From the Strib's archives: A day in the life of a server, circa 1975

The Minneapolis Tribune's Thursday Food section devoted its Oct. 9, 1975 cover to glimpses inside the lives of Twin Cities restaurant servers. "The only time most of us think about waiters and waitresses is when something is wrong," starts the editor's note. "The coffee cup is empty, the meat undercooked, the side order of fried onions missing. Waiters and waitresses spend their lives smiling even though their feet hurt, being pleasant to cranky customers and husting for tips from people who many leave anything from $50 to 50 cents for a $12 meal. Why do they do it? Staff Writer Irv Letofsky interviewed five of them to find out."

Let's just say that times have changed during the intervening 35 years, but some aspects of the job remain timeless. Letofsky's subjects included:

Eighteen-year-old Ramona Eicher (pictured, above), a senior at Mounds View High School who had just started working at the then-new Country Kitchen in Roseville. "She went through the Bloomington training center, where she studied slides on how to wear the orange-and-white checkered uniforms, when to fill the salt and pepper shakers, the protocol of punching in, etc. 'Opening day we got all hyper,' she remembered. 'On my first table I didn't know if the hostess was supposed to bring the menu or me, whether you bring the water or the coffee first. The first night was a mad crush.'"

Becky Erbes, 23 (pictured, above), "has a well-organized figure that brings honor to her costume -- a black, low-cut, tights-like, Bunny-type uniform with sequins and the leg-flattering but otherwise foot-pinching three-inch spiked heel shoes. For the noon luncheon in the Apartment, the moody basement retreat at the White House complex in Golden Valley, she circulates in a basic bikini. The management prefers her in the new Rudi Gernreich thong swimsuit and black stockings, but it is 'kind of brief' (she says in understatement) and exposes more backside than is comfortable. Owner Irv Schectman rejects the term 'cocktail waitresses' for the help, preferring 'Bambi Girls.' He looks applicants over for their decorative possibilities, then instructs the successful ones on the rules of the room. For example, you don't sit down with customers. You don't smoke or drink. You don't bend over at the lowly cocktail tables ['You crouch,' Ms. Erbes said. 'Like a deep knee bend. After the first night there I was pretty stiff.'] You maintain decorum by avoiding slang. 'Certainly' is preferred to 'O.K.,' 'gentlemen' to 'guys.' And you never date the customers. 'Mr. Schectman wants a certain type of atmosphere and I think that's approriate. You cold attract the wrong types.'"

Lorraine Heath of the Gay 90s (pictured, above), who "has spent 38 of her 55 years in the service business." The 15-year veteran of "the relic theater-bar-restaurant that recently turned discotheque" said that she didn't know why she liked her job. "I still get tense every night. But I like meeting people. Even if I could do office work, I wouldn't. It would be too monotonous."

Phyllis Laiderman of Lincoln Del (pictured, above), "who has spent 13 years in and around chopped liver and chocolate pies and has maintained a reasonable girth. It is difficult to comprehend. 'Customers tell me I'm so lucky because I'm thin,' she said. 'Well, first of all, I'm not that thin. But you find that you just eat lighter when you're working. All the waitresses. I don't know why. But there's not a dessert here that I don't love today as much as when I started.'"

And a 27-year-old Michael Brindisi (pictured, above), who went on to become artistic director at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre in 1987. Here's his story, in full:

But the act didn't do as well after that. The average ran to $4.50 a day in tips.

[To put those wages into perspective, $22 in tips in 1975 is the equivalent of $98 in 2015 dollars; $4.50 has a 2015 value of $20].

It was his first serious job since he was graduated from Lea College five years ago. But now he and his wife Linda, who was the first waitress to infiltrate the once all-male Cheshire Cheese restaurant a flight up in the hotel, are quitting for a move back to New York and, who knows, stardom.

He worked there six weeks, three as a bus boy, three as a waiter. It was an education, if perhaps a slow one.

"I mean, nobody told me anything and I would get orders twisted around – 'Did you have the bacon? Who had the potato?' So I started taking orders from the left and I got the food out there at the same time and looked snappy.

"Success, it occurs to me, is to get out there and read the audience, see what type of people they are. It's like theater. You see if the shtick will work, if you should go broader with the comedy or lay back."

He could improvise, too: One customer wanted a green vegetable but the restaurant only has salads. So Brindisi slipped upstairs to the Cheshire Cheese kitchen – "I just walked in like I knew what I was doing" – and scopped up a dish of green beans.

"The guy asked me where I got 'em. I told him I had friends."

He did best with older women. "I can talk the older ladies into having drinks, just by suggesting it, like, 'How about a Bloody Mary today,' instead of 'cocktail.' 'Well, I really shouldn't, I have to drive' But they ordered two.

"Groups of businessmen, I don't hit it off so well. I don't know why. One night I had a bill for $12 and they left me 52 cents. They'd rather have Cathy wait on them . . .

One lonely man stared out the window one night, ordered a beer, then four more and a hamburger, medium rare, and a center cut of an onion. "I don't care if it costs $10, I want a center cut of onion."

Brindisi returned with a monster slice: "Is that the best you can do?" the man said. The waiter went back to the kitchen and cut up an onion himself.

"The man was looking real down and depressed and I said, 'How's everything?' He said, 'Michael, I've got to tell you. I received bad news today. I've got six to eight months to live.'

"It's hard to respond to that. I got almost physically sick and couldn't eat my supper."

So he said, 'So you tell that ____ ____ cook that if I want a center slice of onion, I want a ____ ____ center slice of onion.'