Each morning, Sebero “George” Perez shows up to work early and ordered from top to bottom.
He parks two to three blocks away from 24th Street Cafe, where he has worked since 1987, and walks to the cafe to allow parking spaces to remain open for customers — because this restaurant has a lot of customers.
“During the week,” said cafe owner Mark Huggs, “George watches the front door from his spot in the kitchen, and if a regular walks in, George has their order started before they have reached their seat.”
“He’s been with me since the beginning,” Huggs said of Perez, his longest-serving employee. “George is a talented cook who has perfected our Cajun seafood omelet and portobello mushroom omelet.”
But it’s more than that. Perez sets an example in the kitchen and helps to keep it humming like a Bugatti on a Sunday cruise.
On Friday morning, the cafe’s staff and customers celebrated Perez’s 70th birthday with a song and a cake from Smith’s Bakery.
For a few moments, the perpetual motion machine that is the 24th Street food servers and kitchen staff suddenly stopped, potentially threatening to throw the earth off its axis.
Customers looked up from their pan-fried trout and eggs and their pumpkin pancakes and chicken-fried steak as colleagues and customers alike sang “Happy Birthday” to George, who was summarily given the day off.
Huggs has been trying to do the math, to figure out how many eggs George has cracked open and cooked during his 39 years at 24th Street Cafe.
Huggs estimates that his “Egg Man,” his “No. 1,” as he refers to Perez, has cooked 6,916,000 eggs during his nearly 40 years at the popular downtown restaurant.
“I love what I do,” Perez said of his job at the cafe. “I’m 70 now. I don’t know how long I can stay here, but I like this place. It’s like my second house.”
When you consider he worked 11 years in the kitchen at the former Rancho Bakersfield before starting at 24th Street, that’s a half-century of enduring the rapid-fire, high-stress pace of a cafe or diner cook.
His wife of 34 years, Blanca Perez, showed up for his party on Friday. She knows the pace he keeps.
“You know, he’s been so faithful to this place,” she said.
“He doesn’t call out sick. Never. Oh, my God. Never, never, never.”
Regulars Elena and Henry Acosta were there Friday to celebrate with the birthday boy.
“We try and catch George for a toast when we come in — when he’s not busy, which he always is,” Elena Acosta said, laughing. “He’s very concentrated on his work.
“The employees here, most have been here 20, 30 years,” she said. “Yes, we come in for them, too.”
Food server Naomi Denton had only praise for Perez.
“George should always be celebrated,” she said. “He’s been here nonstop every single day, Monday through Friday. He works his butt off, and he’s been dedicated for years.
“Anytime I need anything, he always helps me out, helps out the customers, too,” Denton said. “He’s just amazing at what he does, as you can see.”
Amazing restaurants require amazing employees. And somehow, 24th Street Cafe has found them and kept them. For decades. For life.