Warm Up

They gave a party for "Tootie" Fuller in honor of her completing 60 years of waitressing. She told us what her real name is, but we agreed not to tell! (Herald photo / Tim Carman)

Your Coffee?

By Martha Slater

Terry and Don Reddick, owners of the Green Mountain Grille in Stockbridge, think they have a treasure in their employ. Her name is Tootie Fuller, and she’s been working in restaurants since she was 13. That was 60 years ago, and although she’s reached the age where most people have retired, she shows no signs of doing so. Three days a week, from 8 a.m.-2 p.m., you can still find her waiting tables and dispensing a friendly smile along with her customers’ orders.

"I just love people!" Tootie says. And they love her right back. The Reddicks are so fond of her that they proclaimed last Saturday and Sunday "Tootie Fuller Appreciation Days" and invited everyone to come by for a meal and to congratulate Tootie on reaching a milestone. When The Herald stopped by Saturday morning, she had already received many cards and gifts from admirers.

The daughter of William and Lona Haggett, she was born and raised in Granville and graduated from Rochester High School in 1951. She got her first restaurant job at the age of 13, when she was hired to wash dishes at what was then Parker’s Inn (now the Park House) in Rochester.

Asked about her unusual name, Tootie laughs and admits that’s not what’s written on her birth certificate, but explains that, "my dad gave me that nickname and I’ve been Tootie since day one—that’s all people know me as!"

Sixty years is a long time to be on your feet serving people, and Tootie wouldn’t be human if she didn’t have at least one pet peeve related to her job. She admits to two and they’re both related to coffee.

"Customers who change their mind after they’ve told you they don’t want any more coffee and you’ve just walked away from their table, and people who ask for more coffee when they still have three-quarters of a cup!" she says with no hesitation.

During many of the years she was waitressing, Tootie was also raising a family with her late husband, John Fuller, whom she married in 1953. They moved to Wilmington after their wedding and had five children, one of whom, Dennis, is now deceased. The rest of her family includes sons Gary, Bruce and Robert, and daughter Sandra. She also has two grandchildren, Tyler and Rae, and twin great-grandchildren, Raven and Jade.

While her kids were growing up, Tootie worked at restaurants in the Wilmington and Mt. Snow vicinity. For five of those years, she owned and operated Tootie’s Place in Mt. Snow and also leased and operated The Cup and Saucer in Wilmington for four and a half years. In 1987, she moved back to the local area and now lives in Rochester village. In the almost 20 years since her return, she’s worked at Brooksie’s and Sandy’s Drive-in in Sharon, and at Wilson’s Diner in Bethel. She’s also worked in the same building for three different restaurants, when it was Keith’s Café, then Sierra’s Café, and now the Green Mt. Grille.

"I was working at Wilson’s when it closed and I was only out of work for two days when they hired me here," Tootie explains. "It’s the only thing I know how to do as far as working. I like to waitress and I like to bake." At the Green Mt. Grille, her specialties are her homemade chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting (garnished on top with chocolate peanut butter cup candies!), and her homemade bread pudding. Terry Reddick notes that both of them quickly sell out.

Tootie says the hardest thing about her job now is standing up all day. She can often predict what people will order and carefully remembers the preferences of her regular customers.

As you can imagine, that kind of good service often gets rewarded with good tips and Tootie once saved up all her tips and bought a candy apple red Corvette. Along with fast cars, she loves fast horses, and once worked nights as a "hotwalker" (walking horses after they race so they can cool down) at the Green Mt. Racetrack in Pownal.

At one time, Tootie also owned a racehorse named Magic Man, whose only magic trick was making her daughter Sandra’s money disappear.

"I told my daughter to bet everything on him in a race and he stopped dead at the three-quarter pole and wouldn’t go any further!" Tootie recalls, shaking her head ruefully. "She lost it all!" Not surprisingly, Tootie sold Magic Man soon after that.

If you stop by when Tootie is working at the Green Mt. Grille (Thursday, Saturday or Sunday), you might have the pleasure of having her take your order. And, like the true professional she is, you can be sure she’ll get it right.

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