A beloved East Bay waitress is retiring after serving customers at an Alameda restaurant for almost half of the restaurant's existence.
Dolores Jeanpierre, who became Alameda's first African American waitress when she started working at Ole's Waffle Shop in 1978, will soon hang up her apron and retire after serving approximately 42,000 waffles.
"The happiness and the appreciation that customers showed back to me, that they appreciated me getting up at 3 o'clock in the morning," Jeanpierre told KCBS Radio.
That's way too early for the now-70-year-old Jeanpierre, who recently decided it's her time to stop working.
Longtime customers like Bob Libsey still can't believe it. He doesn't believe Ole's will be the same without her.
"I'm devastated," Libsey told KCBS Radio. "She's was always so bright and upbeat, and just a real warm feeling when she came to wait on us. More than just a waitress, a friend."
Ole's Waffle Shop opened in 1927. Fifty-one years later, Jeanpierre was hired as a waitress, saying she became the first Black woman to work as a waitress in the city.
"Well in '78 to '80, there wasn't any Black customers or people of color," she recalled. "But we did have two Black cooks, and then I was the only Black waitress and the only one in the city."
Jeanpierre added the "biggest change" she has seen is that Ole's "clientele is of all races" now.
"It's a milestone of the city, and I feel like I am a milestone with it," she said.
Ole's co-owner Ken Monize said he hopes she doesn't go anywhere. He wants to put her in a recliner chair in the front of the restaurant with a glass of wine so she can greet customers.
"She's got the big flower in her hair, and she knows everybody by name," Monize explained. "She knows what they drink, and you just don't see that anymore."
Related
