Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407050108
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Matt Chittum
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The server at Roanoke's Jefferson Club atop the First Union Bank Building is a third generation waitress with 17 years experience logged on her time card. Her grandmother was a waitress at Archie's Lobster House, a former Williamson Road restaurant.
Her mother, Hilda Glover, one-time manager of the former Down the Hatch in the Patrick Henry Hotel, is still waiting tables part time in Flagler Beach, Fla., after "30 odd years" in the business. She's 53.
"When I think back, it just goes into a blur," she says.
Cox, 35, says she has no intention of breaking the family tradition. Waiting tables is in her blood.
"It's all I've ever done. I like the people, the customers. There's a real diverse bunch of people you work with, too," she says. "A lot of people respect people who wait tables."
The profession wasn't always so kind to Cox, though.
She started waiting tables at 18 at Down the Hatch, just after she had her daughter, Tracy Hubbard. She was hired by her mother.
"I was probably very, very hard on Karen," Glover says. "I really wanted to discourage her."
Cox persevered, moving on to other restaurants, including the Blue Water Cruise Co. at Smith Mountain Lake, the Roanoke Comedy Club, even Pete's Deli in Crossroads Mall.
She moved to the Jefferson Club in 1988.
It was hard working 60 hours a week while raising a child, Cox says. Her first husband didn't stay around long, and she depended on grandparents, paid baby sitters, and even had to leave her daughter alone for short periods of time until her second husband, Glenn Cox, could get home from work to be with her.
Karen Cox barely found enough time away from the restaurant to re-marry.
"We had to get married in a bank in Martinsville on the way to Myrtle Beach'' for vacation, she says. "I didn't want to take extra time off to get married."
A trust officer who was ordained as a minister performed the ceremony.
Cox gets up every weekday morning at 4 a.m., in time to make the drive from Smith Mountain Lake, where she lives, and serve breakfast at 6 a.m. at the Jefferson Club.
Cox says she'll stay at the private dining club as long as she works. The benefits, which include paid vacation and profit sharing, are "hard to walk away from."
Will there be a fourth generation in Cox's family to wait tables?
Cox says "no," not if she can help it.
"I'd rather [my daughter] to use her brain than her body, like I've had to do."
by CNB