Waitress Displays A Passion For People

NEW PORT RICHEY - It is 7 a.m. at Jimmy's Boulevard Restaurant in New Port Richey. Mark Spence, an attorney with a downtown office, is eating breakfast.

Like many customers, he can't remember when he started coming to Jimmy's. It was across the street from his office, at the corner of Missouri Avenue and Grand Boulevard when he first became a regular. It has been at its Grand Boulevard location since 1988.

How would Spence describe waitress Lori Liberge, who has been working for Jimmy's since 1977?

'She's a good person,' he says.

Those were the exact words Liberge's boss, Jimmy Galioto, used to describe her two days before.

That goodness, a combination of warmth, humor and wisdom gained from 30 years of serving the public, comes through as Liberge recounts in her soft voice her long history at Jimmy's.

She clearly loves people, from her customers to her boss.

'He's easygoing, easy to work for,' she says about Galioto.

This is a woman who remembers customers' culinary preferences so well she orders their food just the way they like it - even when they forget the details. So, with her eye for particulars, Liberge is not content to rest her description of her boss on generalities.

'He cooks everything himself. Everything. The potatoes, the cole slaw. The potatoes are peeled by him and his son. Everything by hand. You're proud to serve it.'

As for the customers, they have become family.

Liberge has served generations of them. Some who were grandchildren when she started working at Jimmy's have become grandparents themselves.

'You see them pass away,' she says of the old-timers. 'You feel their heartache when they lose a spouse. That's the worst part of the job.'

She pauses and adds, 'But it's a good part.'

Liberge happened upon the job that brings her face to face with both the sweetness and sadness of living almost by accident.

She started out as a dishwasher at Jimmy's as a fresh-faced graduate of Gulf High School in New Port Richey.

Back then, the restaurant was across the street. Prior to Jimmy taking it over in 1974, it had been owned by his mother Fran.

Liberge remembers the old Jimmy's as being 'very small' with wall-unit air conditioners.

A key fitting both the men's and women's restrooms hung on the wall. The restrooms were four doors down from the restaurant on Missouri Avenue.

When Liberge moved up to waitressing, the promotion wasn't easy.

'I was shy about talking to people, looking at them directly,' she remembers.

No Room For Shyness

That memory for details takes over.

'We didn't have hostesses, so you really had to hustle. Clean the tables, take the orders, ring up the money and do the dishes if you had any extra time,' Liberge said.

The regulars took her under their wings, and the shyness disappeared. 'You have to talk to people when you waitress. It forces shyness out of you,' she said.

The tables turned when Liberge met her husband Thomas, who worked at Billy's Auto & Lotto, an auto body shop across the street that closed about a year ago.

'He was shy, and I wasn't any more,' she said.

She started pursuing Thomas, she laughs, by creating nonexisting problems with her car and taking it across the street for him to fix.

The couple have been together for 13 years and married eight of them. Thomas now has his own business, A & B Auto Body & Paint in Holiday.

They have no children, but Liberge has a large family via her customers' children. 'Most of the kids gravitate toward me. I'm a big kid at heart,' she said.

These days, she says, flashing her ever-ready humor, her favorite thing about her job is eating at Jimmy's.

His biscuits and gravy are to die for, she says.

She is not alone in her passion for Jimmy's food. 'People say they've lived 80 years and haven't had anything better,' she says

Waitressing 101

Liberge makes the time to get to know her customers.

'There's always that day when you have time to talk to people,' she said.

Sometimes customers come in with bad moods. She tries to cheer them up.

Does she succeed?

Some of the old shyness seems to return. 'I like to think I do,' she says simply.

Galioto is more descriptive about Liberge's skills. 'She remembers people's names, what they eat. If they forget something, Lori will remember for them.'

Liberge also is dependable, he says, and then corrects himself. 'That's not even accurate. She's way more than dependable. She's humble and good.'

Liberge says she often feels that Jimmy's is her own restaurant. She plans to stay there as long as she can do the work.

It is a place where employees tend to stay. One waitress has been there more than 11 years, another for nine years.

What has waitressing taught Liberge?

'I've learned patience. Just let people take their time. Don't make them feel like they have to eat and go.'

If she were teaching Waitressing 101, she would stress the job is about the people and not the money, she notes.

Waitressing has given her much.

'I've found what I was supposed to be doing,' she says.