The Waiting Game : Some view it as a stopgap, but many women have been professional waitresses for decades. They do it because they enjoy it.

By ROBYN LOEWENTHAL

Jan. 7, 1993 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

At age 60, Phyllis Jewell has 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. But don’t let her “Granny” name badge fool you. The 22-year veteran of waiting tables cheerfully arrives at Camarillo’s International House of Pancakes at 5 a.m. weekdays to juggle 18 “stations,” or tables, until the lunch crowd disappears at 1:30.

“I’ve got younger waitresses, but she runs circles around them. And she’s spunky,” said the restaurant’s manager, Joseph Escareno. “And through years of waitressing, she’s carried her clients with her from place to place.”

Unlike teen-agers or aspiring actors who might regard waiting tables as a stopgap job, many women in the county have been professional waitresses for decades. They do it because they like the job.

“I enjoy the different types of people,” Jewell said. Jewell said waitress work helped her overcome a fear of meeting the public.

“You have to project yourself. I enjoy my job,” she said. “It’s a career as far as I’m concerned.”

After waitressing for nearly 50 years, Millie Reeves, 70, said she has enjoyed the past 27 years at the Ojai Valley Inn most of all.

“I got into it because I enjoyed working with people. And years ago, that was the first way to get some job training,” she said with traces of a Texas accent.

Reeves usually works four mornings a week from 6 to noon in the omelet breakfast bar. And over the years, she has developed a philosophy about tips and her co-workers. “In my opinion, you should give a person who buses your dishes more than the usual 15%, or you can’t give good service.” She also advocates pooling tips to be fair.

Despite her age, Reeves has no plans to retire. “I’d like to continue doing my job and meeting people as long as I feel that I’m doing a good job.”

Unlike Jewell and Reeves, 72-year-old Edna Cotton of Fillmore--who began waiting tables as a 13-year-old in Oklahoma--wanted to own them as well.

The latest incarnation of her Cotton’s Cafe--established 40 years ago at A Street and Old Telegraph Road--is Charley’s Cafe, named for her husband. Cotton went into semi-retirement in 1982, but she still comes in daily to help her daughter cook or wash dishes. And chatting with her is like taking a lesson on the history of Fillmore. She recalled the flood of 1969, when many residents had nowhere to sleep.

“I closed for two weeks and covered the place with beds,” she recalled.

“People would sign tickets for food, and later she’d tear them up,” added her daughter, Charlene Gunter.

“Well, my dad always said, ‘If you think someone is hungry, don’t let ‘em go away hungry,’ ” Cotton said.

The Oxnard College Re-Entry Center, located on the campus at 4000 S. Rose Ave., has planned two events that are of particular interest to older women.

The first session of “Your Work Future,” a hands-on job search workshop for the mature woman, will be held from 3 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in Room LA-4. The seven-week workshop, co-sponsored by the American Assn. of Retired Persons, is designed to help older women find employment by improving their resumes, cover letters and interviewing skills. Registration is $15. To enroll, call 488-0911.

To learn about all of Oxnard College’s programs, classes, financial aid and special services, talk to a college counselor, tour the campus or register for classes, adults are invited to attend “Discovery Day” from 8:30 a.m. to noon Jan. 14. For information, call 986-5833.

CINEMATIC WAITRESS QUIZ

Can you name the following films about waitresses?

1. In 1934, Bette Davis played a promiscuous waitress who almost ruins the career of a young doctor obsessed with her. (Bonus point: Which actress starred with Laurence Harvey in the 1964 remake of this film?)

2. In 1936, Bette Davis and patrons of a desert diner are held hostage by a gangster played by Humphrey Bogart.

3. Joan Crawford won an Oscar for best actress as a bored housewife who parlayed waiting tables into a restaurant chain in this 1945 classic.

4. Judy Garland goes West in this 1945 musical about railroad eateries.

5. Ellyn Burstyn won an Oscar in 1975 for her performance as a penniless widow trying to support her young son.

6. In 1991, Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino find love over the grill in a New York cafe.

7. In 1992, Goldie Hawn played a Key West, Fla., waitress who moonlights as a stripper to make ends meet for her and her 12-year-old son. And in a comedy that year, she played a nutty waitress who invades Steve Martin’s life.

ANSWERS: 1. “Of Human Bondage,” Kim Novak; 2. “The Petrified Forest”; 3. “Mildred Pierce”; 4. “The Harvey Girls”; 5. “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”; 6. “Frankie and Johnny”; 7. “Criss-Cross”, “Housesitter.”