"My best worker," the manageress explained, "is in her late thirties, has two or three kids, two or three grandkids and her husband is out of work and waiting a disability payment for a construction site injury.

"Coming to work will be a relief to her - a break from what she is having to deal with at home.

"The older women say they are fifty, but I know they are sixty. They work one speed. You give them six tables to wait and its no problem. But they can't do anything more like running the till.

"My girls get paid $2.13 an hour. That's pretty much standard for anywhere. With tips, and if they are good, they should earn about $10 - $15 an hour. You can raise a family on that. I did. Buts its hard. It felt like when I went to work my daughter was two and a half. When I came home, she was eight.

"Look at my butterfly," she said looking at one of the younger waitresses, with a tone of knowing dissapointment in her voice. "Standing in the corner, daydreaming... its the younger girls that don't work hard. The ones in their early twenties.

"With some, its like watching train wrecks, the life decisions they make. Hoping a man will come along and take all their problems away. Sometimes I feel more like a mother than a manager.

"Wendy!" she said to one of her passing waitresses. 'Wendy, what are you doing? Get yourself a tray."

"A professional waitress," the manageress said to me with a smile as Wendy walked off, "always carries a tray."