes and dries out. The drill rigs come back, the U.S. Forest roads open up, and the highway gets busy. Tourists and fishermen wander in and realize they found something special. Waitressing is all about being ready. It's easy when the silverware is rolled, the menus are clean, the condiments are on hand, the tables are clean, the lemons are sliced, the glassware has the water spots polished off, and the coffee is fresh and hot. It's hell when these things are not ready.

We have a new cook. Unlike the last few, he is clean and sober. I turn in the order and his response is, "Great! Have it right out!" Wow!! I love him. My faith in cooks as human beings has been restored.

Cooks are usually the root of most gossip. Let's start with the last one: the owners brother. Nice guy when he was sober, but he liked to keep the kitchen in total chaos. All the foods stacked up amidst the scattered hashbrowns and cheese particles. He wouldn't wash his dishes, he'd just stack them on top of everything else. His claim to any level of cleanliness was his strict maintenance of his bleach water bucket. The food he turned out was good, except for his predilection for making the eggs crispy. One thing our customers don't like is an "over-easy" egg with crispy edges. You put it on the table and they look at you with eyes, that like reflections of their eggs, are hard, which totally stresses me out. The boss spoke to him about his eggs, but nothing could change the pattern. Since we have our new cook, the breakfast customers are especially pleased.

The brother-cook had a drinking problem. If you looked down in the refrigerator next to the burgers in the middle of the day, you might find a beer or a coffee cup full of red wine. The owner was trying to ignore this situation because he's his brother-in-law, but everyone else saw the disaster coming.

About two weeks ago, the cook came to work at 6 a.m. totally drunk. Eggs got crispier than normal. It was looking grim. The owner was working the register. I was minding my own business, but when every order was messed up, I sure wanted to find a reason to leave. The owner called his wife for emergency backup. The wife is an outdoors-woman and doesn't have much tolerance for drunks. This set the stage for more drama than Navajo City sees on a regular basis.

Cody is one of our regular customers. He likes chicken strips and white gravy. But he likes them with green chile and cheese on his french fries. He orders this meal every day. We call it the Cody Special. Well, there are a few women in the oil field, about 3 of which are vivacious intelligent women. Needless to say, they never have to eat lunch by themselves. Sue is one of these ladies. Sue and Cody don't work together, but they know each other and Sue knew of the existence of the Cody Special. On that fateful day, she made the mistake of ordering the Cody Special with no green chile. I wrote it down like that. I should have written "chik strip". Big mistake.

Sister and inebriated brother were back at the stove trying to patch up the orders and get things out. No one was talking about the fundamental problem of the brother being totally drunk. They were just trying to work around it. The sister didn't know what the Cody Special was, so when they rang the bell and I went back to pick it up, I couldn't really be upset with her. She didn't know. "No Green Chile", I pointed it out on the ticket. They took it back. There were 9 guys sitting with Sue at that table (Did I say she never gets to eat alone?) and maybe a dozen other customers at other tables. A bunch of orders were in preparation and the bell rang again for the Cody Special. It still had the green chile on it. The Boss was helping me get the food out and sort out the messed up orders, he looked at the ticket and turned the plate back to the cooks since it was still covered with green chile.

The cook started cussing and told the Boss he could come back and cook himself. The Boss said, "Okay, that would be fine." The cook said he was quitting. Fine. Fine with me especially! But it didn't work out so smoothly. The cook stormed out the back door, but in just a few seconds was in another door into the dining area with the customers making an ugly scene. His sister grabbed him and she and the Boss drug him out the back door. It would have been so much better if the drunk cook would have just minded his own business, but he was determined to cause a scene, so he kicked in a couple of the doors and threatened to do some serious damage to whatever he could. We called the police, but this far from civilization, you can't really expect them to help you in a crisis.

The customers stood up and tried to help. Most of them would have run from a real fight because of their jobs, but they at least were a bit threatening. One of the customers, Travis, was in a fightin' mood though and took the cooks challenge to step outside and go a round. They never had an opportunity to get it done, because the sister stepped up and, with one blow, decked her brother. She took him down and some customers helped drag him into the walk-in cooler we don't use. She parked her jeep up against the door and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

The first state cop arrived about 20 minutes later, but he called for reinforcements and the other one showed up a bit later. We were still busy serving food and the owner was getting the kitchen cleaned up, so we had to give our statements between customers. I watched them try to get the cook out of the cooler. Cuffed and stuffed, he still was mad enough to break the window in the cop car. Alkies bleed easy and he was a bloody mess so they took him to the hospital for stitches before they threw him in the drunk tank. The boss did not press charges, but the cook was charged with destruction of state property for the cop car.

We decide that next time we are going to charge the customers for the floor show. The Boss posted a notice:

OFFICIAL NOTICE
The Cody Special cannot be ordered without Green Chile.

Hey, I gotta get off of this keyboard and get some napkins rolled. We'll have to save the rest of the gossip for later.

Update

2007-12-06T20:15:00.000-08:00

Okay, it's been a while since I posted to this blog. I know. Enough of you complained that I finally had to get it going again.

What's it been?... something like three or four years in my part-time waitress job. Hey, I am a lot more professional now than I used to be. Sure, I still space out the silverware or refilling the coffee cups, but it doesn't embarrass me as much to do so. They put in a fueling island, so now we aren't just a little cafe in the middle of nowhere. We are a truckstop in the middle of nowhere. Of course that meant learning a complicated cash register system and it tripled our cafe business, but somehow we managed. It seems easier now than it used to.

Last year, there was some bad feelings happening over tips. The morning waitress was getting all of them, and only tipping her cook about 2% or less. That might be okay but a lot of the big tips were from call in orders where the waitress never had to wait on anyone. The boss, in his infinite wisdom, raised all of our salaries to the same unheard of rate ($8/hr) and told us we had to share the tips equally. No one complained about that!

There has been quite a bit of staff turnover since I last posted. The steady employees have been here from almost day one, but the afternoon positions constantly change. The last waitress to leave told us the Mexican mafia was looking for her, and that was why her husband had to sit at the counter all day. When the boss said the hubby had to go, the waitress went too. We are all wondering if now she is sitting around watching him where he works. Go figure!

For the last four months, we've had my roommate working two days a week. She has restaurant experience in her past. The boss thinks she attracts a lot of male attention, which he feels is good for business. I hear the guys talking about her. They call her The Princess. They ask her out, but she is not going with anyone who sees her as a sex-object. The net effect on our homelife is that more of these guys are noticing what we might be doing out in the yard. They drive by waving and shouting out hello to her. I've been here for years but they never learned my name. Hmmm...

Anyway she kind of bugged me last week when she borrowed my jeep to go to work, then stopped to clean the mud off the windshield and didn't notice that the wiper blade was suddenly upside down so it made a giant arc of hundreds of little scratches right across the drivers view. It is going to be really unpleasant when you have oncoming traffic at night. She came back and told me that the ice was keeping the wipers from working. When I told her that the window was all scratched up and would have to be replaced, she just acted like it had nothing to do with her. humph...

Well, you are just about caught up with everything that's happened at the RoadHouse for the last couple of years. If I think of anything else, I'll get back to you.

Labor Day 2006

2006-09-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

It's been months since my last post. Too much has happened to even try to put it into a story. The biggest change is that there are a lot of people working here and that Navajo City has grown into quite a little community, apparently stimulated by the availability of local work as most of our employees live in the subdivision across the road.

Now, you have to erase what ever preconception you might have about the word "subdivision". It's a community without power, water, or sewer. They are all living in camper trailers and coming across the road to fill up their water containers and use the cafe's restrooms. The part of the subdivision on this side of the highway has utilities, it's upscale. The breakfast cook lives in a mobile home in the high class zone. The afternoon cook lives in a very old camper trailer we gave her on the poor side of town.

Vicky lives 13 miles up the road in a mobile home. She functions as the kitchen manager. I just got off of the phone with her; she called from the Dulce grocery store to see if we needed onions or tomatos. Wanda lives 5 miles up the road in a real house. She works as the afternoon waitress part of the week. Jennifer, who cooked here last year, came back for hunting season and is picking up a few days of work here between hunts. She is staying in Mahlon's old room right here at the Roadhouse. You can tell shes around because there are murder and mayhem DVDs in the player.

It's Labor Day so we haven't had a lot of business here. Some guy got hurt with a high pressure washer with Aztec Well Service, so we had some of the guys come off their drill rigs and spend a little time here while the safety issues were getting sorted out. Another fellow came in to grab a burrito and some Mt. Dew... he has been working on a location by himself for the last three days since they couldn't get any replacements during the holiday. A forest ranger stopped by for a burrito on his way out to patrol the forest roads since it's bow season.

I've gotten a lot better at being a waitress. Customers don't scare me anymore. Heck, I can even cook if I have to. The owner is cooking today, well, you could hardly call it cooking at this pace. Actually right now he is out back with the grease traps, hosing them down with one of those dangerous high pressure washers. I went out back and reminded him to be careful. Hes going to the meeting of the County Planning and Zoning Commission on Wednesday to get approval for the gas station. It's taken all summer to get all the requirements met, but the goal is to have the approval by the end of the month. Then things will really change.

Yep, there will be an economic opportunity for a new resident in our fair city.

Yrs,
The Waitress

By the Dawn's Early Light

2006-01-21T05:54:00.000-08:00

It's just starting to get light in the east. The customers are coming in and commenting on how the grill must be smoking. Vicky is going crazy as the Burrito Queen back in the kitchen. Waylon Jennings is singing about the Devil making him do it the first time. He owner is out back bolting things to his semi, gettin' ready to head to Kansas City to pick up the new gas pumps. There's a nice fire in the woodstove and a little snow on the ground outside, which translates to a little mud on the floor inside. Another day at the Roadhouse. Better go get the broom.

Hope he never needs a reference from Navajo City.

2006-01-14T12:30:00.000-08:00

I didn't write about Mahlon, so here it is.

He cooked for a good part of the summer. Kind of crotchety cook, the kind that gets pissy if you take an order for eggs after 11a.m. I only worked with him once since I only come in on Saturday, he seemed nice enough to me.

Debi took an order from Jonah, his totally regular order that he orders every single day he is out here on the job. Jonah is one of our super-loyal customers. Three eggs over easy, pancakes, and ham. Mahlon was covering the morning cooks shift. After a while Debi went back to check how the order was coming. Mahlon wasn't in the kitchen and the order hadn't been started, so she just cooked it up. After Jonah was chowin' down on it, she went looking for Mahlon. He was no where to be found. She went and looked in his room since he was staying in the guest room here. All of his stuff was gone. He had packed up his backpack full of gear and hitchhiked out of here without so much as a see-you-later.

The boss says it was because he and Mahlon had been discussing philosophy and the boss said that people basically are incentitized by money whether or not they admit it. Mahlon was categorically against the profit-motive. We all notcied that he didn't give back his paychecks when he left.

Anyway, poor Debi! There she was just before the lunch rush with no cook. I would have collapsed in a dead faint at that, but nope. She just put on an apron and did both jobs. What'ta waitress!!!!

Invasion of the Leather Sniffers

2006-01-14T11:33:00.000-08:00

Can you believe it? The boss doesn't care if I am over here dinkin' around on the computer as long as I am WRITING ON MY BLOG!!! All you bloggers, eat your heart out!

Okay, here is the scoop. Those people with the horse classified site sold the boss a banner ad and wanted to have something to link to. Duh... the Roadhouse doesn't have a website, so he gives them my blog URL since it's about the Roadhouse. That's why I had to get off my duff last week and get Rita Mae's post out of the draft box. Now we are having a momentary lull before the lunch rush, everything is ready so I can just stand over here at the credit card computer and type my little heart out.

Well, I have to give that ol' horse site a reciprocal link so here it is.... www.4CornersHorseTrader.com

The how and why for that connection is a long story. Basically after Mahlon flew the coop (did I write about that?) the boss cooked for a couple of weeks and then this funny couple came in to eat lunch. They asked me if there were any jobs around here. Billy and Vicky.... Vicky is one of those food service wonder-women, you just look at her and you know she knows her way around the kitchen. Billy is a cowboy/horseshoer/horsetrainer. They ended up moving their camper trailer out to the back lot under a juniper tree. Vicky does the morning shift, becoming the Breakfast Burrito Queen of HWY 64, and Billy, that sweet Billy, sweeps and mops every evening in trade for his meals. You can imagine that the afternoon waitresses all love that guy! You just put the chairs up on the clean tables, and you can just walk out the door. Okay, so we still have to do the bathrooms, but, hey! It's a good deal.

Okay, so meanwhile the boss is living over here working on getting fuel service in. It all seemed like a piece of cake until he went down and talked to the state planning guys. Now we are looking at getting ADA bathrooms and an architect. Of course this grates on these ol' country boys who are used to doing things for themselves, but the boss has been just making it happen, one step at a time. Today he had me help him measure every wall in this place so the architect can draw up the existing facility.

Anyway, the boss and Billy, being in proximity to each other, decided to go in together on a horse selling venture. Ace, a nice horse, that even I could ride, was for sale along with two new saddles. They bought it and immediately put it up for resale. Billy's been sharpening up it's training so it does some fancy stuff. The bosses wife has a bunch of horses and donkeys over at their place in Largo Canyon. She knew about this horsetrader website as well as all the other horse selling places on the internet since three of her critters were internet purchases. She sicc'ed the classified people on to the owner for a sponsorship. That's the thing with horsetraders, they know how to sell you something you didn't know you even needed.

They've been selling saddles out of this place. We have one sitting on the rail across the room. Guys seem to like rubbing them and sniffing the leather. You would think they were Harley Davidson seats by the way they get fondled. I have yet to see a woman give them a second glance.

Well, the trucks are pulling into the parking lot.... I better sign off for now.

2005-10-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody, this is Rita Mae and I've just finished my second shift here
waitressing in the Navajo City Roadhouse Cafe. The radio is playing good old
country music that sets my feet to tapping and my hips to swinging as I serve
tall glasses of iced tea and RoadKill specials.
Another rig pulls into the
parking lot and the men come in looking for a friendly face and good home
cooking. They've been very patient with me taking their orders and operating the
cash register. We've had plenty of laughs over the mistakes I've made, I don't
have to tell them that I am new here as most are here at least twice a day - on
the way to the oil fields and again on the way home.
My heart skips a beat
every time I hear the bell tinkle as the door opens, maybe it's my Dusty coming
in.
That was Rita-Mae's attempt at writing to the blog. She never did post it. I was sure glad she showed up when she did. The boss had committed to be open on Sunday for a motorcycle rally and couldn't be there, so he asked me to cook. I did it on one condition: we could only have one thing on the menu. That one thing was bacon/lettuce/tomatoe sandwiches with tomatos from my garden. No one complained.
But Rita went on to Thailand for the winter. She's looking after sick kids or something over there. The fresh tomatoes are long gone, but I wanted to finish off her draft before I start my own new post.
Yrs,
The Waitress

2005-08-04T17:33:00.000-07:00

Six-thirty p.m. is a quiet time here at the roadhouse. There are a couple of guys sitting out on the patio eating mushroom swiss burgers. I am expecting my two regular coffee customers to wander in momentarily (the only guys that buy coffee in the afternoon). I've been scrubbing the woodwork around the doorways but it still looks bad. The cook is taking a little siesta so he can be ready for the clean up.

The big gossip here this afternoon is the jeep roll over just across the county line. The thing was crushed, but miraculously no one got hurt. The State Police have been there about an hour and a half, waiting for the tow truck. I found out recently that the St. Police don't call the closest wrecker but rather they have a strict rotation on a list. So the tow bill could be a lot bigger than it needs to be if they call someone across the county.

We had a baby in here this afternoon. You know I was glad that I scrubbed that highchair the other day! It was a clean little baby and I would have been so embarrassed to put it into a grubby highchair.

Last night we were getting ready to leave and darn if the little top of my battery didn't pop off. Had to push start my truck. It's a lonely feeling out here when you think you might be stranded.

Gotta go... time to clean up.

Quandry

2005-07-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been in a real quandry since yesterday at work. Something happened and I don't know whether or not to tell the boss. It's really a big dilemma for me.

The managers returned the company computer that they took with them and the owner told me to get it set back up as the credit card machine wasn't working and we thought it was something to do with this system being out of the network. My qualification to fix the problem is simply that since I have a blog, I must be a computer whiz. Which means you must be a real nerd to be reading this blog! Doh!

Anyway, part of the assignment was to get the photo of the manager off the desktop. So I ran a search over the harddrive for any image files, hoping to just find and delete it. There were 476 images in the temporary storage and I made the mistake of clicking on one. Geeze! I think it was some kind of transvestite porno stuff, but I didn't stick around to analyze it too carefully. No amount of analysis was needed to determine it was anatomically a male despite how it was dressed. Yikes! I clicked on a couple of other files in the temp folder and they all came up trashy so it wasn't just an accidental foray into a porno site. Yikes! Suddenly even touching the keyboard was too creepy. I deleted the contents of the folder and emptied the trash. Let's just say that there are somethings you really don't want to have to see.

So, now the dilemma.... do I tell the boss about this? Give me some advice.

Can you believe it?

2005-07-29T05:58:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that after all this time, I got my job back? Yes, that's right! I'm back at Navajo City!

What was it... last April or so, the old managers were going to lease the buisness and run it for themselves. Well, they didn't need me around so there I was with no job suddenly. I managed to get by doing odd jobs over the summer, I know how to survive. Then all of the sudden the owners call me back in.... "can you work for us again?" That was not just YES!, but HELL, YES!!!

Apparently the managers wouldn't sign the lease or something. The owners were afraid of the liability since the tax people would come after them if the managers didn't pay the taxes or if someone got hurt and wanted to sue the restaurant. It's bad, but things like that do happen. So, from what Debi tells me ... she was there... the owner came two days in a row to try to get the papers signed and then suddenly things got ugly and personal, so the owner just told them to pack their belongings and vacate the property. In the oil fields they have a term for it..." getting run off". This is opposed to "dragging up"which is more voluntary kind of termination. Either way, they went away.

First thing that happen was that store bought chocolate cake on the counter went straight into the trashcan.

Well they got me back and I haven't had too many customers so I've spent my time cleaning stuff. Those managers weren't too hot on keeping the place clean. I was in there a couple of times while they were running it, and let me just say this... it wasn't the kind of place you'd eat if you had a choice of a nice clean place down the street. I don't think the men's bathroom had been cleaned over the summer. Reminded me of a gas station bathroom more than a cafe. Geeze...

I get the feeling that the customers kind of appreciate the change based on the size of the tips they are leaving. Do you know how much I missed having that tip money in my pocket over the summer?

Well, as if that wasn't enough gossip.... they got Mary to come back in three shifts a week and hired another cook for five shifts, but instead of showing up for work, that cook is down in the San Juan County jail for disturbing the peace or something... maybe drunk driving? No one knows for sure except that the owner is over there cooking and I got called to go back in today to help cover. The owner says he's not posting bail so I guess we need to hire us another cook. Hey, did you need a job? Doesn't pay all that much, but its a nice place to be. At least, I am glad to be there.

Ciao...

Keep 'em Broke

2005-02-12T13:42:00.000-08:00

The boss told me this morning that he likes his employees to stay broke so he knows that they'll show up for work. He's got this plan to give the manager more days off in a row so the manager will have more time to endulge in the consumer way of life. Not that the manager isn't broke already. Is it actually mean and vicious for the owner to give the employees more opportunity to go broke?

We have a handyman that does little repairs on the place. He keeps himself broke with a race track habit and his ex-wife. She's in jail down in Texas and he's driving her car. He spent all morning out in our muddy parking lot changing tires on her car because he doesn't have enough money to get a tire fixed. The boss comes out and starts talking to him about some new repairs to the Roadhouse. Meanwhile I served the handyman a hot roast beef sandwich and got him to sign the tab. I reckon that about half of the upcoming repairs are going to go against his cumulated tab. Yikes!

I feel lucky... I still have most of last weeks tips in my pocket. That boss isn't going to get me over a barrel!!! If I don't want to show up, I am going to keep my options open. Actually, I didn't want to show up this morning. It's rained for the last two days and the mud is deeper than ever. The dry streams are now running. It took 2 hours for me to make it to the pavement this morning and it's been raining on and off all day. Sigh.... The result is that customers are few and far between. My total tips aren't going to make up for the $4 fish sandwich I had at the Sonic two days ago.

But I'm glad I made myself come; it's pretty nice to be here today. A few muddy customers to sweep behind and 150 new songs on our satellite radio station. Yes, Sirius satellite radio, channel 35, the Roadhouse... we've been drinking coffee and listening to the radio. The cook is making some oatmeal cookies. Life could be much worse!

Where?

2005-02-05T14:59:00.000-08:00

The new sign is hanging out front. "NAVAJO CITY ROADHOUSE", no need to be confused about just where you are anymore. I thought everyone knew we were here and open for business despite the lack of any visible signage, but since the new sign went up yesterday new folks have been pulling off the highway. A lot of them come in and recalling it's former alcoholic incarnation, start looking for the pool tables or try to pay their tab where the cash register used to be. I see them waiting with money in hand over in that corner and I just say, " You haven't been coming in often enough. Where you been anyway?"

You know that our signage is an issue for us when people who drive this road are not aware that there is even a restaurant out here. Maybe it's a private club for guys in oil field trucks? Maybe it's a mud bogging club? There are not enough motorcycles parked out front to think we are still a biker bar. How could they honestly not know? That blinking sign with the flashing arrow that says "BREAKFAST BURRITOS $1.95" should be a clue.

Tourist season is coming up in another month. We get the fly fishing traffic heading over to the San Juan River and Navajo Dam. They are the focus of our next advertising campaign. We have plans to hang some signs in Gobernador, Turley, and Navajo Dam. If they are coming from Taos, Chama, or Santa Fe, there is some chance they will turn off on HWY 539, just a hundred yards up the highway unaware of our existence. Our signs will let them know that we have espresso and internet access. And New Mexican food.

Speaking of which, remember how those people were suing MacDonalds for selling them hamburgers which made them fat? New Mexico is talking about passing a law that the restaurant is not responsible for your fattening choices. You know if any of the waitresses are going to stand up to the customers and tell them that double cheese burger is not a healthy choice, it's gonna be me. Maybe without that law to protect us, we should assess our customers health status and cut them off when they look like they've had enough saturated fat. "Grilled chicken sandwich and a salad for you buddy, you've had enough beef tallow for today." Okay, so it's just a fantasy and I'm never gonna get in their face about the red meat thing, but I should.

Oh, well....

Barely Breaking Even.

2005-01-22T13:07:00.000-08:00

No one can complain about the weather. We've been in our shirt-sleeves all week. The main roads have dried out, but we don't have too many "main-road-customers" so they've all been going to work when the ground was going to be frozen a while. They might be wishing for a breakfast burrito when they go to work at 3 a.m., but at that time of day, there are no breakfast burritos on this side of the county. Then by lunch time, they are about to starve to death, so our parking lot has been packed. No doubt they like our food when the front parkinglot is just a sea of muddy trucks.

We've decided, come better weather, that the waitresses here are going to challenge the waitresses at the Sportsman to mudwrestle. The Sportsman is the bar/restaurant down in the town of Navajo Dam, 12 miles away. Those girls won't have a chance against the three of us. The plan is to publically challenge them in the newspaper so even if we don't get to wrestle, we'll get some advertising. I just hope I don't have to wear a bikini.

Big trouble here this morning when the baker came in to deliver the chocolate chip cookies. The manager had bought a chocolate cake at Sam's Club and it was sitting on the counter. That baker is a little tempermental. She picked up that cake and tossed it into the hog slop bucket. Yikes! Then she paid for the cake. You either buy her baked goods or you are dogmeat. She says she's not competing with Sam's Club. If folks weren't coming in and buying $10 worth of her cookies at a time, she might not get away with it, but hey, we haven't tried her chocolate cake. You can bet that manager has an order in with her for the Roadhouse's next chocolate cake. I wouldn't want the baker to be working for the Sportsman when it comes time to wrestle! Sheesh! She's got a bad temperment.

They haven't finished the women's bathroom yet. The owner came over yesterday to move the drain pipe after he couldn't find a toilet to fit in that small of a space. He had to dig a tunnel under the building. He called the operation orthoscopic plumbing. I was glad I wasn't here to have to see or smell it. While he was down there he found out the reason that floor is so spongy is because it's made out of old particle board, so when he screwed the concrete board onto the particle board, well, he might as well have screwed it to a marshmallow. The net result is that he had to tear up my nice tilework and put in longer screws. One step forward, two steps back.

This week was the first week this place has broken even with it's overhead. We were jammin' during the week, but today, it's slower than I've ever seen it. We've actually been greatful for every muddy track though the front door. Total tips for the day: $5.36 Pitiful isn't it?

I might forget your name, but I'll remember if you don't eat red meat.

2005-01-15T14:48:00.000-08:00

The boss decided to try to instill the lunch habit out here in the oilfield. He wanted to make it easier for them to plan on eating here everyday than it was to pack a lunch, so we have "lunch cards". For twenty bucks they can buy a card good for five meals. You can't use them for more than one person and they expire after 15 days. We knew they'd probably be chowing down on the Roadkill, which is our double meat and everything else on it specialty burger, which retails for $7.65. With meals only running $4 with a card, it's a super deal. But then the cook and manager had a traveling steak salesman show up. He was a good seller and we ended up with a box of steaks in the freezer. For $9.99, you can have a nice steak for lunch, or for $7.99 you can have the same steak after 3pm. But with the lunch card, you get the steak for only $4..... heck, that's what we paid the traveling steak salesman! The manager was freaking out over the margin. He wanted us to quit selling cards.

Well, the owner has a cooler head. He has an idea that the best advertising we can have is to have a full parking lot at lunch time. This week, when the regulars showed up with their lunch cards, the parking lot filled up. There were trucks parked in the back and across the highway. It wasn't just regulars with their cards, it was a big segment of the oil field population. He says to book the difference between the cost of the meal and the $4 to advertising. It's pretty effective advertising if you ask me.

When you consider that we don't even have a proper sign out front, we could probably benefit with some kind of advertising campaign. You have to either know this place is a restaurant because you've been coming here all your life or you have to figure it out by our Breakfast Burrito flashing sign. There is a sign in the works though, and when it arrives and gets hung up over the doorway, I'll try to get a photo for this blog.

I'm really bad at remembering customer's names, but what I am good at is remembering their initials. Benito and Rose came in. I remembered them from before Christmas. Benito had told me that his favorite place to shop was Chelsea's Pub. I guessed his name was Bernie and her's was Rachel. They feigned indignance, but then they admitted they didn't remember my name. Another customer came in and as we got to talking he said his wife drives a semi-dump truck, and I asked if her name starts with a D. Sure enough. One customer, who we really wanted to know by name, was unfortunately called Mr. Mud by the cook, since the guy sells engineered well-drilling mud. Now we can't recall his real name. This memory thing is something I've got to work on.

Still, I can't feel too bad. Last week an Apache EMT came in and I commented that I hadn't seen him in a while. He looked confused because he has never met me. I knew he looked very familiar. I thought he had come in with a very good looking woman, I assumed was his wife. Hmmm. Then I mentioned some of the details that the man and woman had told me. Hmmm.... it was his dad and mom!!!

Waste not

2005-01-08T14:06:00.000-08:00

The snow plow guy just ordered a burger to go and then went to sand HWY 537 while it's cooking. Hope it doesn't get too cold while he is gone.

The cook is in the bathroom texturing the drywall. He was out in front scraping the snow off the driveway when a guy came in and ordered 6 cheeseburgers to go. It's bad when you have to get the cook out of the skidsteer to cook. The customers don't seem suprised.

Some folks down the road have chickens so we save all the scraps for their flock. It's really too much for them to digest as we end up with a 5 gallon bucket every few days. Mostly its stuff that gets old in the refrigerator and we have to toss it out. We have really cut back on the number of tomato slices in the bucket because now that they've gone up to $4/lb, we ask our customers if they want tomatoes. The chicken owners came in a while ago and picked up the bucket but they forgot to leave a clean one. Scraping the food off the plates is such a habit that it's kind of disconcerting to just put it in the trash. The last customer left four french fries which now grace the dustbin. We would like to get some piglets as they would do a better job of converting scraps into something useful. Maybe Terry will build a pigpen out back. Sure enough, I will name the pig Wilbur and he will not find a spider to save him from his fate.

We also flatten our cardboard for recycling. It piles up until Terry puts it in the Lincoln towncar and drives it to Farmington. Last week the waste management guys from Dulce stopped in and said they had a recycling trailer that no one ever uses . They might be able to let us keep it down here. They have to ask the tribe.

One thing about snow..... I haven't had to do any mud wrestling today.

Saturday is almost here

2005-01-07T19:43:00.000-08:00

I didn't get called in this week so I only have to work on Saturday. That's if I can get there through the snow. Things will probably be very very quiet except for the tourists that get lost between Durango Colorado and Farmington New Mexico. They are usually in a hurry to get to the Farmington airport. Who knows how they get to Navajo City?

Someone came in and told us that Navajo City was incorporated back in the 1970's. That's kind of funny because as far as we know, no one actually lives there except for Terry and Paulette. One of them could be elected mayor and then appoint the other one as dog catcher. Actually, this is pretty important in that you have to have a municipal election to have beer and wine sales. If Paulette gets registered to vote, she could decide if we are going to sell alcohol or not. I'm sure there will be a lot of campaigning on the issue. She would probably be influenced by a bribe. Terry can't get registered to vote because he is still an Australian.

Personally, I am not too keen to sell and serve alcohol. I'll probably cut them off after one bottle of beer so I don't have to deal with drunks. It is going to hurt my tips. Sigh..... Well, I thought we should also stop selling cigarettes and chewing tobacco, but no one will listen to me, so I just give the customer the surgeon general's warning and tell them to try to quit as I take their $4.49. I will give restaurant customer's ashtrays if they ask, but sometimes I tell them there is a charge for smoking. So far no one has paid a cent for it. The owner might fire me if I ring it up on the register. Too bad!

So, I should have done my laundry and gotten things ready to go in tomorrow morning, but, no, instead here I am dinking around on the internet. Shame on me! Gotta go!

Got mud?

2005-01-04T16:24:00.000-08:00

All the snow melted and it's been raining for a few days. For January it's pretty wet. Our customers come in with mud up to their knees if not up to their hats. They've been putting chains on trucks in the mud. They linger over cups of steaming coffee or hot chocolate, reluctant to go back into the bog. I've swept five times this afternoon. I could start a garden with the floor sweepings.

Last week, I didn't get a chance to write in the blog because Paulette got to be the waitress, while I crawled around on my knees in the women's bathroom. We are putting new tile down, so I spent the day mortaring the new tiles in. I was sore the next day and I sure missed the tips, but the most suprising thing was how many new friends I made in the womens room. Folks would come in to see what what happening and they would stay for 20 or 30 minutes talking to me while I kept squishing the tiles into place.

One of my new friends claims to be the "Big Liberal Democrat" of the area. This is noteworthy in oil field country. He said he never met a woman in the bathroom before. I didn't tell him about my political persuasion, but he probably has an idea, but what ever it is, I am sure I am more extreme. His wife works on invasive weeds for an oil company. They had the fish tacos and ate almost every bite. Some of my visitors had tile experience and steered me away from a problem I was about to create. Folks have been stopping here just to come in and check out the bathroom. It's kind of the biggest construction project in this part of the county after the new highway bridge. I bet you could put a donation box to help pay for the project and it would pay for the new fixtures. Well, it's the only public bathroom for 30 miles either direction. I bet it was famous for being stinky when it was a bar. Lylbun put in new vents so, it should be a new experience, besides a good place to meet people.

We are probably the most important bathroom for the Jicarilla Apache Nation. Everyone from Dulce needs a pit stop by the time they get to Navajo City. We have learned to greet them with "Dáazho", which is hello in Jicarilla. We are planning to advertise on the Dulce radio station, KCIE, with something like "You've been stopping here for years. Don't you think it's time to try the food?"

It's six pm now and no one has stopped in for the last hour. All the mud is swept up and it's drizzling outside. Glen Cambell is singing about being a lineman for the county. The cook is reading a newspaper back in the kitchen. I could go in and stick up a few more ceiling tiles, maybe someone would come in to talk.

Tourists

2004-12-28T09:55:00.000-08:00

Rita Mae is being a tourist, you know. She's over there in Thailand where the tsunamis have been sucking the tourists and locals out to sea. We thought she was dead for sure, but that lucky girl was in the right place at the right time and her island didn't get hit with a big wave. She's said she'll be here in April. Until then, I suggested she wear a personal flotation device, just incase.

We had a steady flow of customers yesterday. Most of them were tourists instead of the local oil field workers, so we actually sold New Mexican food. The Navajo City Tacos were a hit. When the food is good, there is not a scrap left on the plates and the tips get bigger. A waitress loves working with a gifted cook.

I'm off today, but I was just too busy to even get near the computer yesterday. But I was looking around on the internet for other blog sites by waitresses. There are lots of blogs by people who go out and try different restaurants, but blogs by waitresses are much less common. One I liked is The Bitter Waitress. It links to a directory of bad tippers. I could add a couple of names to that list!

I'll be back at work on Friday. Until then --
Ciao

Christmas Eve at the Roadhouse

2004-12-24T08:02:00.000-08:00

I got here before daylight and started perking coffee, mixed up some of Stephanies recipe for fried bread dough, put the stuff in the bread maker to make bread. The cook is in the kitchen grinding up some lamb to make Navajo City Tacos for todays special. They are playing a mixture of old country favorites and christmas songs on the radio. The traffic is light out there on Highway 64. A customer came in at 8:15 and bought a breakfast burrito and a can of V-8 juice. Some folks called to see if we would be open so they could make their breakfast plans. I pulled out all the letters to spell out NAVAJO CITY TACOS on the marquee out by the highway and then just about froze my fingers off putting them on the sign. There's a nice fire in the woodstove, so the pain was only temporary.

I wonder where Rita Mae is today. She might be up in the Canadian northwoods, or she might be wandering around Asia. Things aren't gonna be so quiet once Rita Mae gets back. The parking lot will be full and trucks will be lined up along the road shoulder. The coffee pot won't have time to cook it's freshness away. She taught me everything I know about being a waitress, but I've got a long way to go to pick up her charisma. I hope she finds this blog and lets us know when she's coming back.

When the new owners bought this place there was a banner advertising out front for some beer company. It had a skinny blonde in a cowboy hat and some skimpy outfit serving a beer. The owner and manager took it down right away saying it was false advertising. None of us waitresses are that foxy. Well, Paulette is kind of a babe, in her own tattoed way. She likes to show those things off so even when its zero outside she is showing some flesh. I expect someday to hear that she died of frostbite. Debbie and I are never gonna freeze to death. I'm wearing long underwear under my jeans. We are sensible shoe sorts of women.

The cook just came out and told me that the meat grinder died. Hmmm. Brand new, made in China, he bought it at Harbour Freight. Junk. He should have known better to buy something from those people.

Well, a couple of people just came in so I better sign off.

Sweeping and Mopping Up

2004-12-23T16:09:00.000-08:00

Did I tell you that you have to be a mudwrestler to work here? Argh!!!

The Menu

2004-12-20T18:00:00.000-08:00

I might as well tell you about the menu here. Last time, I did mention that we serve burgers, didn't I? We do. We serve a lot of burgers, cheese burgers, green chile cheesburgers, mushroom swiss burgers, Aussie burgers, patty melts. If it is a ground up cow between buns, we serve it. I don't eat red meat so I just don't get it. They must be good, but sorry, I have never tried one.

In a place like this, you only have to ask what kind of dressing they want on their salad about once a day. It makes it easy to forget.

Most of our customers drink iced tea whether it is summer or winter. Not too many drink coffee. The coffee gets old and has to be thrown out, but the ice tea keeps flowing. We also serve lemonade and fountain sodas. The drinking water all comes out of the reverse osmosis system, it's nice to drink. We have an espresso machine but it's mostly used to make hot tea and hot chocolate.

We used to have a lot bigger appetizer menu when this was the City Bar at Navajo City. They used to serve Jalapeno poppers and Rocky Mt. Oysters (bull testicles), but the new owners got rid of all that bar food. You can still order nachos or onion rings.

The New Mexican food menu is being developed. The owners have this idea of real New Mexican food, but this isn't exactly a culture open to ethnic foods. It's got to be beef between buns to be in the food category. Tonight we had chicken enchiladas on special. The cook fixed me a plate for my employee meal. Buster is the only customer that ordered the special. I know he thought it was good, because it was good. The cook is a taco man himself. He has made a lifetime study of the taco, trying them in every town and every cafe he can. He says if we can hold a candle to the Cuban Cafe, in Cuba NM, we will be doing good.

Part of the problem with developing the New Mexican menu is that the managers are not from New Mexico. One was born in Jamaica and the other in Australia. You could serve them clam chowder and tell them it's authentic NM cuisine, and they wouldn't know the difference. The owners have encouraged them to study New Mexican food by going to various restaurants, but they are kind of addicted to the China Buffet. I don't know if they serve hamburgers at the China Buffet, but it wouldn't suprise me.

If you are a vegetarian, the cook will make something specially for you. Last saturday someone came in and said they wanted an exotic sandwhich but didn't know anything more specific than that. I went back and said, "Invent an exotic sandwhich" and when it came out the customer was pleased.

The cook just came out and told me to start mopping up. Guess I better sign off. I work again on Thursday and Friday. You can write some comments for me in the meanwhile... just click on the comments link below.

Later, kiddo...

New blog

2004-12-20T17:35:00.000-08:00

I created this blog to let you know what it's like to be at a little roadhouse restaurant in the absolute middle of nowhere. Right now, the boss and the manager are sitting at a counter going over the numbers. Some bluegrass is playing on the radio, so I can't hear what they are actually talking about. The refrigerator is humming across the room where the ice and popcicles are keeping cool. Paulette, another waitress, has christmas lights hanging all over the place, wreaths, red berry things, a couple of christmas trees. Hey, I'm not into this holiday thing, but what ever makes her happy is good. I just swept the mud so the floor is nice.

We haven't had a sit down customer for a couple of hours, but we have a side of the front room divided off with convenience store items and a few guys have come in to pick up a soda pop, a packet of fried pork rinds, a pack of cigarettes, or other equally unhealthy things, by passing my homebaked cookies (mom's recipes). They don't even look at that luscious chocolate fudge. Go figure!

One oil field worker told me this: "Do you think someones going to climb out of their truck and come inside and order an espresso. Ha! No, they want to climb out of their trucks and order a six pack of beer to go! What were you thinking??" Hmmmm.

Well, we knew the next two weeks would be our slowest weeks of the year as lots of these blue collar guys get the week off. It should give me some time to write on the blogspot.