TOAD'S GJ MEMORIES

 

These are about how things were back in 1980-1, mainly under Gary Jost, I wrote them down in about 1984 because it struck me about how things had changed later, mainly for the better.

 

Bathtub salad bar where "The Sperm that's going to attack Henry's Jean Scene" is   Real painted menu   Outside and front of inside wood painted yellow with brown trim   Outside sign said Grand Junction (green letters on orange)   Theatre/salad bar were upperdeck and un-bussable   Had 32 oz. tea glasses (both here and to go)   No liquor   Safe worked, later didn't   Guest checks had bigger receipts to give numbers to customer   Tax was 5% (easy to figure in head)   Pizza priced by type of ingredient   Sliced our own Pep (marks on maroon counter near slicer)   Cooked own Burg and Saus (on burners in spag sauce pots?), placed in huge white rectangular bins to cool (these had to be cleaned out with straight liquid Ajax)   Both docking sides used, both pizza maker sides used   Shelves always completely docked up   Kids couldn't go back to dining room without adult   Delivery area was undefined and always 75 cents (25 cents of which went to store beca! use they were using their cars/trucks--this was continued for a while even when deliverers used their own cars, until they asked why)---later, I believe the price went up to $1.00 and $1.50 for the extension into Canyon Creek and maybe for some areas past Spring Valley and Preston (apts).  Microwave was on top of sub station where burners are (burners were in the back kitchen)   Salad to go was served in 16 oz. styro cups, dressing in 2 oz. cups   Chef salad was kept in sub reach in   One person was assigned the sub station, one at cut/serve, one at drinks, one at register, one at docker, one at pizza maker and one bus/dishwasher all night   We cut our own GP, BO, GO, JAL   Buttermilk used for all dressings and instead of ranch, french and italian for creamy italian dressing   Serve-a-lot (cervelot on menu) and processed swiss cheese on subs (what later?)   Liquid Ajax used instead of General Purpose Cleaner   Cleaned inside of oven (nightly or weekly) with bl! each   Mark Ferguson (Fergie) was GJ's version of Fonzie  Sub knife w/ wodden handle kept between tables of substation (until health dept. discovered it)   Used to use drink glasses to scoop their own ice for drinks (health dept. enforced using the metal ice scoop)   Used faucet under sink to fill throw bucket (until hand piece rounded off valve until it was unusable except using Vice Grips)   There was no separate faucet inside spray sink  Dough was mashed down at night   No Dave's desk, stored everything there   Night crew swept dining room and vacuumed theatre and folded boxes   Men's bathroom actually had door on toilet   Fire exit actually had bar on it for opening   All tables in dining room were different kinds (no two exactly the same) and all of the chairs were wooden and different kinds   No pickle spears with subs   We had lasagna   No cheese bread or French Bread Pizza   We took the dishwasher mat regularly to the car wash   We used to make 1/2 batches of dough   3 scales: 25lb (warm water for dough), 50lb (flour for dough), and 2 ! lb (spices for pizza and spag sauces and for weighing cheese slice thickness and dough thickness)   The 12" was originally known as the "Giant" before Dave added the 14" Giant    No pay phone, customers used front phone free (as long as it wasn't long distance)   There was a big wooden chandelier resting against the storeroom wall that was possibly used in the private dining area that the store room took the place of   The original store stereo hooked to the PA system had vacuum tubes   Rather than the hand crank can opener, we had a heavy duty industrial electric can opener   There were 2 pizza paddles, one for each oven/one for each pizza maker   No sneeze guard on salad bar   Rather than the 50lb.sacks used later flour came in 100lb.sacks (real fun to get on your shoulder    There were 8 oz. styro coffee to go cups where the Lance crackers were kept by the register   There were plastic coffee mugs (each employee had a personalized one to keep in back for cokes)   The GJ ! uniform shirt was an off-orange izod-style with GJ logo over heart   Time clock was different make   We had 5-8 shifts rather than 6-9 shifts   Outside movie room was painted a puke-blue as was parts of the ceiling   Floor in front of store was all wood parquet that had to be waxed, and occasionally resurfaced   There wasn't a plant in the whole place   The "Everything" pizza was called "The Grand One" and had everything except CB    The original slogan was "Where the West meets the Eats" (was on the original hand-painted menu along with our mascot [see the Pearce Annual ad for this], later changed to "The Way You Like It"   We had glass ashtrays on each table rather than the black, plastic ones    Floor drains were collected each night and stored in small tupperware tub filled with diluted bleach   GJ was originally Fargo's (as in Wells Fargo)---inside the "Jail" there was a picture alluding to this, that's why so many of the decorations resembled a train or stagecoach station   No door buzzer   There was a weekly Sunday football game !   The "roof" that was built around the front pizza prep area was corrugated tin and we windexed it   There was an additional microphone by the register for to go orders, it's outlet was still there under the phone   We had no ceiling fans      There was a sign on the theatre that said "Movies 5-9 nightly"   There was originally no order-holder on the pizza shelves, you just laid the order on top of the top shelf and said "Order Up"