Customer Reviews

Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress

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How do you feel when you walk into a coffee shop or diner and see an older waitress, one who may have done the job for decades? (In this book these waitresses are called "lifers"). Mixed with some maternal nostalgia, perhaps, many of us react with a quiet embarrassment. Our feelings may be tinged with pity and condescension toward, we assume, these uneducated, low-skill workers who are stuck doing back-breaking work for meager pay.

In Candacy Taylor's touching, inspiring, and beautifully-photographed book, we learn that many of these myths don't apply to this population: the career waitress who has chosen this work, often over other options. Some have college degrees and have worked in offices but prefer waitressing in casual eateries. In fact, many of these woman earn more than their peers who work in offices, stores, and factories; they own homes and cars, raise children, and participate in cultural and community activities.

Organized into topical chapters (such as regular customers, the waitressing stigma, tips, and retirement) and buttressed by some helpful research on labor and employment, Taylor, a former waitress herself, spent years crisscrossing the country, interviewing and photographing scores of servers working at places like the Sip 'N Bite in Baltimore, the Pie 'N Burger in Pasadena, and the Busy Bee Cafe in Atlanta.

Among the common denominators of the successful waitresses are a love for service and a desire to keep active and continue working. Listen to Linda Exeler from the Colonial Cottage Restaurant in Erlanger, Kentucky: "Waitressing is my life. It's my calling. This is what I was born to do. I feel like God gave me a gift and this is what it turned out to be. I just feel I've been a very blessed person to have the ability to have feelings for people." Rachel Lelchuck worked at Louis' Restaurant in San Francisco for 55 years, retiring at age 82 due to a debilitating case of asthma. She said, "I still miss the place. It's on my mind day and night (crying). And my customers wrote me lovely letters, sent me beautiful flowers, and are still faithful." How many people in so-called "better" jobs can speak with such love and devotion for their work?

This book treats a subset of the server population, and caution should be taken not to over-romanticize servers as a whole. Many toil in this field in a kind of purgatory of hard work that offers no health and retirement benefits and sub-par earnings. But Taylor has done a marvelous job of showing us how these "lifers" have used their commitment, integrity, and authenticity to make a lot out of what strikes many as so little. The next time I am served by one of these fast-disappearing icons of Americana, I plan to leave an extra dollar--or two--on the table.

This book was brought to my attention by no less than four 'regulars' when it was reviewed in the newspaper. Working as a full-time server in a very, very busy cafe I know what it's like to feel underappreciated. Counter Culture has shown me a new way to look at the contributions I make in our customers lives. Like the women in this book my coworkers and I live normal lives outside the restaurant; we pay mortgages, car payments and send our kids to college. We may have to work a little harder than some but, this is no low-class job. We have become a part of their daily lives, and they in ours.
This book is being passed around quickly and joked about when we all see those same customers that are described, both good and bad! Not only are the stories heartwarming but interesting if read by server or customer. If you read it you may find your self. Are you a 'regular'? Are you a good customer or bad? Find out in this detailed reflection.

This is an amazing book -- a look at a job everyone takes for granted, and which many assume is a job held by people who can't do better for themselves. Boy, is that NOT the case! These astonishing women love their work, love what they do, and would not do anything else for a living. This book interviews women who have chosen to make waitressing their Career, and done a fabulous job of it to the benefit of us, their customers. It's an intimate look behind the scenes at this amazingly complex job and what it takes to be successful at it. Every one of these women has a great story to tell and the author gives them full rein to tell it. Great photos, fabulous histories, and a long-overdue salute to the women who pour our coffee, serve our food, and get a whole lot done that we never see. My waitress is Dolores Jeanpierre at Ole's Waffle Shop in Alameda, CA. She and all the women in this book are awesome!

Many long years ago, Roadside Magazine ran an a photo essay cleverly entitled "Boy Meets Grill," celebrating the guy at our local diner or coffee shop who flips pancakes, turns out meltingly crisp home fries, and knows how to do when it comes to eggs "sunny side up" and "over easy." But what about the ladies who make our visits so comforting and memorable? A marvelous book has just been published, Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress, by Candacy Taylor. It is marvelous because it is a book of integrity and insight. You should buy it immediately (order it through your local bookshop--the publisher is Cornell University Press--or grab it via amazon.com), definitely for holiday gifts, and/or alert Santa.

A quick thumb-through reveals a bounty of terrific photographs, portraits of the waitresses at work, at a counter or beside a booth, with favorite customers; enticing shots of pie being served and coffee being poured, etc. There is something candid and compassionate, but not patronizing, about these images--Taylor has a knack for respectfully capturing the real. Those of us who try to take good photos in such places would do well to study her success here.

However, though handsomely produced, this is not a coffee-table book, not really. Read it! A former waitress herself, Taylor undertook this project to interview and understand the older American waitress after a long night: "On that Friday night I thought to myself, if we are this tired, how do waitresses twice our age (I was in my early 30s at the time) do this, and how do they feel about their jobs? Do they have dreams they have never realized? Are they worn out from the physical and mental demands of the job?...The questions kept coming." With camera, tape recorder, laptop, and an open mind (there are so many clichés!), Taylor set out to learn about career waitresses, or "lifers," as they sometimes wryly, or proudly, call themselves.

Counter Culture is not scholarly and dry, it is not a memoir, and it is not a history of waitressing. It is a deep and thoughtful conversation with these women, in their busy urban coffee shops or diners or small-town cafe booths. The answers Taylor found may surprise you. Many make more money than you might think, allowing them to put their children through college and own a nice home and drive a nice car. They minister to their regulars, anticipating their orders as well as their emotional state and health ("when I see sadness in [a customer's] eyes, that's when I try to touch on them. I ask `Do you feel well?'"). Some actually appreciate the physical demands ("Waitressing helps my arthritis. If I stayed home and did nothing, I would be crippled. My doctor says whatever you're doing, keep doing it.") Their rigorous work ethic is an admirable balance of nurturing and practicality, of heart and productivity--they have found meaningful work, and they know it.

When I mentioned I was reviewing this book to a friend who also loves diners and diner waitresses, I asked him "what IS it about them?" His answer was immediate: "She takes care of me." Sometimes, in this mad, mad world, that's exactly what we need. God bless these ladies. And I raise my coffee mug to the author for producing such an evocative and wise tribute--would that all us "lifers" could approach everything in life with such grace and good will as do Taylor and her subjects.
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This is a book for everybody. It has something for everyone. It is truly a celebration of waitreses and their work. The best book I have read. Makes a great gift. The author did a magnificient job.

I bought this book because a waitress at the restaurant that I always frequent, was featured in the book. I figured it would be a lighthearted look at waitresses, but in fact, it was quite an informative book about the job that waitresses do. You might think you know, but until you read this book, you really don't understand the job that waitresses do, and you will be surprised to find out really how much they do earn! Great book!

My wife works in a bagel bakery and sandwich shop, and I got three of these books at Christmas, for her and two female co-workers.

This book is very interesting and educational. It is about the careers of the American Cafe/coffee shop/luncheonette/truck stop/etc. waitresses and the personality and character many of them have in common that makes them what they are and what they do, as a lifetime career, and why they love their work. Also, there is much about the work itself, the good the bad and the ugly.

The photos of architecture and interior design of the older restaurants, cafes, and diners make for a feast for the eyes of Americana interior art and architecture, which will probably be never be built like that again.

There is however an unhealthy focus on the older generation and women only. There are many men in this profession and they have been left out (except for the male owners and bosses they mention, and the male cooks they sometimes work with.) Any young woman or man reading this, who is considering this work as a job or career, would be turned off completely by the photos and stories exclusively of women in their 50's and 60's years of age (or older,) and they come off as a dying breed, and/or that it is a field in which men are not welcome. There are a couple of examples of younger women waitresses (daughters of older workers) and no men.

I live in a west coast tourist town and there are many restarants of this nature, and even cafeteria style, with very young women working and many working with young men too in this profession.

If it were not for the above complaints, and the fact that the print letter size is a little too small for the comfort of my eyes, I would have given it 5 stars.

Reading this book makes me want to go back to work as a Waitress again. If you love casual restaurants - then you will probably enjoy this book. This book is full of large (mostly) color photos (nearly a photo per page).... that help tell the stories of the many interesting people in this book. The person who wrote the book is the photographer of a good majority of the photos.... which is a nice touch. I totally recommend this book - check it out!

Candacy, have given us a studied slice of American culture that has been there for many years but not given much spotlight before this great work. The gifts of these great personalities to American culture are outstanding. They are our moms, sisters, confidants, advisers, comforters, talking partners, servers, giving us a home feeling away from home. Candacy has done a magnificent job in exposing these great lives and great stories to public view. The book from Amazon.com is a must reading for those interested in this daily segment of American Culture. Ervin Smith, Columbus, Ohio.

This book is a marvelous celebration of career waitresses all across the country. The photographs are top notch and the text even better, with lots of pithy observations about life from some wise old birds.