”Seat us in Lorraine`s section, please,” is a popular order at the Parkway Restaurant, a full menu coffee shop that has been at 1945 Central St. since 1977.
”Lorraine” is Lorraine Jeske, who has worked at the Parkway since 1982 and has built quite a core of regular breakfast and lunch customers. This
”special kind of waitress,” in the words of one patron, is also a wife, mother, grandmother and major caregiver of her infirm mother Frieda Sorenson, 91, who lives with Jeske and her husband, George, in Skokie.
”She has a sixth sense about what you need and is one of the reasons my friends and I meet at the Parkway for breakfast every Friday,” says Wynn Graham, 43, who says she appreciates Jeske`s nurturing nature.
”She calls us `the girls,` and we`re all in our 40s,” Holly Hoxie says. ”The way she does it isn`t condescending-it`s like going back in time, and we love it.” A mother of four, Hoxie calls coffee and conversation with Graham and her other friends ”a treat,” and having such a waitress ”a bonus.”
Vicki Scott, who moved to Evanston four years ago, counts Jeske among the ”heavenly aspects” of the town. ”There`s the lake, the university, the proximity to Chicago, old friends to talk over my week with-and a remarkable waitress,” Scott says. ”She knows exactly how I like my food and senses when I`m ready to give up diet fare for bacon, scrambled eggs, fried potatoes and buttered English muffins. She makes coming here like coming home.”
Jeske, a restaurateur before she started waiting tables 15 years ago, knows she pleases those she waits on. ”But I really don`t know what I do except try to serve food right and right away,” she says midway into her 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. breakfast/lunch shift.
”Maybe it`s because I like people. All kinds. If they`re grouchy I try to make them happy by being nice to them. I never learned this or think about it. I was this way as a girl. My twin sister, Lillian Grist, is quieter.”
Jeske tidies up her 40-person section for those who might wander in for a late breakfast or early lunch, while staying alert to the needs of those still seated.
”Good to have you,” she tells a family she has never seen at the Parkway before. ”Are you okay, honey?” she asks a young woman seated alone sipping coffee. ”So you`re in a new movie? Sorry, I missed the other one,”
she tells actor Tracy Frenkel who lives nearby. He played Don Ameche`s bodyguard in ”Things Change,” she tells a stranger who overhears her comment.
Jeske says she would have gone to see the film if her mother did not require full-time care.
She and her husband, who works for the Niles Township School District, spend only a few hours a month on recreation. Her twin, who lives in Belvidere, takes charge of their mother for a few hours every other Sunday.
”Otherwise, I`m confined,” Jeske explains.
The Parkway marks her second waitressing job since 1974, when she closed her own restaurant, the Cottage Kitchen, on West Irving Park Road and North Central Avenue, Chicago. She worked for a restaurant in Morton Grove until it closed temporarily for renovations. ”The owner loaned me to Pete, my boss here, until it reopened. It never did. So I stayed on,” she says.
Owners Peter and Katy Tziortzis of Skokie see Jeske as someone who personifies the image of their 120-seat restaurant. ”Friendly and very comfortable,” says Mrs. Tziortzis, 44, who is in charge of the front desk.
”We expect people who are eating breakfast to relax, read a book or newspaper. I don`t mind how long they sit unless one person is taking up a booth that a big party is waiting for. When you know customers so long, they`re like family.”
Tziortzis, 50, calls Jeske ”a great woman,” because of her agreeable nature and dependability.
”Everyone feels bad or says they have a headache sometimes. Not Lorraine. She never misses a day. Someone like her is gold to a food establishment,” says the Greek immigrant, who came to Canada in 1961 to fulfill his dream of becoming successfully self-employed. He, his wife (a Greek immigrant whom he met in the U.S.) and late brother George bought the Parkway in 1977. They also own the Ravenswood Restaurant in Chicago.
From their vantage point at the front desk, the owners can see Jeske at work at her station in a separate room to the left as one enters the restaurant. She always carries something as she moves from table to table, they say.
”More coffee?” she says, refilling a cup. ”How about waffles?” she asks another customer, order pad poised. ”Everything all right?” she asks a third patron, emptying a food-laden tray she has just carried from the kitchen.
Jeske ”runs rings around the rest of us,” says co-worker Peggy Maher, 22, a weekend student at Mundelein College who works a weekday shift similar to Jeske`s. ”She`s the most easygoing person I`ve ever met. She never gets upset. Nothing seems too hard for her, and she always pinch-hits if one of us is overloaded.”
Jeske takes this praise in stride: ”I try never to be crabby. Only if my family gets sick do I let myself get upset.”
She says she loves when her customers make her feel appreciated. Often, someone will say something like, ”Breakfast was really great because you were so nice.” Another frequently tells her with a hug, ”You`re special.” Some people who are moving away say they will write her, and they do-and on a return visit to the old neighborhood make a point of sitting in her section.
Each person she serves is her ”favorite.”
The thoughtfulness of one of her regulars sticks in her mind. One Christmas a few years ago, a man she had been waiting on for seven years gave her a loaf of raspberry nut bread. ”Imagine, he baked it himself, just for me,” she says.
He belongs to a group of churchmen who meet the first and third Thursday of each month at 6:30 a.m., half an hour before the restaurant officially opens. She knows little about them but comes in early to serve them. ”I never ask their business. I just serve and leave them alone to have their meeting,” she says.
Business owners on Central Street also are devoted to Lorraine.
”Lorraine remembers you, your family and what friend you are looking for when you come in,” says Julia Young, who owns Shepherd`s Harvest, a 12-year- old shop catering to knitters, weavers and spinners.
”You also get a great sense of community when you walk in. You always meet someone you know. Central has changed a lot since I came here. . . . But we still can count on the Parkway to keep plugging away at its wonderful level.”
Ted Miller and Bob Schweizer have owned the nearby Miller-Schweizer British Antiques, 2000 Central St., since 1985.
”During the hectic mess and worry of getting ready to open (their store), Peter sent us a plant to welcome us to the street,” Schweizer recalls.
”And when we dropped by the restaurant, Lorraine welcomed us warmly, too.” Miller adds. ”It was a wonderful introduction to the street.”
The leafy, green plant flourishes in their display window. And they can look out that window and see the Parkway across the street.
