The Grand Diner
by Guest Blogger Thom Agliata
The year between my sophomore and junior year of high school, I got a job at The Grand Diner that was, without a doubt, the best job I ever had. Learned life skills there that I use to this very day.
I started to bus tables around Easter time because I was getting my license in a few months and my parents were not going to pay for the insurance, let alone a car.
This diner, much like many others, was owned by Greeks. Don’t ask me why Greeks, they were just very good at it.
I did and saw many things for the first time during that spring and summer.
First and foremost, I met my first hookers at the diner. Apparently, after a long night they would come in for nice home-cooked meal.
One was named Clair, and the other one I don’t recall exactly, so I’ll call her Helen.
Now, Helen was funny as hell and was willing to show me her boobs, but I just said no.
What I really meant to say was YES!!!
Look, I was sixteen and never had seen a real live boob before, but boy-oh-boy, if I had I would have been BIG MAN ON CAMPUS!
Sadly, though, it didn’t happen.
After a few weeks of busing tables, I was promoted to washing dishes. The rules at the diner were simple, the more you know how to do, the more they will make you do.
After I bused tables and washed dishes, I started washing pots and pans when they promoted me again.
I was to peel potatoes for potato salad.
Here are some inside-the-kitchen facts you should know. Making potato salad in a diner is much the same as making food for prisoners. Potato salad was made in a garbage can lined with a plastic bag, fifty pounds at a time, mixed by hand with mayonnaise, and celery.
Very classy.
Late one Saturday night all the cooks and waitresses were sitting at the counter, it was a very slow night.
As usual, I was in the kitchen doing all the jobs that nobody wanted to do at eleven o’clock at night.
At that moment, a party of six came in and they were obviously a little bit trunk.
Apparently, they hadn’t eaten all day.
The waitress took their order and brought it into the kitchen.
One of the cooks yelled from the counter,“Tommy, you make the order, you know how to cook.”
This was my big chance, I was going out a busboy, but coming back a star.
The order:
3 California burgers, two with fries, one with onion rings
1 one grilled cheese with my potato salad
1 turkey club
And the last one I couldn’t believe my eyes, a Seafood combination.
The Grand Diner’s version of this was:
1 lobster tail 3 shrimp 2 scallops 1 four-ounce piece of flounder
So when I went to work, it really looked like I knew what I was doing. All the cooks laughed at me, but I was cooking burgers and frying fries and making onion rings.
However, my version of The Grand Diner’s Seafood Combination was:
1 whole Lobster 12 shrimp A handful of scallops 1 full fillet of flounder (broiled).
When it was done, I rang the bell, just like on television.
The waitress came in, took the entire order out, and passed the owner, Charlie, on her way to the table.
In all my life, I have never seen eyes come out of their head faster than Charlie’s eyes that night when he saw my seafood combination.
You could have fed a small village with the amount of food that was on that tray.
When the waitress delivered the food, I heard the customers say, “Wow, looks good.”
It was the last meal I ever cooked at The Grand Diner.
Charlie gave me my pay in cash, then told me to, “never come back here again.”
Hands down, best job I ever had!
