NEWBURYPORT, Mass. (AP) — This weekend will mark the end of a 25-year tradition at Angie’s Food & Diner when waitress Barbara Gouin pours her last cup of coffee.
Gouin, 82, announced recently she would be retiring from her weekend shifts, news that has her scores of regular customers and her longtime boss reminiscing about how she made eating at the Pleasant Street restaurant so special.
“She’s one of those people who are impossible to replace,” Angie’s owner Steve Luz said.
Luz said Gouin came with the furniture when he bought the place 16 years ago. She has been an easygoing yet attentive server, he said.
“She’s old school, no pun intended,” Luz said.
He said people would often come in and wait until a table opened in her section just to see her smile.
“She’s got a following,” he said. “She’s 82, twice the age of (New England Patriots quarterback) Tom Brady. Tom Brady doesn’t hold a candle to her.”
Among those who wait in line until one of her tables opens up are James and Cheryl Waldron.
“She’s a wonderful lady,” Cheryl Waldron said. “Any time we walked in, we asked for her table and we ordered the same thing every time. She was always that stable, beautiful, happy face every time we walked in there.”
Over the years, the Waldrons got to know a little more about their favorite waitress, including the fact that she liked to play the lottery and gamble at Foxwoods.
“And she’s done pretty well over the years, often telling my wife and I about her jackpot successes,” James Waldron said in an email. “I’m sure many of her regular customers, like me, will miss her quick, cheery service. It will be a different place without her happy face and interesting chatter.”
Cheryl Waldron added that she and her husband would still visit Angie’s most weekends.
“It certainly won’t be the same,” she said.
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