On our recent family vacation we stopped at a restaurant in a small Wisconsin town.  There were a few occupied tables when we walked in and after we were seated the woman running the kitchen (the owner, I presume) informed us that she had no waitstaff that day and would do her best to take care of us, but things might be a little slow.  We had time to spare so we decided to stick it out.

It took some time but eventually we and the other tables got our food, and after a bit the other tables paid their bills and left.  Not too much later a group of what had to be at least 20 people and what appeared to be at least 3 generations of extended family came in and took some tables, and were informed of the service situation.  There was some discussion among the older adults and then Grandma (for lack of a better name that’s what I’ll call her) told everyone that they were going to order food that would make it easy on the kitchen and that they would help out as well.  A couple of the younger women acted as de facto waitresses and helped with the water and drinks and took the orders.

We didn’t stick around to see how things turned out but I was impressed as hell at the way this family worked together (and I got the feeling that Grandma wouldn’t have been too happy with those that didn’t help out).  I suspect that some of the older folks might’ve been regular vacationers or maybe even residents in the area so certainly a cooperative spirit was in their better interests, but even so it was a nice sight to see.

I did notice on our way out that there were only 1 or 2 Illinois-plated cars parked on the street, so maybe that had something to do with it.[}:)]