Each morning, Sebero \u201cGeorge\u201d Perez shows up to work early and ordered from top to bottom.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 because this restaurant has a lot of customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the week,\u201d said cafe owner Mark Huggs, \u201cGeorge 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been with me since the beginning,\u201d Huggs said of Perez, his longest-serving employee. \u201cGeorge is a talented cook who has perfected our Cajun seafood omelet and portobello mushroom omelet.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s more than that. Perez sets an example in the kitchen and helps to keep it humming like a Bugatti on a Sunday cruise.<\/p>\n
On Friday morning, the cafe\u2019s staff and customers celebrated Perez\u2019s 70th birthday with a song and a cake from Smith\u2019s Bakery.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Customers looked up from their pan-fried trout and eggs and their pumpkin pancakes and chicken-fried steak as colleagues and customers alike sang \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d to George, who was summarily given the day off.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Huggs estimates that his \u201cEgg Man,\u201d his \u201cNo. 1,\u201d as he refers to Perez, has cooked 6,916,000 eggs during his nearly 40 years at the popular downtown restaurant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love what I do,\u201d Perez said of his job at the cafe. \u201cI\u2019m 70 now. I don\u2019t know how long I can stay here, but I like this place. It\u2019s like my second house.\u201d<\/p>\n
When you consider he worked 11 years in the kitchen at the former Rancho Bakersfield before starting at 24th Street, that\u2019s a half-century of enduring the rapid-fire, high-stress pace of a cafe or diner cook.<\/p>\n
His wife of 34 years, Blanca Perez, showed up for his party on Friday. She knows the pace he keeps.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, he\u2019s been so faithful to this place,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t call out sick. Never. Oh, my God. Never, never, never.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regulars Elena and Henry Acosta were there Friday to celebrate with the birthday boy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe try and catch George for a toast when we come in \u2014 when he\u2019s not busy, which he always is,\u201d Elena Acosta said, laughing. \u201cHe\u2019s very concentrated on his work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe employees here, most have been here 20, 30 years,\u201d she said. \u201cYes, we come in for them, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Food server Naomi Denton had only praise for Perez.<\/p>\n
\u201cGeorge should always be celebrated,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s been here nonstop every single day, Monday through Friday. He works his butt off, and he\u2019s been dedicated for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime I need anything, he always helps me out, helps out the customers, too,\u201d Denton said. \u201cHe\u2019s just amazing at what he does, as you can see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amazing restaurants require amazing employees. And somehow, 24th Street Cafe has found them and kept them. For decades. For life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each morning, Sebero \u201cGeorge\u201d Perez shows up to work early and ordered from top to bottom. He parks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152,23306,23299,23304,23307,412],"class_list":{"0":"post-191798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bakersfield","8":"tag-bakersfield","9":"tag-bakersfield-headlines","10":"tag-bakersfield-news","11":"tag-cooking","12":"tag-cuisine","13":"tag-food-and-drink-preparation","14":"tag-foods","15":"tag-restaurants"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}