Bergstrom’s first customers to arrive this morning are also her dear friends — a carpenter named George Wright, an accountant named David Small, a retired couple, Jeff and Donna (whose last names remain a perpetual mystery to all — even to Bergstrom) and Teach, otherwise known as Ron Bake, a former Crescenta Valley High School math teacher.
They settle in, Small in his rear booth, Teach on his stool and Jeff and Donna beside Wright’s booth. Jeff and Donna begin crossword puzzles with erasable pens and the rest make headway in the day’s paper before the cooks arrive at 6 a.m. when Bergstom, without any menus or talk of how anyone wants their eggs, places everyone’s orders.
At 71, Bergstrom, a wife, mother of four, grandmother to seven and great-grandmother to two, works five hours a day. Each year, she thinks of retiring but reconsiders every time.
“I feel good, and all the customers are like my family,” she said. “I’ve known them forever. I have customers now that I waited on when they were children.”
Originally from Minnesota, this unofficial mayor of Montrose worked a beer tap when she was 10 years old atop a box her uncle fashioned in his liquor store for better reach. Her family moved to Glendale when she was 13. She graduated from Glendale High School in 1957 and married the same year.
On this Wednesday morning, any object around the restaurant reminds Bergstrom of a story. Two of her stories end with Bergstrom on the ground clutching a coffee pot, like the time her leg got caught on a planter.
