In 1986, the Texas economy kind of collapsed, and the only people I knew who kept their jobs worked for the government. It was a bad time to be in the restaurant business, which at the time was the only business I knew. I was also a single parent, and rather than stay in Austin and raise my child in poverty, I headed back to the place I had sworn I would never return to: Long Island.
My plan was to finally finish college, attending Adelphi University, where my father’s position as a professor meant free tuition for me. Teaching people to cook had made me realize that I liked teaching, and it just made sense to aim for having the same schedule that my daughter would have, once she started school herself. For various reasons, I wasn’t able to start at Adelphi immediately, so I needed a job, and even though I was an experienced chef, I found no kitchen opportunities. Long Island was way behind Austin in that regard, so I had to go back to waitressing.
Ben’s Kosher Deli is still going strong and is still in the same location. Working there was so stressful that after my first night of training, I took up smoking. The counter guys yelled at me for saying “Please” and “Thank you” to them because “it took too much time”. The customers, well, it was the North Shore, many were rude, and some of them were people I had gone to school with. Most of the other waitresses were great people, but knowing them firmed my determination to go back to school. There’s nothing wrong with being a 50-year-old waitress, but it wasn’t for me.
Before working at Ben’s, I hadn’t eaten a hot dog since I was fifteen and read an article about what was in them, but those grilled Hebrew Nationals were the perfect breakfast. Even now, I almost always include a stop at Ben’s on my tours of the North Shore. It is still hard for me to decide whether to have brisket or pastrami, even though I know that both are (or at least were) cured in something called “Prague Powder” which is pink and full of nitrates-there were giant sacks of it in the storeroom.
What I learned from Ben’s? To not skimp on foot ware- like one waitress told me, ”your feet are making you money, spend money on your feet.“ To look for a more expensive restaurant next time I needed a waitressing job- it just didn’t make sense to bust one’s ass for such small check totals. And also to smoke and eat hot dogs- Thanks Ben’s!
