After 50 years, this Village Inn waitress isn’t ready to quit yet

TAMPA — It was 1974, and Marjorie Leppla, better known as Margie, was a sophomore at King High, a few months shy of her 16th birthday.

High school was a double session, so she finished each day by lunchtime. When she came home from school, a sandwich prepared by her father was waiting for her on the kitchen table. When she finished eating, she went to work at the Village Inn on 30th Street.

“I would work full time because there were no child labor laws like there are today,” she says.

Five decades later, it’s still there.

Last month, Leppla celebrated her 50th birthday at the Village Inn, where she has been a server for 40 years.

She is a unique pillar in an industry known for its high turnover – a sort of mini celebrity, consultant, psychologist, confidante and friend to thousands of clients over the years, from actors to politicians and more. by famous athletes and its group of regular regulars.

“I never wanted to do anything else,” she says.

Margie, who turns 66 this month, is close to retirement but commutes four days a week from the Wesley Chapel home she has lived in for 20 years with her husband Don.

And yes, she was put in touch with Don by some of his regulars at the Village Inn.

Margie thought about retiring. His family encouraged him.

Margie, however, isn’t sure she’s ready. After all, she says, who will wait for Carl and Dell? Who’s going to take care of Nelson or Tom from Home Depot?

She tells Jim Walker, the owner, that she will think about it.

Maybe.

“I told him all these years, I said I’ll make it to 50 and I’ll be there day by day,” she said. “But I can’t. I can’t even give it a day to leave, because I don’t want to think about it.

She says the Village Inn is family, but in Margie’s world, everyone is family, from the homeless man who milks his coffee in one booth to the millionaire lawyer in the other.

“Everyone, really,” she said.

Dow and Mary Sherwood opened the restaurant, called Village Inn Pancake House, in 1961. Village Inn was founded in Denver, but the restaurant at 215 N. Dale Mabry was the first franchised location.

Later the business was run by the Sherwoods’ daughters, and it is now run by their grandsons, Jim and Paul. Even Jim’s son, Dow’s great-grandson and namesake, works there occasionally.

It was Mary Sherwood who took a liking to Margie almost immediately after hiring her in 1974 to work on 30th Street near Temple Terrace.

Margie did the dishes. Bussed tables. Greet customers as a hostess.

In 1983, as Tampa prepared to host its first Super Bowl, Margie was transferred to Dale Mabry as a server to help handle the rush of customers.

“I was thinking of going there for three weeks,” she said, “and they never let me come back.”

At the time, Margie says the Village Inn was the perfect place to be seen.

The Culverhouses, owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Steinbrenners, owners of the New York Yankees, were regulars.

The same was true for the Laxer family, owners of Bern’s Steak House, as well as the Greco and Pepin families.

Politicians often jostled each other at the restaurant.

“Everyone knows me,” Margie says.

The Sherwoods also owned the Showboat Dinner Theater in Clearwater, so actors like Cesar Romero and Bob Crane of “Hogan’s Heroes” fame and Ann B. Davis (Alice from the “Brady Bunch”) would stop by.

“My grandparents always made sure Margie was there,” Walker said. “Margie would come in and wait on those tables, because they wanted everything to go smoothly. So they always made sure that when one of these famous people came over, Margie was there to take care of them. I always remember it.

The Cincinnati Reds held their spring training in town, so there was always a steady procession of baseball players stopping for a bite to eat as well.

“(Dow’s) marketing ploy was to feed all the baseball players for free,” Walker said. “He knew that if people let it be known that all the Reds were going to be at the Village Inn, it was a new place, right?”

Margie was Pete Rose’s personal waitress. Just weeks before his recent death, he called the restaurant and his favorite waitress was put on the line.

“I can’t believe you’re still here,” he told her incredulously.

Margie says she had no idea how sick he was at the time.

She always had a soft spot for Rose, who she said was the most famous person she ever served. She remembers that once, while waiting for Rose and current Tampa City Council member Charlie Miranda, they argued over whether Miranda could take out the King of Baseball.

“They ended up taking him to the parking lot,” she said, laughing. “Charlie takes this ball out and kicks it out of the trunk of his car. It was just a stick. So they were playing stick ball in the parking lot. This attracted quite a few people. »

She remembers many Reds, from Tony Perez to Joe Morgan, and waited for Tampa baseball legend Al Lopez. Once, she adds, New York Yankees pitcher Tommy John came to meet her because they had a mutual friend who worked at Yankee Stadium.

“He was really nice,” she said.

But it wasn’t just baseball players who sometimes sought his services and sometimes his advice.

An Arena Football League player who was cut by the Tampa Bay Storm has become a regular.

“We would talk forever,” Margie said. “You might know him as Titus O’Neil, who’s a wrestler, but I knew him as Thaddeus Bullard.”

Bullard, she said, would follow breakfast by preaching to the homeless people hanging out in the parking lot. “I would tell him who was safe to approach and who wasn’t,” she said.

Bullard now leads the Bullard Family Foundation, one of Tampa’s most successful nonprofits.

She once spent a few hours talking to Drew Carey while he was waiting for a plane. Bob Martinez, former mayor of Tampa and governor of Florida, was a superstitious campaign regular.

“I was his lucky waitress,” she said. “When he was running for governor, he needed his lucky stand, his lucky waitress, his lucky socks. He had all these superstitions, but then he became governor and I haven’t seen him since.

But there are countless people she has seen since, again and again.

One of her regulars goes ahead of her to the restaurant every morning where she works and waits for her when she arrives at 6 a.m.

“We just have coffee and chat,” she says.

Another left her a Hershey’s Kiss tree ornament after her death, knowing how much Margie appreciated her Christmas tree.

“I always hang that kiss on my tree every year and remember him,” she said. “I’d rather have something that reminds people than anything else in the world.”

Denard Span, a former high school baseball star who played in the major leagues in Minnesota and Tampa Bay, says he’s not surprised that Margie spent 50 years in essentially the same job at the same restaurant, s take care of people.

And he’s not surprised that they walk past open booths and tables to get a seat in his section, even if it means waiting.

“I would say it’s his heart,” said Span, who is a part-time TV commentator for the Rays and Twins shows. “She just has a heart of gold. And she has the ability to connect with people and make them feel like they’re part of her family or one of her children. And she’s always been like that.

Span would certainly know. He grew up on the same Carrollwood street as the Lepplas. He says Margie treated him like she treated her own children. He considers her his second mother.

“She’s just special,” he said.

Margie said staying in the same job for 50 years gave her amenities she couldn’t have found elsewhere. Both of her children, son AJ and daughter Jackie, were athletes and she was able to attend most of their high school games. She volunteered at school. And work became part of his extended family.

When she decides to cut back on her schedule, Walker says she can set her own schedule, whether it’s four days a week or just one day.

“And you know, if it’s just one day, it’s probably going to be the busiest,” he said.

Margie says some of her clients offered her other jobs, but she never considered any of them.

“Well, no one ever taught me how to quit a job, so it was the only job I ever had, so it became my home,” she said.

But this moment is coming.

She and Don might want to travel. She has a garden to tend and a cookbook to finish.

She and her husband can’t go to a baseball game without stopping to watch, and her grandson will soon be playing Little League.

She’s managed to balance so many things for so long that she thinks she can go on for just a little while longer.

“She just wants to make people happy,” Walker says. “It’s unusual these days, but it really comes down to something so simple. And you can’t pretend, can you? You might be able to fake it for a minute, but you can’t fake it for 50 years.