A search on wimgo sparks memories of a past career at Legend’s restaurant

So I was browsing NewsOK.com the other day. I tend to do that as part of my job description.

On the day in question, the NewsOK editors were featuring some restaurant profiles from wimgo near the top of the NewsOK home page. You’ve probably seen them below our top stories along the left side of the home page.

I hope you’re already familiar with wimgo.com. It’s an outstanding search solution for businesses, restaurants, events, venues … well, just about anything, really. It serves the NewsOK audience very well as a terrific local search solution, but it’s truly a nationwide solution. You can find similar data for business, restaurants, events and more from anywhere in the country.

It was Legend’s Restaurant, and it was the first place I applied when arriving in Norman in 1993. I stopped and applied after asking a friend, who had already been living in Norman, “What’s the nicest restaurant in town?” I walked in, filled out an application, went home, came back for an interview and had a job — all in one day. My college career was off and running.

I remember my time working as a cook there very fondly (even if some of those memories aren’t so flattering).

• I remember jumping in the pool in the apartments behind the restaurant after a long day in the heat of the kitchen. (‘Trespassing’ is how some people refer to it.)
• I remember running late many Sunday mornings for my brunch shift. (8 a.m. comes awful early for a 20-year-old.)
• I remember making the shift manager very angry one slow Monday night after being caught taking an undocumented break for a tobacco product (a habit I shook long ago). I was lucky he kept that one quiet.
• I remember making plenty of rookie mistakes on the line in the heat of a busy night.
• I remember my bosses being very good and very patient to many college students who worked there.
• I remember making some very good friends through those connections.
• I remember the day Howard Schnellenberger and his wife left the restaurant, unhappy with my food — something Berry Tramel wrote about in a column years later.

But my favorite memory came in late summer of 1994. I had just spent the summer months in my hometown and returned to Norman.

For some reason, I thought I didn’t want to return to work at Legend’s. I wanted to try a different restaurant. I secured a job at the restaurant where Coach’s currently resides on Main Street, but I can’t even remember the name of the restaurant at that time.

Friends who still worked at Legend’s had mentioned that the kitchen manager/chef wondered why  I didn’t come back in for a job now that I was back in town. I was moving on to bigger things, I thought. I was sitting pretty — a highly sought-after cook in the Norman restaurant world.