Serving the Servicemen

Where our restaurant is located we often see servicemen/women returning home from the war. The following blog is some neat stories about serving these fine young men and women. What is really neat is not always what's done by us as servers, but what other guests have done to show their appreciation.

It was a mid afternoon and 3 or 4 Marines showed up in their dress blues. As you can imagine they stood out a bit. A young girl about 5 or 6 noticed them. She then informed her server that she wanted to buy them dessert. She actually brought her own money and even her own purse! The Marines ordered their dessert and when it arrived, invited the girl to sit with them and enjoy it. I don't know what all was said during dessert time, but I imagine that experience could shape that young girl's idea of what it means to be a serviceman. You see the Marines were coming back from a funeral of a retired Marine. How ironic I thought, that they were greeted mos sincerely by the youngest person in the restaurant with sincere gratitude on their way home from serving an elderly man.

I remember bartending one night when a young man met his father for a drink or two and moved to a table. Another patron asked where they were sitting, and then requested to buy their meal. I was a bit perplexed because not a word was shared between the father/son and the other gentleman. After fishing for some information, the other gentleman told me he overheard the son talk about getting back from Iraq. The other gentleman requested that we not share who bought the food. As the father came by the bar, he asked where the gentleman was who had been sitting near them was, I replied that he had just left. He looked me in the eyes with tears in eyes and said "He didn't have to do that." I responded "But he really wanted to, the least he could do for what your son has done." Not to make this political, but I have never been a big fan of this war, but I whole-heartedly support our troops who are following their orders.

We normally give a 50% discount to any uniformed serviceman that dines with us. It was so nice when Ronnie used to work with us. He served in the Army himself for many years. We never had to ask him to comp the table, he always noticed serviceman, and made a point to have the comps done on time without us having to plead or ask multiple times to give them the discount which our company pledged as a whole. I have worked with a few former serviceman in the service industry, I consider it no surprise they were nearly all at the top of the respective areas.

Thanks to any and all troops and the families of those troops who sacrifice all that they do!!