Skyway Jack's

Take a drive down 34 Street South before the sun rises.  Turn at the rooster and Humpty Dumpty statues. Kill the engine, take note of the sign advertising $2.29 early morning breakfast specials and walk into the Skyway Jack’s. Pick a table – the sign reads, “Please Seat Yourself” – and slump into either a well-worn booth or chair.  Smell the meat sizzling on the stove as it is lumped into a Philadelphia scrapple with eggs.

Read the signs on the wall: “Grow your own dope, plant a man.” “This is not Burger King. You don’t get it your way. You take it my way or you don’t get the damn thing.” And then notice the uniform shirts the waitresses wear.  A black or white T-shirt that reads, “Delicious fried eggs at Skyway Jack’s” accompanied by two well-placed fried eggs on each woman’s chest.

The women that fill in the shirts have worn them for many years. Jane Madison started wearing hers in 2002.  Lynda Steiger started wearing hers in 1999. Glenda Hill put hers on about 30 years ago in 1979.

“She’s a sweetheart,” said Cathy Fisher, a longtime customer.

Since 1976, Skyway Jack’s has inspired lifelong devotion from employees and customers alike. It started as a small shack down at O’Niell’s Marina primarily for commercial boaters and fishermen. Fifteen years ago, the restaurant moved to its current location on 34 Street South. Glenda, the cooks and many of the old customers followed. A group of semi-retired fishermen and manual laborers have come to breakfast and sat at the same spot every single day for about 30 years. They are affectionately referred to as the Tree of Knowledge – they know just enough to be dangerous. For these diehard waitresses and patrons, nothing ever changes, and no one ever leaves.

“Well, it changed when it moved into here from down there, but other than that,” trailed off Martin Blackwelder, a member of the daily crew, before being interrupted by his friend Reese Reddon.

“The dust on them pigs,” Reese says as he gestures to one of the myriad pig figures that dot the restaurant.

“There’s no dust on them pigs. Shut your mouth.” Lynda interjects quickly as she brings plates heaped with bacon and sausage gravy.

“Oh. Okay.” Reese goes quiet.

“It don’t change very much,” Martin continues. “They get a new chair every once in a while. Or a light bulb.”

Denise Abel has spent more than half her life at Skyway Jack’s and started about the same time Glenda did. She, too, was a waitress in a fried-egg shirt, and now she is the manager. When Jack Thomas, the original owner, passed away in 1999, Denise, Glenda and the other women were left to run the place. At that point, Glenda and the other waitresses took over the front end. Denise is now the one that selects and dismisses the help, and she looks for a specific type of woman when she hires.

Denise does not like to hire women with young kids. Kids get sick, and then employees miss work. One waitress with an 8-year-old has missed her shift twice in three years. Denise threatened to fire her. Young women are also not preferable. As Denise says, “at 22, you do not want to devote your life to Skyway Jack’s.”

Despite the gruff exterior of the building and people within it, the waitresses stay. And if they do clash with one of the many strong personalities, they come back. Denise describes the waitresses as, “bad pennies – they just keep coming back.” Lynda and Denise have crashed heads a few times, and Lynda has yanked off her fried egg shirt and quit. But then she comes back. And now she drives from Port Richey, 53 miles each way, just to work.

Glenda had to take breaks from the restaurant and patrons that she loved and that loved her.  Glenda, about nine years ago, developed ovarian cancer. She worked as her treatment allowed, continuing to charm the counter where many familiar faces sat every day.

Faithful customers still refer to her in the present tense, even though on Jan. 26 Glenda lost her battle with cancer and died. She is still in the restaurant though – not only on the tongues and in the conversations of the patrons, but also in Denise’s office.

Denise closely guards and cherishes an article written by the St. Petersburg Times in March about Glenda’s life and the impact she had on the fabric of Skyway Jack’s.

Nothing ever changes, and no one ever leaves.

“We all get along somewhat,” Jane Madison says with a laugh as she grabs another tray of food and whisks it off to another hungry man. She drops it off before making small talk back at Glenda’s counter as she refills a cup of coffee.

“The waitresses make this place,” says Bill Scherer on the opposite side of the counter. “It’s like a soap opera. They abuse you pleasantly.”

Pleasant abuse is the term that Bill and the rest of blue-collar Skyway Jack’s patrons use to define their bond. To outsiders, this “pleasant abuse” in an establishment with female waitresses and mainly male customers who interact every day and never forget the ones they have lost might appear to deserve a different label, one with warmer connotations.

And when the women take a second to pause from doing their jobs, even they can see what Skyway Jack’s truly resembles.

“It’s not just like a regular job,” Denise says with a laugh. “For some reason it just grows on you and takes over your life, trust me.”

“I’m not sure why they stay,” she continues as she surveys her restaurant from the back corner booth. Her eyes settle on the table of the Tree of Knowledge and she goes on to describe each man sitting there. One of the men even attended Denise’s wedding 15 years ago. He was not the only Skyway Jack’s frequenter in attendance. Glenda was the maid of honor.

After a pause, Denise finds the right words to articulate why exactly no one ever leaves Skyway Jack’s.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. It’s just so much like a family.”