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For longtime Char-Grill cook, his labor of love is on a roll
For 15 years, Parsons has worked as short-order cook at the Char-Grill restaurant in Raleigh - a charming glass-and-cinder –block throwback to the drive-in hamburger pits of yesteryear.
Gary Parsons' vision of heaven is a strange one indeed. Orange flames hissing beneath him. White, greasy clouds of smoke curling past his face. For 15 years, Parsons has worked as short-order cook at the Char-Grill restaurant in Raleigh - a charming glass-and-cinder –block throwback to the drive-in hamburger pits of yesteryear. There, look for Parsons behind a grease-splattered shield, frantically slapping hamburger patties on and off an open-flame grill. The grill's reputation for some of the best hamburgers in the city
means there is almost always a line of bodies stacked up at the customer-pick-up window. By the lunchtime rush, the line has spilled into the surrounding parking lot. And Parsons has switched from high gear to something approaching a human blur.
If the afternoon heat is nudging the thermometer past a muggy 90 degrees outside, there's no telling how miserable it must feel in Parsons' corner of the world. And yet, seldom is there a day when Parsons does not count himself a lucky man. He likes what he does for a living - pure and simple. No job assignment, no ambition, has ever given him greater pleasure. The feeling's mutual. He and the Char-Grill staff were recently voted best short-order cooks in the Triangle in a local magazine poll. With 15 years of tending these grease-spitting flames behind him, the 43-year-old Parsons has promised his Char-Grill bosses 16 more until he retires at age 59.
"I've been a short-order cook since I was 15 years old," Parsons says. "I just like the work. It's in m family. My daddy was a chef for a hotel chain in Columbus, Ohio. My mother was head hostess at another restaurant. And my sister runs a truck stop and restaurant in West Virginia .
"When I was growing up, I wanted to join the military -- Special Forces. I applied, but I didn't qualify. So I went into the restaurant business." With his close-cropped hair, his no-nonsense pace at the grill and tattoos peeking out from beneath his T-shirt sleeves, Parsons does have a kind of "ex-military man air" about him. That toughness is only surface, though. Catch him in a rare moment of leisure and you discover a gentle, humble man who enjoys "piddling around my yard and flowers" with wife Josephine at their mobile home south of Raleigh near Lake Wheeler. They have four children and one grandchild. As head chef at Char-Grill, "Big Daddy" Parsons is not above any job that needs doing - be it scrubbing grease on his hands and knees or slicing a day's 50 pounds of tomatoes. Parsons works a six-day week - 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the summer, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. during the busier college fall, winter and spring semesters. He doesn't work Sundays - but that's probably only, because the grill isn't open Sundays.
"I like the guys I work with. It's hot sometimes but I tough it out. It's not hard work, although sometimes you do get pushed. The grill's hot, but that's my main job." The Char-Grill quickly developed a loyal following among nearby St. Mary's College and N.C. State University students when it opened in 1959. Parsons joined the cooking staff in 1969 - a year before the original owner, Bruce Garner, died. After Garner's death, grill management faltered through a series of temporary bosses.
By 1975, the old place stood vacant. And Parson reluctantly found employment elsewhere at a construction company. Enter Ryon Wilder and Mahton Aycock, two fraternity brothers at Atlantic Christian College, who decided to buy and resurrect the old grill. Through word-of-mouth, the new owners finally tracked down Parsons and invited him to return to the grill . Parsons happily agreed. In today's world of fast-food plastic and Madison Avenue hype, the Char-Grill remains delightfully cinder block homely.
And homey. Its customers - from gray-flannel judges to dirt-covered laborers - are passionately loyal.
Parsons doesn't always know their names, but he can recite their orders by heart: The woman in the brown station wagon who only has to hold up three fingers to tell Parsons she wants three "Steak Juniors all the way." John, who shows up most every night, to order either a Junior or two burgers all the way. Fred, who will always want his plain steak sandwich medium rare. And, of course, there's Parsons himself, who rarely passes up the chance to grab a lunchtime hamburger or cheeseburger. “All the years I've worked here, I've seen them come and go," he says of his 10-person kitchen staff. If high turnover in the fast-food business is legendary, Parsons has never quite understood why. "I suppose some don't care or don't want to work," he offers. "Right now, I couldn't ask for a better crew or better bosses than what I've got. "
Written By: nbdtodd
Date Posted: 7/9/2007
Number of Views: 641
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