PORT ANGELES — For 29 years Cornerhouse Restaurant & Lounge waitress Darlene Trickey has been serving coffee with a smile.
Today at 2 p.m., after hanging up her black apron, she will leave the restaurant with a lifetime of memories and a few tears.
“It has been a wonderful place to work,” Trickey said Thursday. “We are really a family, and it will be very difficult to leave. If I can get out the door without saying good-byes it will be OK. Otherwise, I might cry.”
Trickey, 66, of Port Angeles, said she began working at the restaurant in June 1973.
At the time, the restaurant was called Dale Rollf and owned by Toad Dickinson.
The restaurant became the Cornerhouse in 1986.
“I have had some wonderful bosses and stayed because I was happy,” Trickey said, reminiscing about her career in the downtown restaurant. “I have enjoyed my customers and made some lifelong friends.”
She said her customers often recognize her around town, but are not be able to place her without an apron and coffee pot.
“I say Cornerhouse, and they say, ‘Oh yes, hello,”‘ she said.
When asked how many people she has served throughout the years Trickey gave a hearty laugh.
“Thousands, I am sure,” she said.
“I try to be friendly and smile at every customer because friendliness causes friendliness in return,” she added.
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The rest of this story appears in the Friday/Saturday Peninsula Daily News. Click on SUBSCRIBE to get the PDN delivered to your home or office.
