SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) – It’s not typical for a company to reward an employee for 45 years of service with a car, but Barbara Harp is not a typical employee.
Harp celebrated her 45th year with the Savannah restaurant Carey Hilliard’s on Dec. 14, surrounded by friends, family and coworkers.
Usually, the restaurant allows its employees to choose from a gold Rolex watch or $10,000 in cash after 45 years, but Harp doesn’t wear a watch.
Carey Hilliard’s President and CEO Tim Hilliard praised Harp’s dedication at the ceremony and offered his appreciation in the form of a brand new silver 2016 Honda Accord.
“We’re very successful, and it’s because of people like Barbara and everybody else who’s been here for many years too. We appreciate our employees.” Hilliard said. “I don’t have a check for you today, but I do have a brand new car.”
Barbara was rushed outside after her son, City Councilman Tony Thomas, former Savannah Mayor Edna Jackson, and Carey Hilliard’s general manager Ashley Carson sang her praises. She smiled as she got behind the wheel of her shiny new car – a reward she began earning nearly half a century earlier.
When the Skidaway Road location opened back in 1960, it was the only Carey Hilliard’s in Savannah. Harp needed a job after her previous restaurant, The Pulaski House, went out of business.
She was hired at the Skidaway Road location in 1971, but just as she was settling in, the growing restaurant chain asked Harp to share her expertise with the staff at the fledgling Waters Avenue location.
“I found everything was different than it was at Skidaway. They told me when I first went over there that everything was just the same,” Harp said. “It wasn’t.”
Harp said one of the most striking differences was that no one at the Waters Avenue location cleaned the bus carts. One day, she was down on the floor scrubbing a cart down. When she finished, she swung the bus cart away. She felt it hit something.
She looked up to see the well-dressed man the cart ran into. She quickly apologized.
“I said, ‘Oh I am so sorry,’ because I bammed him good,” Harp said. I knew I hurt him because I hit him with that bus cart something fierce-like.”
She told her manager, because she was sure she injured the man, whom she referred to as a salesman. The manager laughed and told her that it wasn’t a salesman. It was Carey Hilliard himself.
“At that point I thought, ‘Oh, I’m fired.'”
Of course, Hilliard forgave her. He even said her tenacity was what he wanted to see in an employee.
Harp was supposed to train at Waters for three weeks, but she ended up staying for 8 months before transferring back to the Skidaway Road location. It was still early in her career, but she had already established herself as the standard by which other Carey Hilliard’s servers were judged.
In 1974, the restaurant’s U.S. 80 location opened, and Barbara transferred again. She said she remembers sweeping the sawdust from the newly completed building.
Once again, she was only meant to train new staff for a few weeks before returning to the Skidaway Road restaurant, but this time she stayed a little longer – for 42 years.
Barbara was and is a server first. She said she did a few other here-and-there duties for the restaurant like hiring and scheduling the wait staff, but Harp has always preferred human-to-human interaction.
“I love people. I’ve always said that I didn’t want to be hooked up behind a counter or at a desk where I couldn’t talk to people,” Harp said. “That is me. That’s just part of who I am.”
Her personality earned her a consistent customer base, which eventually grew into a strong set of regulars. She knew each by name, and she often came to know their entire families.
“I just gave them service,” Harp said. “I talked to them, and I got to know them. Then their children came in, and then their grandchildren came in.”
Carey Hilliard once asked her if she wanted to return to Skidaway, but Barbara told him it was too late to go back.
“I told him, ‘No! I’ve got all my customers here now,” Harp said.
Many years would pass before Harp moved again. In November of this year, she came to the restaurant’s flagship location on Abercorn Street. They wanted her to work with former Carey Hilliard’s manager – and permanent Carey Hilliard’s fixture – Billy Gunn.
Gunn has been with the restaurant for 48 years, and management wanted their two longest-standing employees to work under the same roof.
It hasn’t even been a month since Harp started working at the Abercorn location, but T.J. Hilliard, Carey Hilliard’s media relations specialist, said he has been amazed at how many customers followed her.
“Some of her regulars have followed her over here, which is great. She has so many regulars at Highway 80. It’s unbelievable. When I say regulars, I mean people that request that they sit with Barbara.”
Harp’s regulars adore her.
“I used to have a line of people waiting in the foyer for me, just waiting for one of my tables to open up. Sometimes I even borrowed tables from other servers so I could serve them,” Harp said.
She said one of her favorite regulars, Maxwell Beatty, likes to poke and prod her jokingly.
“He was always picking on me. He would get up and go down the aisle, not even knowing the people, and he would say, ‘I hope you get better service than I did,'” Harp said. “Half of them would ask him, ‘Well, why do I see you sitting at the same table every day?'”
Even after 45 years, Harp said she loves what she does.
“I enjoyed what I’ve done, and I still enjoy what I do. I love meeting people, and I get to meet all kinds of people. That’s very rewarding. When you have a boss you can go to at any time, that means a lot.”
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Information from: Savannah Morning News, http://www.savannahnow.com