“When President Bush brought the prime minister of Japan, they had them upstairs. So the people are the ones you want, you want the people to have more fun. The movie stars are getting their stuff free. They’re here to enjoy themselves and spend their money. Said Big Robert: “My idea of it is, it don’t take a millionaire to make you happy. “He was always Archie Manning’s guy.” Serving 'the people' “Sometimes, if you weren’t ready, he’d just order for you,” said Vergos. At one point, he weighed 350 pounds and doubled as security at the restaurant. I saw him standing there and I said, 'George, where you been so long?’”īig Robert was gruffer. They got a guy who hadn’t been here in three or four years and sent him in. “They found out that I was good at names. “One day, (television reporter) Andy Wise tried to pull a trick on me here,” Percy said. He had an uncanny ability to remember everybody’s name. Percy was smooth, cheerful, an ambassador for the city. When I went up there, she laid it on.”īig Robert and Percy developed different reputations, different styles. I drove ribs up to Indianapolis for Peyton’s 30th birthday party.” I served ribs on Air Force One four times. President Clinton, I brought ribs to him every time he flew in. Man, he walked around and passed out 10 $100 bills. Red Skelton. Johnnie Cochran, he walked around, and he shook everybody’s hand. I could sit here for a whole two hours and name names. John Daly, I’ve been through three wives with him. And here, Percy starts ticking off names. “We cooked up a saying that if someone was downtown after 5 o’clock, they were either lost or headed to the Rendezvous.”īecause people still wanted to eat at the Rendezvous. “There was one time, business was so slow here, we were the only ones downtown,” Percy said. Big Robert and Percy both worked during the times when downtown was largely deserted. We would take that money, and put our school clothes in lay-away for that year, and you could pay for them a little bit at a time and that’s the way things were back then.”īig Robert was working at the Rendezvous the day Dr. At the end of the day, at four o’clock, they would pay us either three dollars and fifty cents or four dollars. The bus was only allowed to hold 40 but there would be 70 people on the bus. They used to come through the neighborhood. That was the only way that we could get our school clothes. “You had to catch the bus to go to Arkansas to pick cotton. “As a young black kid in those days, in the summer, we had a thing called the field bus,” Percy said. Percy grew up in Fowler Homes, the public housing project at Fourth and Crump that was torn down in 2004. They’ve lived through and they’ve seen a lot of things.”īig Robert grew up right behind Beale Street. “Certain people won’t come down here if they can’t get a certain waiter, if they can’t get Percy or Robert. “These guys who are retiring, they are probably as much a part of the Rendezvous as the ribs, and my family, and everything else about it,” said John Vergos, one of the owners of the restaurant. What other restaurant has servers who are widely known by their first names? What other city has them?īut Memphians know Big Robert and Percy, know them nearly as well as the restaurant itself. Said Big Robert, age 71: “I have to, I just got out of the hospital, but I’m not ready to go.” Known by their first names That’s more than 100 years in an industry defined by turnover and churn.Īnd at the end of this year, Big Robert and Percy will hang up their bowties and see what life after the Rendezvous is like. That’s more than 100 years serving up ribs and shoulder and hospitality. Percy Norris - everybody knows him as Percy - has been at the restaurant for 48. Robert Stewart - Big Robert - has been at the restaurant for 53 years Charlie called me and I got a job and things just took off.” Finally, one of the guys that was a bartender at the Rendezvous, his name was Catfish, he didn’t show up for work one day. “I always wanted to be a waiter, because you got a chance to dress sharply every day. “I was working at a truck line at the time, loading and unloading trucks,” Norris said. In 1969, Percy Norris showed up at the Rendezvous. Charlie, Charlie Vergos, asked me if I wanted to work for him. I went down, I think it was on a Saturday night, and Mr. “They were like this,” said Stewart, holding his thumb and forefinger six inches apart. He liked the thick ham and cheese sandwiches they served back then. In 1963, Robert Stewart showed up at the Rendezvous. View Gallery: Retiring from the Rendezvous
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