Archive

Tag Archives: Matt’s Big Breakfast

last clockout at mbb

September 21, 2021
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

Five years, nine months, and twenty-nine days ago I began my employ with SSP America, one of two firms that manage the restaurants of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Today at 2:46 PM I ended that employment by clocking out at Matt’s Big Breakfast, next to Gate B5 at Terminal 4. I left on good terms, with the Big Boss, Tommy R, managers Maria, Denny and Eduardo, bartender Sadie, servers Jenna, Netty, and (especially) Melinda, utilities man Juan, and my cashier replacement Esperanza all wishing me well. It is a good ending.

20210921_115255
Here I am with Ninette, whom we call Netty. That’s my mask between us, hanging from my left ear.

20210921_111934
This is bar lady Mercedes. She prefers to be called Sadie. She posts wonderful pictures of her family on Instagram. She also has cracked me up with jokes that are unsuitable for children. And I’ve tried to crack her up as well. Many of the jokes I’ve told her are older than she is.

20210921_144837
Here is utility man Juan, who showed me pics of the coastal city in Argentina where he was born and raised. I told him today that he looks a bit like the “handsome British actor” Anthony Hopkins. 

20210921_111820
And here is Melinda, whose skills as a server are so pristine that my own mother, the Diner from Hell, the Original Karen (OK), the late, great Jane Bowers Stoneman, would ask for Melinda by name when she was working at Lone Star Steakhouse. Melinda is known as the Finder of Stuff and is heavily relied on for that, among many other things. When I told her I’d post her pic she said, “Tell everyone that I’m the one who gave you Covid.” (Possible, but unlikely,) I may miss her most of all.

20210921_145920
The lady pointing at the “Usual Suspect” is Maria W, who has managed our restaurants all over the place. I have the utmost respect for her. She runs everything from 10Ks to ultramarathons and has for many years. She is hard to keep up with. 🙂

20210921_150031

And here I am with the Big Boss, Tommy R, who manages the managers. He is like Heimdall, Bridgekeeper of Asgard, in that his eyes see everything, everywhere. The buck stops with him. And it was to Tommy himself that I surrendered my airport badge and the Micros card with which I clocked out for the very last time.

I’m proud to have put in more than five years with SSP, and so happy to have made so many restaurant friends. I will stop by and say hello as a traveler when I plane-trip my way out of Phoenix. I wish all my colleagues the utmost success, and will miss them profoundly.

20210921_205259

My Improbable Big Breakfast at Matt’s

September 19, 2021
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

Today, against odds, I DIDN’T clock in at the airport’s Matt’s Big Breakfast, and DID enjoy Steak and Eggs at the Camelback/32nd St. location…of Matt’s Big Breakfast.

I showed up to work, punctual as always, but when I tried to clock in the screen said “You are not on the schedule.” It had been saying that all week, because new manager Penny was still learning the ins and outs of scheduling using our Micros POS. (POS allegedly stands for Point Of Sale, but it can stand for other things too.) Today, though, by my clockin time we already had both a host and a cashier. Both were new but capable.

Penny offered to send me to Four Peaks, another SSP restaurant, to work my shift, but I told her I’d just as soon go home. And on the bus ride home it occurred to me that if I stayed on past my stop, the Camelback/32nd Street stop was a quick walk to the Camelback Matt’s. And today is Sunday, and the Sunday special is Steak and Eggs! Which I never get to have because I work Sundays! Matt’s, here I come!

And the meal was glorious. Though I don’t think it’s right being a carnivore, and fully intend to vegetarianize in the not too distant future, before he went to the Great Beyond Warren Zevon left the human race instruction to “enjoy every sandwich.” That goes double for Steak and Eggs, and home fries, and sourdough toast with strawberry preserves so good that what didn’t go on the toast got ingested the same way John Belushi inhaled the Jell-O in ANIMAL HOUSE. Best meal I’ve had in months.

20210919_180906

Here’s a sketch I just did of Matt and Erinia “Ernie” Pool, the originators of Matt’s Big Breakfast. They look much better in real life, but I got nervous when I sketched them. They were super nice to me the times they visited the airport location when I was working, but I learned that when Ernie says “Could you do me a favor?” it is diplomatic code for “You guys screwed up.” 🙂

4: The Win

December 5, 2019
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

20191205_161428

Today Dez the Manager said, “Hey, Sunshine, guess what I’ve got for you.” (Dez calls everyone Sunshine the way  that gal in KING OF THE HILL called everyone, including God, “Shoog,” short for Sugar.)  “I have no idea,” I told Dez, but I should have, because last month she said I’d soon get an envelope of appreciation for four years of employment with SSP. So we took a picture, and Dez was nice enough to hunker down enough so that I appear taller than she is.

20191205_164356

Here we are, Dez looking like what Kellyanne Conway wishes SHE looked like, and I looking like a Macy’s Parade balloon that flew too close to the ground.

It’s a strange world, Friends, and I’m glad I’m here.

Dog gie

June 30, 2019
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

2019 0630 dog gie

I have done more than a dozen portraits of my co-workers at Matt’s Big Breakfast. A couple of weeks ago I approached yet another. She declined, but offered to send me a photo of her beloved and now deceased dog instead. I would rather have done hers, but I do love dogs, so I told her to go ahead.

“Gie” is a genuine word. It is Scottish dialect for Give. The poet Robert Burns famously coupleted

“O wad the power the giftie gie us
Tae see oursels as others see us.”

Burns also famously coupled, fathering many children out of wedlock, but that is another story.

Dog gie. “O wad the power a guid dog gie us/Tae help us truly, truly BE us.” I was best friends with such a dog. His revered name was William Doglas Bowers, known colloquially as Bill. We lost him ten years ago. A thought of him draws an eagle’s feather over my heart now and then.

dog gie

dalmation shepherd boxer pug
domestic bliss requires no drug.

old english sheepdog shih tzu corgi
of grins and snuggles is an orgi.

great dane alsatian malamute
Got Ugly? even so, Got Cute.

 

3 Is For Thriving

December 1, 2018
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

20181201_204832

Andrew Meltzer came by Matt’s Big Breakfast and handed me an envelope.  In it was a letter of gratitude, a pin with a 3 on it, and a voucher worth $20 toward a meal at any SSP America restaurant at the airport. (There are over a dozen, and soon there will be many more.)

As far as I know, Andrew is unaware of my artwork and poetry. He is acutely aware, though, of how Matt’s Big Breakfast is performing, and what I and everyone else  are up to, because SSP runs all kinds of data on their establishments. They also have video cameras here, there and everywhere.

And I’m aware of them, and of Andrew, watching. And that is liberating. It makes a workday rather like a video game. Get people seated, see to it that they are glad to be there, keep it flowing, let the diners know that we are grateful that they chose us–this is the best of Capitalism, to be able to make an experience valuable, both for the bottom line and for the uplift and empowerment of the weary traveler. As Samuel L. Jackson put it so bluntly and with such panache, “You gotta put butts in the seats.” Matt’s reputation is so solid that airport volunteers, airline employees, and even TSA agents send diners our way, knowing that we are the real deal.

And my work at Matt’s not only funds my artist’s exploits, it also makes me a better artist and poet. The phrase “Work hard, then play hard” comes to mind, but it needs some tweaking to be a good fit. “Build cathedrals with gusto” is slightly better. Every day, working with solid, sincere effort at a host stand, then a drawing board, then the treasure-laden landscape of the English language, is another well-fired brick for the cathedral that is my artist’s life.

20181201_201636

 

Chelsea (latest of a series)

April 26, 2017
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

20170426_0001

Our server Chelsea warmed my old man’s heart not long after she started working with us. It was a particularly busy day, and we were up to our patooties in alligators trying to keep up, and as always, everyone had a plane to catch and needed to be sat to eat NOW. So I was in overdrive, doing dignity-free bussing, bobbing and weaving, seating, wiping tables, saying Hello to the invading hordes and Thank You to the satisfied pussycats on their way out. Toward the end of the day Chelsea said three words to me that everyone I can think of loves to hear, as long as their name and not mine is the first word: “Gary, you’re amazing.” Well, so are you, my friend.

Here are the words to the double acrostic. As I indicate in the image, I’m grateful to Joni Mitchell, who wrote “Chelsea Morning” more than four decades ago. I have it playing in my head this very minute. And I am grateful that titles of creative work are not subject to copyright. “Chelsea” is seven letters long, and so is “Morning,” and “Morning” has an O in it, which enables me to rhyme-cheat a little.

clock in at dawn a. m
how Diners haw & hem–O
extracting wishes for
lean lusciousness this morn
see someone fine as Princess Di
ethereal as she’s benign
and Time is worth the whiling/when teaming brings the smiling

My old man’s paternalistic, patronizing, mansplaining awfulself comes up with this additional description, which is patently unfair: “She’s a good kid.” No. She’s a fine person, appreciative and kind.

one with work

December 16, 2016
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

dec_20161216_0002

Yesterday Andrew Meltzer, Operations Manager for SSP America and one of my several bosses, stopped by the host station at Matt’s Big Breakfast where I was on the job. He was there to hand-deliver an envelope enclosing three tangible forms of appreciation for my having worked for SSP one solid year.

One item in the envelope was a letter signed by Andrew and three other high-ups. The letter says in part “We applaud your hard work, passion and commitment. You have helped to show the world of travelers that the journey begins with you!” Isn’t that nice? There is a sincerity to it in light of the fact that ours is a high-turnover business, with average term of employment much less than one year. Cooks have a 100% chance of getting burned in one year; cashiers a 100% chance of stressful in-a-hurry overload, and hosts and servers a 100% chance of being insulted/belittled/sideswiped by those ungracious few who would like reality to warp in their favor, and blame the messenger when it doesn’t. I am proud to have survived this year. It was a thousand-obstacle Obstacle Course to do so. And among the many things I learned is to never use the disparaging term “burger-flipper” again.

The other items in the envelope were a handsome one-year anniversary pin, pictured above, and a gift card for use in any SSP America location in Phoenix. I’m thinking Pei Wei for the card. Their lettuce wraps are Yum incarnate.

The other super-cool thing that happened at work yesterday was showing co-worker Topher Hend the tattoo design I’d made at his request:

bird-of-paradise

Topher was really generous in his appreciation, thanking me over and over again. He’s also Shared the design on his Facebook page. He wanted this design as a memorial to his mother. I am honored that he asked me to help.

So–what a day, and what a year. Before this all started, I’d never been a restaurant host, and I’d never been a tattoo designer. It is odd to think of myself as either. Jobs do and do not define us. But the successful performance of one job or another adds to our pride, and to our power.

Michelle (latest of a series)

November 28, 2016
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

I found Michelle at Sweet Republic. She was filling in as the ice-cream lady so that Jennifer could have a break. While she was ringing up one customer, another was waiting, so I said, “Want me to . . .?” and Michelle said, “Sure.” So I fixed a single-scoop salted caramel on waffle cone for the gentleman and Michelle rang him up. All customers satisfied and gone, Michelle looked me in the eye and said, “So, you came to see if I would let you go early.”

WOW, what a Mom of a Manager she is, and I mean that as the highest of compliments. She can do every job, and does. She knows more about what’s going on here, there and everywhere than just about anyone else. She will cut you a little slack if the situation warrants it, but Heaven help you if you do something unprofessional–I saw her appropriately dress down a server for rudeness to a diner some months ago. That the server learned the lesson and is still working for us is testament to Michelle’s effectiveness.

Once upon a time in the 80s there was a great multi-location restaurant here in the Valley, Bill Johnson’s Big Apple. Michelle was one of the waitresses (they didn’t call wait staff ‘servers’ back then) and was therefore required to take orders in cowgirl boots, blue jeans, and a pair of six-shooters strapped to her hips, walking on a sawdust floor. She tells me the guns were heavy and clunky and could leave bruises. She also has the inside scoop on the last days of the Big Apple, what went wrong and what happened when they tried to set it right. We share the feeling that the passing of the Big Apple was a crying shame.

Her restaurant-management education also included a stint at Coco’s, one of the few chains that passes muster with my sweet-but-demanding mother. Michelle’s decades of dealing with every imaginable food service scenario, including my unknowingly laying down a trail of maple syrup from a front table all the way back to the dish pit not noticing the little chalice was tipped over after sloppily bussing the table, plus her keen native intelligence and empathy, makes her a superb leader-by-example. Add a mischievous sense of humor and you have one hell of a force to reckon with.

I fear Michelle will not like this portrait. She does not like the way her eyes look, and I have tried to accurately report them here. I cannot do otherwise, because her eyes ARE her, with her lifetime of laughter and working unbelievable hours and having and tough-loving kids, biological and otherwise. So please forgive me, Michelle: I drew you as I see you, more real and more appealing than any supermodel could ever hope to be.

Inez (latest of a series)

November 5, 2016
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

 

inez_20161105_0001

“Gary, my hero,” said the wonderful Inez right after she saw my portrait of Gwen,”I want you to do one of me.” Flattery got her everywhere. I did, and this is it.

Inez is good people. She is the salt of the earth. She has seen it all and lived to tell the tale. And she was one of the ones who escorted me from the TSA security checkpoint, outside the Terminal 4 B Gates, to our restaurant, Matt’s Big Breakfast, in those long-ago days before the airport deemed me trustworthy enough to issue me a badge. (I just got my second badge renewal–looks like they haven’t found out what an unsavory character I am yet.)

I am guessing we live fairly close to each other, since we once rode the 32nd Street Southbound bus together early one Sunday morning, and once I was walking out of the same McDonald’s she was driving through. That’s good. She can be my neighbor anytime. She’s a Sweetheart.