Table 18 and Beyond
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name…
This week I want you to meet a gal who works long shifts in a small restaurant and pizza place, cheerfully bringing your favorite drink or sandwich to tables. She has a memory that all of us over 60 would love to have.
I’ll call her Molly. I can’t even remember her name at the moment but she’ll greet a table of regulars with an exact description of each person’s usual pizza, sandwich, or drink order, or if by chance someone at the table yearns for something different that night, she quickly alters her notes to include a switch out. Many of the regulars like to sit at what the restaurant considers “Table 18” just off of the busy, friendly kitchen. (In case you’re wondering, most restaurants give their tables numbers.)
When Covid was beginning to close down everything in 2020, even the special little places where everyone knows your name, this dear gal was, of course, out of a job. I’m not sure how long it was until Bob-a-rea’s Pizza and Subs got its Covid cleaning and distancing of tables and mask-wearing all lined up to reopen. Several months, if I’m remembering correctly.
We knew Molly was a young single mom and missing her work, salary, and tips. One day while we were yearning for Bob’s pizza, we got one to go, ordering through the outside pick up window, and put a special much-larger-than-usual tip into an envelope and asked that Bob, the owner, give it to our favorite waitress.
Sometimes this young woman wears a t-shirt that testifies to her faith but overwhelmingly, she demonstrates through her cheerful behavior and gratefulness to the patrons that her name is written in the Big Book of life. She is now married and has a second child. Those children are lucky little kids who can be tremendously proud of their mother, juggling the raising of a family with long shifts at a place like yesteryear’s “Cheers.”
And if anyone is interested in some of the best pizza in Virginia, or even buying this small business from the owner who longs to retire, or if you’re willing to work hard serving up some great sandwiches, pizza, breakfast, lunch, or supper, you can find it on Facebook. Just look for “Bob-a-Rea’s Pizza and Subs.” It is found in Bridgewater, Va., in business since 1975.
Do you have a Molly who shines as waitstaff somewhere? I’d love to hear!
Comment here!
findingharmonyblog 
Heartwarming story, Melodie. Our church sponsors a variation on your title “Table 18 and Beyond.”
Before we became members of Mandarin Presbyterian Church, Cliff and I participated once in “Table for 8,” a church ministry in which Cliff and I signed up to take turns having supper with 6 other people in each other’s homes. We hosted only once and got to meet the same couples (or singles) in an informal setting in a different home for several Thursday nights. None of these folks became close friends, but we enjoyed getting acquainted with church people at a time when we were strangers.
Oh, what a great idea. Do you know if the organized suppers are still going for some? At our church, we used to celebrate Epiphany with 6-12 people gathering at one home, with each family or couple or single bringing a dish to share. Those were definitely good times to learn to know people we didn’t know very well (a volunteer assigned the various individuals the homes they would go to.) It has fallen by the wayside, and now happens through a potluck at church. But there is something so nice about sitting around a table in a home to get acquainted with folks we don’t know as well.
A new cycle with different groups in the church have organized. We are not participating this time because we are part of another group who’ve committed to reading the Bible in 100 days–ha!