When I was in between colleges I worked at a place called Duff’s Smorgasbord, a competitor to Sveden House. It was located on Van Dyke between 11 and 12 Mile. People would pay an admission price to come in, find a seat, then go to the food wheels to pick up their dinners o and sides and desserts. It was all you could eat all the time, and there would have up to half a dozen bussers (or “busboys”, if your prefer) walking around at all times passing by tables looking for dishes to clear. That was me. I was about 20 or 21. Again, in between colleges.
My favorite day to work was Sunday, because the black churches in Detroit would let out about 100pm or so and a lot of folks would come to Duffs in their church finery for a family meal. I saw so many regulars that I learned their names and stories over time. I could ask follow-up questions based on what we talked about weeks before. I remember they were such fun people to talk to, so genuinely nice and friendly. Or at least it seemed so—it was the early 80s, so maybe their antennae were up higher then and they may have been more cordial to me because of my whiteness, but I think they also appreciated that I was so into chatting and joking around with them that it felt like true friendliness to me. It was not a place where people tipped, but some of them would throw me a buck here or there. It was my favorite grunt job of all, and i had a whole bunch of those before I started office work when I was 25.