By Jess McCuan
Photos by Sarah Henry 

Career waitresses are increasingly rare these days, and it’s easy to see why: it’s hard work for long hours and, sometimes, little pay. In North Carolina, state law says employers can pay workers who get tips as little as $2.43 an hour as long as the employee collects enough tips to at least make minimum wage. Starting in July this year, the base amount will be even lower, letting restaurants pay waitresses as little as $2.13 an hour. “Some days you make $50 an hour, some days you make $5,” says 43-year-old Kim Whitaker, who has waited tables at restaurants in downtown Brevard on and off for 17 years. “In general, we are very underpaid for what we do.” Still, Whitaker says she likes meeting new people every day, a job perk for all the waitresses we interviewed. A genuine love of people (and a tremendous tolerance for their pesky requests) was also a common trait in all the waitresses who, in some cases, have been serving food to Western North Carolinians for more than four decades.

“I’ve had to hunt people’s false teeth when they leave them on the table.”
–Nancy Wild, 41, Smoky Mountain Diner (70 Lance Ave, Hot Springs, 828-622-7571)

Wild has been working at the Smoky Mountain Diner since it opened in 1982, when she was 15. She eventually married the man whose family built the restaurant and liked the job after just a few days working there. “It’s the root of that town,” she says. “I told the owner, when you sell the building, I’ll go with it. I’m part of the fixtures.” She takes pride in knowing what locals want when they walk in—one town alderman, Johnny Norton, for example, likes his coffee black. Charlie Moore, who has been eating there since it opened, can get special requests at most any hour. “If he wants mashed potatoes, it doesn’t matter whether we have any or not,” Wild says. “Somebody will stop and peel him a potato.”
During her first week of diner work, she was refilling coffee for a couple when her hand hit the man’s cup and dumped coffee in his lap. Trying to clean up, she got a towel and rubbed it all over his lap. “His wife sure gave me a look,” she says, laughing. Wild says her husband, Tim, sometimes complains that all she thinks about is the diner. “Some people are doctors and that’s in their blood, or a police officer,” she says. “I’m a waitress, that’s who I am.” 

“I can get along with anybody,” Beddingfield says. “There’s often days I could chop somebody’s head off, of course. You have to keep it to yourself. You can’t be snobbish to them even if they run your legs off.” –Ileta Beddingfield, 63, Three Chopt (103 East 3rd Avenue,
Hendersonville, 828-692-0228)

Beddingfield’s first waitressing job was at an all-night truck stop in Garland, Texas, where an old jukebox blared classic country all night. Then, for eight years, she worked at the Skyway Truck Stop in Naples, North Carolina, where the house special was a 16-ounce steak with eggs and biscuits and where the late-night crews got so rowdy the manager hired a sheriff’s deputy to start sitting at a booth. For the five years following, she worked at Jillie’s Café on Spartanburg Highway, a quiet, family place. Then, after a hiatus from waitressing when she worked at a laundromat, she started working tables at Three Chopt and has been there four years. Best tip: $10. A couple passing through Hendersonville on their way to Florida forgot to leave a tip. When they came back the next year, they left a ten-spot.

“Some people think they are the only person in the restaurant.”  –Kim Whitaker, 43, Rocky’s Grill and Soda Shop (36 S Broad St, Brevard, 828-877-5375)

After marrying at 17, Whitaker had a daughter at 19 and started waiting tables at Oh Susannah’s in downtown Brevard at age 24. It was a fun place to work and had crazy decorations, like a huge tennis racket suspended in the middle of the dining room. Worst waitressing experience: One night, a man from New York walked into a packed house at Oh Susannah’s and demanded food immediately. When it didn’t arrive fast enough, he lost his temper and said he would tell all his friends not to come back.  Whitaker spent a few years working at a doctor’s office and a few more in the stockroom at Transylvania Hospital. She came back to waitressing because it was familiar and much more lively. The Rocky’s clientele is always more interesting than the people she met at other jobs. “Out of nowhere, they start talking about crazy things,” she says. “I’ve had some older guys ask me out. They were old enough to be my grandfather!”

“Some women my age are at home. I come in here and I’m happy. The music—it just keeps you going.” –Sandi McCaleb, 60, The Fiddlin’ Pig (28 Tunnel Road, Asheville, 828-251-1979)

McCaleb, who has been waitressing since age 16 (though she did take a job at an Asheville Kmart for three months), has had some memorable moments running between tables and the kitchen. She started at a country café in Enka and then took a job at the Halfway House Café in San Clemente, California, because her husband at the time was in the military. At the Halfway House, she spotted President Eisenhower’s son, John, at a window booth and saw a handful of Hollywood actors and actresses. One Halfway House regular, a real estate mogul named Bob, never tipped well, usually leaving 50 cents or a quarter. McCaleb told him if he bought her a $1 lottery ticket, she would wait on him for free that year. The ticket turned out to be worth $1,000. “I thought that man was gonna have a heart attack,” she says. After that, McCaleb worked at an Asheville Cracker Barrel for 18 years, where a party of 20 or so English tourists tipped her $147. At that same job, she saw Tammy Faye Baker and then Ed McMahon, who came in with kids from Star Search. “He didn’t even eat until the kids had their food,” she says. “It was really sweet.”