A HERO IN OUR MIDST - MARY JANE

Before we built our new restaurant, we knew we needed people working for us we could trust.


Early in our plan, we included Mary Jane Hamilton in the team.


Mary Jane is not a blood relative but she is like a blood brother/sister. We are related through marriage on one level. (Her brother was married to my mother’s sister)


Mary Jane and Noreen have been fast friends since Noreen and I were married more than thirty years ago. They discovered each other at a family gathering hosted by my aunt and uncle. They were smokers and the smokers had been banished to the basement. The relationship started around an ashtray and has evolved all these years. Sisters of the Smoke.

Isn’t it curious, they were both feeling a little out of place at a Christmas dinner and they ended up with a bond of friendship that has lasted more than thirty years?

Over the years, Mary Jane was a friend and employee at the Hub. She was working in the old drive in on that February day in 1982 when the runaway truck crashed into the building. Mary Jane was the one who alerted the two ladies seated at the corner front window table of the impending crash. And even though they were injured by the flying debris, they were not killed. If it had not been for her heads up alert, they would have been directly in that truck’s path and certain death.

The front of the truck stopped halfway across the seating area. The two ladies managed to get away from the table but not quite out the door and were struck by flying debris and pinned against the opposite side wall of the dining area by tables and video games.

Generally, we don’t require that our employees be heroes, but we were lucky enough to have one in the house that day. If you asked her about it today she would probably tell you it was “no big deal” but two lives were saved by her alertness and quick thinking.

Not long after that event took place, MJ left the Hub and went to work for John Fluke Manufacturing Co. She worked there for fifteen years until the business sold to the Daniher company and her management position was phased out.

We were beginning talks about building our new restaurant in 1999 so I told her I had work for her as a manager but it would have to wait until we actually built the new Hub. She took a job at Bartell’s Pharmacy with the idea that it would be short term. As it turned out, it was four years.


When the plan for the new Hub was actually coming to fruit, she had to decide whether she wanted to stay at Bartell’s or throw in with us. We were very lucky to have her choose us.


I think everyone around us was excited about being involved with the next chapter in the history. There was a lot of public display of affection prior to our closing and when the new building was being built, there was significant public appreciation that we were coming back.

Mary Jane’s decision to leave Bartell’s and throw in with us was pivotal in getting our restaurant off the ground. It would have been difficult for us to focus on the many aspects of the opening had it not been for MJ. Having her on the team gave me the freedom to focus on the kitchen.


From the time construction began in April of 2003 until the August 18 opening we did a lot of planning and preparation for the launch. Mary Jane, Noreen and I spent countless hours working on the plan.


In the month prior to the opening, hiring staff was our primary task. We collected between fifty and sixty applications for three types of positions; cooks, servers and drive thru. We expected to hire four cooks, four drive thru servers and twenty table servers. The process of reviewing the applications, deciding who would get interviews, the questions we would ask during the interviews and then finally deciding who would get offers for jobs was grueling. Even when you break it down into smaller bites, it is a hard job.


Our plan was for MJ, Noreen and I to interview each candidate in a group with one of us asking questions while the other two observed how the applicant responded to the question. We took turns asking. We each took our own notes and at the end, we compared notes and made recommendations. At the end of the interviews, we had three piles of apps; “Keeper”, “Maybe” and “NO WAY!”.


After the interview process, the list of “Keepers” was not near long enough to fill the positions.


In all fairness, the “Keeper” list was really short. We would probably have to take all the “maybe” folks; and if we didn’t get enough takers, we may even have to reconsider some of the “NO WAY!” applicants. As it turned out, we did take a couple “No Way” folks. Filling that many positions with really qualified people was beyond hope.


Mary Jane had been a department manager at Flukes so she had some experience in interviewing and hiring staff, but Noreen had not been involved too much over the years. That experience at Flukes gave her some tools that were valuable in developing our team.


After all the interviewing and hiring was done, we assembled the recruits for some preliminary briefing. It was a rag-tag bunch. I can remember on more than one occasion glancing around the room with raised eyebrows. These folks would be the face of the new HUB in Snohomish.

Looking back today, I am absolutely convinced that “ignorance is bliss”. Not knowing what was ahead for us allowed us to move forward at that point.

NOTE: You have to understand that the process of building our new restaurant took almost four years from the time we first sat down with the Kirtley-Coles. When you have been involved in every minute detail and decision, you have developed a fairly comprehensive vision for what you want. The fact that we are mortgaging our future for almost a million bucks only adds to the pressure. The idea that I would delegate authority to others just as we are reaching the home stretch would be unlikely. Therein was the problem for Noreen and Mary Jane. I had been so intimately involved with the minutia I was not prepared to deal with the overload of decisions that were coming. My plan and my expectations did not turn out according to plan. Because of my stubbornness and insecurities, I did not empower MJ and Noreen to solve problems as they came up and as a result, we stalled badly. Being so stubborn, I was reluctant to admit my mistakes and insisted on sticking to a flawed plan. It was only after they demanded the freedom to be managers that we could advance. That was my shortcoming.


Both Noreen and Mary Jane knew me well enough to understand how much of me was invested in my plan and even though they knew my plan was flawed they did their best to execute the plan. As it turned out, we abandoned my plan and they had to develop plans that fit the needs of their department. The framework they developed in those first couple months is still the basis of how we operate today.

Mary Jane demonstrated heroic actions that day in 1982 when she saved the lives of those two ladies in the old HUB. Her contribution to our new restaurant did not save any lives from violent death, but the value of her contribution was no less heroic. Her taking charge of the service staff allowed me to work in the kitchen when I really needed to.

Noreen and I have owned the HUB since 1985 and in that time, we have looked at the personal relationships we developed with our customers as being one of the greatest rewards of the work. It should not go without saying that we have been fortunate to develop some special relationships with staff members as well.

We have picked some dogs over the years, but we have also been lucky enough to have some great employees. We will be forever grateful for the contribution Mary Jane Hamilton made to our business. Thank You MJ!