AUGUSTA, Ga. It was a win for the ages and one that, against all odds, seemed to unite a country riven by deep partisan divisions. Coming back from divorce, an arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol and a decline in his golfing skills that dropped his world ranking below 1,000, Tiger Woods rallied to win his fifth Masters Tournament Sunday, leaving even long-time detractors teary-eyed at his uniquely American tale of redemption.
Lawton: Get a load of that stack of flapjacks!
But one occupational group isn’t joining in the celebration: pancake house waitresses. “As far as I’m concerned, he can go crap in his hat,” said Mary Ann Delvecchio of Intergalactic House of Pancakes in Brighton, Mass. “That’s always the way it is, the guy rides off into the sunset, the pancake house waitress is left behind with nothing but regret and maybe a lousy 15% tip.”
Delvecchio is referring to Woods’ fling with Mindy Lawton, an $8 an hour waitress at a Perkins restaurant in the Orlando suburb of Windemere, Florida. “I was shocked,” says Dining Out Magazine editor Floyd Nullit. “I always thought of Perkins as a fast-casual restaurant that serves breakfast throughout the day. I had no idea it was a steaming cauldron of sexual mischief that sold pastries on the side.”
“Are you ready to order, or are you dead?”
According to the United States Department of Labor a “pancake house waitress” is a waitress who works in a restaurant that serves pancakes. It is considered a lower-caste position by restaurant hostesses and wait staff in upscale restaurants, where professional golfers routinely tip 18%, even 20% on their bills, not excluding tax. “In a pancake house, you figure, it’s not dinner, it’s just breakfast,” says Nullit. “A gal is lucky to get a 15% tip, to get up to the standard 18% she’s going to have to do something really special.”
Forget it–nobody likes that stuff.
Pancake house waitresses are not unionized but a trade association–the National Association of Pancake House Waitresses–lobbies Congress and state legislatures on their behalf. “Our big initiative for 2019 is the elimination of parsley garnish,” says executive director Carl Flemstrand. “Nobody eats it, but our members have to recycle it as kale for vegans.”
I always wondered about the parsley and how much a burden it was on waitresses. Just seemed so wrong.