Lola at the Coffee House

Ok, how did you do that. Pinch that photo and re-post it, teach a 50 year old, thankyou .

<staring dreamily up at the menu written in lipstick on the mirror over the bar>
Sweetheart Steak and Eggs
"What is that? Sweetheart Steak and Eggs?"
"How many years you been coming here?"
"I don't know, ten, eleven, why?"
"Because, I thought maybe you might be the one to remember."
"Remember what?"
"Remember when we started calling it Sweetheart Steak and Eggs, 'cuz nobody else does."
"What? It's the first time I've seen it up there."
"I wrote it there today because I was feeling, I don't know, something. You want it?"
"No."
(long pause)
"Okay.... ."
"I know there's a story, right? So, pour me some of that furniture polish you call coffee and give before the crowds start coming in."
"There's two stories." (pours coffee) "There was this guy..."
"Wait. Can I have a three egg omelet, Swiss and Mushrooms?"
(She stares at him just for a second.)
"Yeah." (She scribbles something on her pad, tears off the ticket, sticks it on the wheel and turns back around.) "There was this guy. This is years ago, even before when you started coming in, he wore a suit and a big fat tie, white shirt and he was about a hundred years old everybody thought."
"Yeah..oh, yeah....what the hell was his name....?"
"Nobody ever knew, that I knew."
"I seen him a few times, that's like a long time ago."
"Yeah, but you know how morning are sometimes. Anyway...the guy was retired like thirty years or something, but he always dressed for work. I don't remember now what he said he did, but I do remember that he would come in, sit down at one of these tables every morning and say 'Steak, sweetheart, and eggs.'"
"Yeah, so that's where the name came from, right?"
"No. It's mixed up in a couple of things."
(The omelet arrives, lightly tanned and almost breathing.)
"You got any Tabasco sauce?"
"Here you go. So, anyway, years go by as they do and one day Raul says to me, this was back when Raul was cooking here. He says to me, "Hey, the sweetheart steak guy isn't eating the steak."
"Got it."
"We figure out that maybe his teeth can't deal with the breakfast steak, it's too tough, you know?"
"So?"
"So Raul starts getting the nightguy to marinate the guy's steak every night and cutting it up and sauteing it for him. Nice, huh? But the guy never blinks, he never says a word about it, he just eats and goes."
"Okay, so?"
"So, then he dies."
"What?"
"He dies. Or something, he stops coming in and we hear from this one or that one that he was sitting on a bench in the park one afternoon and they found him there in the morning, still there, but, you know, not there."
"Can I have some more coffee?"
"So, here's the other story. A couple of more years go by, Raul is long gone, and so is whatever that Greek guy's name was and now it's Wausau and he finds the note that Raul used to leave for the nightman to marinate the steak. He likes the ingredients, so he tries it and it's good. The marinade makes that breakfast steak as soft as a filet mignon, so he wants to put it up there on the menu."
"Yeah....and....."
"AND he goes to the new waitress and says, cause I heard him say it, 'Write up there,,,,,, 'Sauteed Steak and Eggs.' and she goes, gets the stepstool and the lipstick and she writes, are you ready? Sweetheart Steak and Eggs."
"What? She wrote Sweetheart Steak?"
"Yeah. Isn't that creepy? There's no way that either of those two ever knew anything about that old guy...yet, and yet, if you know what I mean?"
"Hmm. You think he's still here? Heh heh."
"All I know is that Sweetheart Steak and Eggs wasn't on the list this morning, but it was on the menu when I got back down off of that stool."

Joe(check please)Nation

Where's my last post?

Joe(where's my coffee?)Nation

Blimps

Good story, good story = good stories

Oh, wait, I meant
good stories = good story

I was wondering about that. Do you think the Grinch et it?

Say it ain't so, Joe.

Joe, maybe you were, like, you know, on another thread or somthin'.

No, Debacle, it's the bump problem rearing its head. On some threads, the page won't turn until 3 or 4 posts are made. Thus, my "blimps" post turned the page.

You can tell this is happening by looking at New Pages and seeing that someone has posted, but then not seeing the post no matter how hard you try.

Hey, Joe. It's here after all. If you don't see it up above, I've got it here if you'd like to come and see. I got the coffee pot on and can guarantee it tastes like shellac.

Whoa, hang on a sec ... you don't reckon that old dude with the fat tie was ... nah, it couldn't have been the old sweetheart ... or could it? Spooky.

Oh -- thanks, osso, Bein' a new customer and all, I didn't know about that.

( Forget about it, Joe, it was stuck. The drains were a bit clogged, but osso has seen to it.)


<aside>Drano ... guess that's why the coffee's a bit off

Ah new customer, sit next to me, we'll drink the dregs of the coffee together and wait for Joes (next post that he lost or was that the old post that is new? )

We eat the dregs over here!

Dunno what's the big deal about losing a post. My Post Office does that for (or to) me all the time.

Was that a shaggy "On The Ovarian Trolley" joke Joe?

Great story, Joe. Fun. But I must object. Both stories are wrong. Wassau named it that after Bernie and me......we were sweethearts here a few years ago. And Wassau was fond of us together. Now Wassau just has me. Sometimes

Welcome Debacle. Is your name a foretelling?

ok, shall I start a new thread? I always did on Abuzz at Ethel at the Coffee House.

Who was Ethel? She was my evil twin.

She's gone now.

It's not all that far fetched a theory.

Yes McTag. That and rotting food in the land fills.

See that sign up there on the wall? It says, "Please order only as much as you can eat. DO NOT WASTE FOOD."