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E-mail StoryHerb Benham: Mexicali waitress putting down the plate after nearly a half-century
| Monday, May 12 2008 9:25 PM
Last Updated: Monday, May 12 2008 11:34 AM
Rita Contreras has a message for her old customers.
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She misses you. Appreciates you. Gets a kick out of you.
That said, Contreras, 77, is not coming back. Doesn’t matter how much you tip her. After 47 years at Mexicali, she’s done slinging baskets of warm chips and spinning plates of Esther’s Delight.
Forty-seven years. My generation would have had four jobs in 47 years. Our kids eight.
Contreras, born in Pecos, Texas, is from a generation that once they found a job, stuck with the job and retired from the job. That sort of single-minded devotion is becoming a charming relic of the past.
Contreras started at Mexicali when she was 30. Her family, eight kids in all, grew up there. They stocked, cleaned, waited and hosted.
Mexicali is like that. So is Bill Lee’s, Pizzaville, Noriega’s and others. They don’t hire people, they hire families.
“I paid for Garces for my daughter Laura with tips,” she said. “We’d pack quarters in $10 rolls and take them to school to pay her tuition.”
Contreras received much of her education from Mexicali and its customers. In Pecos, in the '40s, the schools were segregated and if you were Mexican, your best bet was Catholic school. Contreras dropped out after fifth grade to work in a grocery store because she “was good at math and making change.”
She moved to Shafter with her mother when she was 16. Her first restaurant job was with the Salad Bowl owned by Clarence Mossman. Contreras spent seven years at Sinaloa prior to Mexicali.
She learned how to “make” checks at Mexicali. Customers also advised her to open a savings account (prior to that she kept her money in a coffee can in an air conditioning vent in her house). Her Mexicali family encouraged her to open a IRA.
“I put $2,000 every year for myself and $2,000 for my husband,” she said.
Industriousness paid dividends. Contreras and her husband Arthur own eight pieces of rental property (“one for each child"). She’s been to Europe several times, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Alaska, Canada and Mexico.
Her favorite customer was a man named Rolland Stromme. Stromme came in every morning through the back door, started a pot of coffee, went to the bar where he cleaned off his chair and then turned on the TV so he could watch his stocks.
Customers have included judges and lawyers.
“I could never get on a jury,” she said. “All the judges and lawyers were my friends.”
Her children were not allowed in the bar when she cocktail waitressed. Contreras liked the living, but not always what alcohol did to people.
Twenty-three years ago, Contreras’ daughter JoAnn, was having trouble finishing high school. Mother and daughter went to adult school together and earned their high school diploma together.
Years ago, the Contrerases started a scholarship fund for high school students.Two $250 grants have now become $1,000 per high school.
Retirement has been an adjustment. She spends hours at the Mormon church researching her family’s genealogy. Contreras also goes to daily mass at St. Francis where she catches up with old customers.
Contreras was not asked to retire, she chose to.
“People need work,” she said. “Especially young people who are paying for college. I didn’t want to take their job.”
She has advice for the waiters and waitresses who will replace her.
“Serve the people food first and then talk to them.”
After that, the quarters will flow.