Page 3 of Serve and Protect
Next door to the Robinsons are the Andersons. Years ago, I babysat their kids. I say good morning to Mr. Anderson as he gets into his car to leave for work.
With its population a little over eight hundred, Bryce, Colorado, is a small town at the base of the Rocky Mountains. Everybody pretty much knows everybody. Sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes it’s not. News certainly travels fast.
I walk past two more houses on my street before I cross at the corner, turning west toward Main Street. There is one more block of old Victorian homes until I come up behind the strip mall where my diner is located.
I walk inside, flipping on all the lights as I go. I pass my office on the left, and the storage room on the right.
As I approach the kitchen where my head cook, Robert, is hard at work prepping for breakfast, I can smell the biscuits in the oven. “Good morning, Robert!” I say as I pass by the open kitchen door and continue into the dining room.
“Mornin’, Ms. Jennie,” he calls after me in his deep, baritone voice.
Robert has worked here for years, and he’s the backbone of my staff. He’s a big man with a broad, barrel chest, anda voice like warm molasses. His skin is dark brown, and he keeps his graying hair cut short. At over six-four, he’s physically intimidating, but he’s a gentle giant. As a former Army sergeant, he has a knack for keeping the kitchen running like a well-oiled machine.
We have two full-time cooks, plus a couple of part-timers. Their schedules are staggered a bit. Robert comes in at six and leaves at three, and Diego comes in at ten and stays until we close at seven. The part-timers are semi-retired and only come in as we need the extra help.
I love these quiet, early morning moments before we’re flooded with hungry customers. This is when I make time for my favorite activities—starting on the cake donuts and slicing the pies I baked the day before. I’ve got a system worked out. I can make several batches of cake donuts fresh every morning and slice the pies—cherry, apple, blueberry, and pecan. I’m sort of known around these parts for my baked goods.
I learned everything I know about running the diner from Granny.
It’s six-forty-five now, and the first shift of servers will be here any moment. When we switch on the OPEN sign at seven, the breakfast crowd will flood through the doors, and this place will be a madhouse for a good three hours. But I can’t complain. Business is good.
The diner is open from seven to seven. It’s a long day, but I run back home for two-hour breaks between breakfast and lunch, and between lunch and dinner, to spend time with Granny and give Dawn a break. Dawn stays with Granny until I get home for the day a little after seven.
The back door opens and my two full-time servers, Cara and Michelle, shuffle in, along with Chad, our resident dishwasher and general cleaning crew of one.
Cara readies the cash register and starts making coffee, while Michelle puts down all the chairs and lays out the place settings. Chad makes sure all the trashcans are empty and the bathrooms and floors are clean.
Right at seven, I switch on the neon OPEN sign and unlock the front door. There’s already a line halfway down the block. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that I’m one of the few places in our small town where you can get a fresh-cooked hot breakfast. The only other place that serves breakfast is the restaurant at The Wilderness Lodge. Ruth’s Tavern, which is right next door to us, doesn’t open until three. So, if folks want a hot breakfast, their choices are my diner, the restaurant at The Lodge, or the gas station on the south edge of town, which sells premade breakfast sandwiches and burritos hot out of the microwave.
I do a good business here in Bryce. Our small town is about half-an-hour north of Estes Park, so we get a lot of tourist traffic along our main road. I make enough to keep the business afloat, pay my bills, and hire two caregivers for my grandma. The house is paid off—has been for years. It was my grandparents’ house, and when my parents were killed in a car accident in Texas, I came here to Bryce to live with them. I was just nineteen when Grandpa died. It was shortly after he passed that Granny was first diagnosed with dementia. She added my name to the deed on the house, and she handed responsibility of the diner over to me.Rosie’s Dinerquickly becameJennie’s Diner.
As breakfast gets underway, I finish slicing the pies and put them and some donuts in the bakery display case. People drive a fair distance for my pies.
A few minutes before eight, I box up a dozen iced cake donuts to take next door to Emerson’s Grocery Store, owned and run by one of my best friends, Maggie Emerson. Well, she’s MaggieRamseynow since getting married to Owen.
“Good morning,” I say as I walk through the door that connects the diner to the grocery store.
“Good morning,” Maggie says. As always, she’s got a smile on her pretty, freckled face. “Perfect timing. I’m just about to open.” She lifts the dome lid of her glass display stand while I arrange the donuts on the silver platter underneath.
“How’s the family?” I ask as she lowers the lid.
“Good. Owen’s renovating the barn. Claire isnotteething at the moment, which is a miracle. And the boys are busy with part-time jobs, schoolwork, and sports. Riley has a girlfriend now, and Brendan just got his driver’s license. All’s well in the Emerson-Ramsey household. How about you? How’s Granny?”
“She’s living her best life watching reruns ofLittle House on the Prairieand loving on Pumpkin.”
Suddenly, we hear a crash coming from the diner, followed by raised voices. I glance through the connecting glass door and see an unfamiliar female customer going toe-to-toe with Cara, my head server. The woman is shouting at the top of her lungs.
“Oh, dear,” I say. “I’d better go deal with that.”
Before I even reach the adjoining door, the irate customer hurls a coffee cup across the counter. She follows that up with throwing a plate against the half-wall behind the counter. There’s an uproar in the diner as customers shoot to their feet. Cara starts yelling at the woman.
Robert comes barreling around the corner holding a metal spatula like it’s a weapon. He looks ready to rumble.
I rush back into the diner just as the woman says, “I demand to speak to the manager!”
“I’m the manager,” I say as I head straight for the commotion.
The woman is definitely not a local, or I would recognize her. About half our clientele are locals, and half are tourists passing through.
