Ms. Love and Mr. Butts
Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2021 8:42 am
The year I spent working at Grandy's was like being trapped inside a real life David Lynch series. Grandy's is a fast food chain that sells home cookin' (fried chicken, chicken fried steak, and ribs) with veggies on the side. If anything, they are known for their fresh dinner rolls, delicious cinnamon rolls, and copious amounts of white gravy. At one time there were more than 200 Grandy's locations, although Wikipedia says they're down to around 20.
The Grandy's I worked at was located just off the interstate, right behind a Love's convenience store/truck stop. Although the restaurant was only a few miles from my home, it was in another school district, which meant I didn't previously know anyone who worked there. Essentially everyone who worked there had some sort of weird back story or quirk. It was a total band of misfits.
Our location was also a management training location, which meant that unlike a normal fast food restaurant that might have one shift manager on duty, our restaurant always had three to five management trainees who always worked the front counter. Managers were salary employees who were scheduled every week to work 55 hours (and frequently worked more than that), which meant if you figured up their hourly rate, we (the teenagers) were making more per hour than they were. The management trainees were just as odd as everyone else.
The way Grandy's is laid out is that there are cooks in the back who fill metal trays with fresh food and send them through a small chute to the front of the restaurant. I started as counter help but eventually moved to the kitchen. The kitchen was great because customers could barely see into the kitchen, and we could barely see what was going on in the dining room. Grandy's was pretty stingy about employees eating free food, but the only people in the kitchen were two teenage cooks. We had access to all the food and were constantly making (and inventing) tasty treats to eat.
All of this may sound relatively normal but like I said, our restaurant might as well have been a location in Twin Peaks. There were two daytime cooks, both in their 30s, who would show up around closing time with beer for all the minors to drink in the parking lot. One of my friends tried to make wine in the roll proofer by putting fruit, yeast, and hot water in a sealed bucket and leaving it there for a week. (It didn't work; we all barfed when he opened it.) I once found a potato under a table that had been there for so long that it had somehow spread roots down through the grout in the tile. One of the employees would make fake name tags because he didn't want customers to know his true identity. There was a loose ground in the store's outdoor neon lights that caused the water in the sinks to shock you after dark. One of the employees started dating a crack whore and would sit in his car facing the drive-thru window and make out with her so that all of us were forced to watch. One of the management trainees was legit homeless, living in a camper on the back of his pickup which, for the most part, stayed in our parking lot. Another kid ran away from home and tried living in the store's unused attic/storage space until someone threw his bicycle into the trash compactor out back, thus destroying his transportation and putting an end to that.
One of the management trainees was named Michael Butts. Of course, we always called him Butts. Butts was probably in his late 20s, which seemed really old to us. He was probably 5'6" with dusty blonde hair. He was big into karate and was always talking about Bruce Lee. He was a nice guy and not a great manager.
Around the same time Butts and a few other new managers showed up we got another new employee -- Jennifer Love. Jennifer Love was the daughter of Mr. Love, the guy who owned Love's convivence stores. Before Ms. Love showed up, the management team sat us down and gave us a serious lecture. Turns out, our restaurant was actually a franchise, owned by the Loves (who were multi-millionaires). We were instructed to be on our best behavior any time she was in the building.
We in the kitchen weren't too worried about her arrival. The floor of the kitchen was covered in grease making it slippery even when wearing good tennis shoes, and impossible for someone in high heels (which Jennifer wore) to traverse. As long as you weren't shouting, nobody up front could hear what we were saying in the back, so we weren't worried about that either. The only guy who got fired from the back was Dave, who grabbed the microphone and performed an impersonation of Darth Vader masterbating while there were customers in the dining room.
Sunday afternoons were always busy. Not only did you get the normal church rush, but tons of people would come through and buy rolls, cinnamon rolls, and cobbler to go for lunch gatherings. On one particular Sunday, the place was packed -- there were half a dozen managers working, plus regular counter help, plus three of us in the kitchen. When the rush died down, Butts wandered back into the kitchen to take a break. We were talking about how busy it had been and he went off about how his Bruce Lee Zen state of mind helped him get through anything.
I don't remember how it got started but Butts started saying that, like Bruce Lee and Houdini, he could tighten his stomach muscles up and let people punch him. I told him that if he didn't get out of the kitchen, he was definitely getting punched. Butts said no problem, he would love to demonstrate his abilities by letting me punch him. I told him he should think twice about it and if he really wanted me to hit him, he should come back in five minutes.
Five minutes later he returned, along with some of the counter help. I also noticed a couple of managers peeking back through the food slide, seeing what we were up to. Butts had this shit-eating grin on his face and began breathing deep before tightening all his muscles. The veins in his neck began to protrude, his face turned red, he patted his stomach and then grunted, "HIT ME."
Butts probably weighed 150 pounds and I was a stocky 225. Also, I guess this had never come up in conversation between the two of us, but by this point I had been in karate for about 8 years, was a brown belt, and certainly knew how to throw a solid punch. I leaned in and threw a punch that landed directly on his solar plexus.
For those who don't know, your solar plexus is above your stomach, right about where your rib cage joins up. It's a really good way to knock the breath out of someone, which I did. I hit Butts so hard that he landed on his ass and then slid backwards across the floor through the grease. When he stopped sliding he immediately began to alternate between moaning and gasping for air. He was making enough noise that Jennifer Love, who I didn't realize was working, came back into the kitchen to see what was up. She didn't say a word. She just stood there in her high heels looking at me, the crowd of people around us, and Butts, who was now curled up on the greasy floor.
In retrospect, Butts took it all in stride (I told him "I missed") and we actually got along pretty well after that. A month or two after that he turned in his notice and said he was going to work at Subway.
Other than the time that I burned my crotch with grease and got caught in the walk-in freezer holding a frozen chicken up against my crotch with my pants half down, this was the closest I ever got to getting fired from Grandy's. Oh, and the time I showed up hung over, got assigned to work drive-thru, and puked multiple times out the drive-thru windows between customers. That was a close one, too.
That Grandy's location eventually closed and became a Mexican restaurant. That restaurant also closed and was eventually turned into extended semi-truck parking for Love's, which is still there. According to LinkedIn, Jennifer Love is now the "Chief Culture Officer for Love's Travel Stops." She does not mention Grandy's in her work history.
The Grandy's I worked at was located just off the interstate, right behind a Love's convenience store/truck stop. Although the restaurant was only a few miles from my home, it was in another school district, which meant I didn't previously know anyone who worked there. Essentially everyone who worked there had some sort of weird back story or quirk. It was a total band of misfits.
Our location was also a management training location, which meant that unlike a normal fast food restaurant that might have one shift manager on duty, our restaurant always had three to five management trainees who always worked the front counter. Managers were salary employees who were scheduled every week to work 55 hours (and frequently worked more than that), which meant if you figured up their hourly rate, we (the teenagers) were making more per hour than they were. The management trainees were just as odd as everyone else.
The way Grandy's is laid out is that there are cooks in the back who fill metal trays with fresh food and send them through a small chute to the front of the restaurant. I started as counter help but eventually moved to the kitchen. The kitchen was great because customers could barely see into the kitchen, and we could barely see what was going on in the dining room. Grandy's was pretty stingy about employees eating free food, but the only people in the kitchen were two teenage cooks. We had access to all the food and were constantly making (and inventing) tasty treats to eat.
All of this may sound relatively normal but like I said, our restaurant might as well have been a location in Twin Peaks. There were two daytime cooks, both in their 30s, who would show up around closing time with beer for all the minors to drink in the parking lot. One of my friends tried to make wine in the roll proofer by putting fruit, yeast, and hot water in a sealed bucket and leaving it there for a week. (It didn't work; we all barfed when he opened it.) I once found a potato under a table that had been there for so long that it had somehow spread roots down through the grout in the tile. One of the employees would make fake name tags because he didn't want customers to know his true identity. There was a loose ground in the store's outdoor neon lights that caused the water in the sinks to shock you after dark. One of the employees started dating a crack whore and would sit in his car facing the drive-thru window and make out with her so that all of us were forced to watch. One of the management trainees was legit homeless, living in a camper on the back of his pickup which, for the most part, stayed in our parking lot. Another kid ran away from home and tried living in the store's unused attic/storage space until someone threw his bicycle into the trash compactor out back, thus destroying his transportation and putting an end to that.
One of the management trainees was named Michael Butts. Of course, we always called him Butts. Butts was probably in his late 20s, which seemed really old to us. He was probably 5'6" with dusty blonde hair. He was big into karate and was always talking about Bruce Lee. He was a nice guy and not a great manager.
Around the same time Butts and a few other new managers showed up we got another new employee -- Jennifer Love. Jennifer Love was the daughter of Mr. Love, the guy who owned Love's convivence stores. Before Ms. Love showed up, the management team sat us down and gave us a serious lecture. Turns out, our restaurant was actually a franchise, owned by the Loves (who were multi-millionaires). We were instructed to be on our best behavior any time she was in the building.
We in the kitchen weren't too worried about her arrival. The floor of the kitchen was covered in grease making it slippery even when wearing good tennis shoes, and impossible for someone in high heels (which Jennifer wore) to traverse. As long as you weren't shouting, nobody up front could hear what we were saying in the back, so we weren't worried about that either. The only guy who got fired from the back was Dave, who grabbed the microphone and performed an impersonation of Darth Vader masterbating while there were customers in the dining room.
Sunday afternoons were always busy. Not only did you get the normal church rush, but tons of people would come through and buy rolls, cinnamon rolls, and cobbler to go for lunch gatherings. On one particular Sunday, the place was packed -- there were half a dozen managers working, plus regular counter help, plus three of us in the kitchen. When the rush died down, Butts wandered back into the kitchen to take a break. We were talking about how busy it had been and he went off about how his Bruce Lee Zen state of mind helped him get through anything.
I don't remember how it got started but Butts started saying that, like Bruce Lee and Houdini, he could tighten his stomach muscles up and let people punch him. I told him that if he didn't get out of the kitchen, he was definitely getting punched. Butts said no problem, he would love to demonstrate his abilities by letting me punch him. I told him he should think twice about it and if he really wanted me to hit him, he should come back in five minutes.
Five minutes later he returned, along with some of the counter help. I also noticed a couple of managers peeking back through the food slide, seeing what we were up to. Butts had this shit-eating grin on his face and began breathing deep before tightening all his muscles. The veins in his neck began to protrude, his face turned red, he patted his stomach and then grunted, "HIT ME."
Butts probably weighed 150 pounds and I was a stocky 225. Also, I guess this had never come up in conversation between the two of us, but by this point I had been in karate for about 8 years, was a brown belt, and certainly knew how to throw a solid punch. I leaned in and threw a punch that landed directly on his solar plexus.
For those who don't know, your solar plexus is above your stomach, right about where your rib cage joins up. It's a really good way to knock the breath out of someone, which I did. I hit Butts so hard that he landed on his ass and then slid backwards across the floor through the grease. When he stopped sliding he immediately began to alternate between moaning and gasping for air. He was making enough noise that Jennifer Love, who I didn't realize was working, came back into the kitchen to see what was up. She didn't say a word. She just stood there in her high heels looking at me, the crowd of people around us, and Butts, who was now curled up on the greasy floor.
In retrospect, Butts took it all in stride (I told him "I missed") and we actually got along pretty well after that. A month or two after that he turned in his notice and said he was going to work at Subway.
Other than the time that I burned my crotch with grease and got caught in the walk-in freezer holding a frozen chicken up against my crotch with my pants half down, this was the closest I ever got to getting fired from Grandy's. Oh, and the time I showed up hung over, got assigned to work drive-thru, and puked multiple times out the drive-thru windows between customers. That was a close one, too.
That Grandy's location eventually closed and became a Mexican restaurant. That restaurant also closed and was eventually turned into extended semi-truck parking for Love's, which is still there. According to LinkedIn, Jennifer Love is now the "Chief Culture Officer for Love's Travel Stops." She does not mention Grandy's in her work history.
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