Fare Thee Well: Remembering Wee Alice

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                             Even before the legendary supper club The Five Oaks, at 49 Grove Street in the West Village, had been purchased by the team of Jeremy Burrell and Mr. and Mrs. Tom Regan, the most constant element of the club's success was one waitress, by the name of Alice Gallacher. "Wee Alice," as she was popularly referred by co-workers and patrons alike, was a lady of diminutive stature, with raw-boned beauty and hair always piled into a simple demi-chignon, known and treasured not merely for her impeccable serving skills but also a bawdy sense of humor and a colorful vocabulary of expletives. Last week, in her late seventies, Gallacher entered immortality  from cancer, after a most intriguing life. A native of Glasgow, she was a career waitress; it was what she did and what she strove to do well. She left Scotland in the early 1960s and began working on cruise ships, settling in California for a short time and then migrating east to New York, where she would stay for over fifty years.

She was part of a merry band of fellow Scots waitresses from the supper club scene (including Maisie of Mrs. J's Sacred Cow), and worked for a time at Jack Delaney's (current home of the Monster) before transferring to the Oaks in 1970, then owned by Bill and Mae Norman. There is barely a regular customer who doesn't have a wonderful memory of Wee Alice; your reporter, for example, recalls the night of her birthday, when the staff ordered a Strip-A Gram for her gift, and a tall brawny fellow came dancing in as a Scottish Highlander, complete with kilt, sporran and tam'o'shanter before stripping to a G-string, all while Alice was seated atop the piano and howling with laughter.

It is her co-workers, however, who have even better memories. Stephen Miller, who was the club's maitre'd from 1991 through 1995, recalls, "She was hysterically funny, and puckish, and crass, but warm-hearted underneath all the bravado. She would dig her heels in about any subject, and fight you with everything she had. Yet, if she saw some merit in your argument, she had no qualms about changing her point of view.  Becoming your ally.  Gaining her respect was incredibly important to me because she had the experience and knowledge that makes one's respect mean something.  One birthday she gave me a painting that someone at the bar had given her, as a birthday present.  It was the worst painting in the world. I mean, really bad. But I was so thrilled that she took the time, even just to worry about having to get me something... anything... that to this day, twenty years later, I still own that hideous painting and will never get rid of it."

Busboy-turned-pianist-turned award-winning composer Bobby Peaco says, "Everyone else called her Wee Alice, but I called her Wee F*ck, because she called me Big F*ck. She said the best advice she got in seeking employment was to only look for restaurants where 'you couldn't hear the tips,' in other words, only places with tablecloths. If the place had tablecloths, it was classier and the money was better. So many customers at the Oaks always asked to be in her section because of her brash humor and no-nonsense style of service. Someone would order their entree and she'd say 'Oh no, dear, you don't want that, it's terrible. Have the pork chops.' Her checks looked like hieroglyphics. If you worked in the kitchen or the service bar, it was a badge of honor to read her writing. And God, was she funny. Never more so than when she didn't mean to be, or stuck her foot in her mouth. She told a customer once, 'My, you have such interesting hands'; he had a couple of fingers missing. We had a regular named John Skates, who had one leg shorter than the other from a birth defect, and had a leg brace and crutches. One night when he was in, Steven Griffiths (Jeremy Burrell's life partner) said to Alice, 'Hey Alice, you know John Skates?' and Alice said 'Really? Isn't it wonderful what those people can do these days!' I always loved that guttural, machine gun laugh of hers: heh heh heh heh heh. She died of cancer, but I think she decided it was time to go. The hospital she was in was just a block from John-Richard Thompson's apartment, so he was visiting her almost daily in the last few weeks. About a week ago she got the news that she had about six months to live, and John thought, from her condition, it was a conservative estimate and she'd be around much longer. He thought he'd take her to the beach one day soon to get her out of the hospital surroundings. So, within a week's time, to go from that to checking out--I think she used her famously obstinate nature to decide not to stick around and waste away."

The aforementioned John-Richard Thompson worked as a service bartender there and recalls, "On my first night in the Five Oaks, about thirty years ago, a small whirlwind dashed up to my table at closing time, whisked off the tablecloth, and snapped: 'Get the f*ck out'a here..'  That was the start of a long, fun, exasperating friendship that lasted right up to a few hours before she died.  She could barely speak at the very end, but a day or two earlier, in reference to a hospital roommate who continually asked for cookies, Alice sighed and rolled her eyes and said, 'Her and her f*cking cookies.'  I laughed at her irreverence thirty years ago as much as I laughed thirty years later.  Alice was an inspiration, especially in these last difficult years--I can't count the number of times she told me how lucky she was.  She faced adversity with grit, resistance and philosophical humor.  I will miss her, though I have never known anyone so prepared, and accepting, of the end. I was with her only a few hours before she died.  It was a comfort to see how ready she was...and when I said, 'It's OK, Alice, you can go now,' she nodded, though I suspect she would have said, 'No worries--I'm on my f*cking way!' I'll miss her so much."

Singer-pianist Steven Lowenthal remembers, "So many memories. The first time I ever sat in at the Oaks piano, Jeremy and Tom offered me dinner, and Alice piped up, 'Oh, have the scampi, dear!' If you thanked her twice for something, she'd tell you to shut your face. And when she'd kid the Flemish lyric of Brel's 'Marieke', she was hilarious. There's also the fact that Mr. Ling, the Chinese dishwasher, was the only one who could read her handwriting with no problem. And on and on." And singing waiter/bartender Aaron Lee Battle says, "Alice was a proud and obstinate woman, who had fun and was very proud of her life.  She would always say 'I am a waitress! I don't sing or act, and I am proud to be a waitress!' I will miss her so much. But losing her means there is another star shining in the sky to light the way!"

The simple fact is, Alice Gallacher leaves behind a marvelous legacy of unforgettable nights at an equally-unforgettable club. Go with God, Wee Alice.