Lynn’s Capitol Diner honors servers with decades of experience

LYNN-Joyce Page has worked 26 years at the Capitol Diner but when it comes to on-the-job experience she can?t hold a candle to co-worker Charlene Mercaldi.The Highlands resident has served breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Capitol for 40 years and, along with Page, she was honored Thursday for her service by diner owner and state Rep. Robert Fennell.Fennell gave them gold watches and a Fox25 television crew lavished attention on the pair while customers smiled and congratulated them.?It was really a festive morning but I was a nervous wreck,” said a normally unflappable Page.She started working at the Union Street diner when venerable Capitol counter worker Marie Petrillo retired. Page had recently been laid off from a local company and needed the part-time job.?I wasn?t doing anything but hanging down at the beach,” she said.A couple of hours a day turned into full-time work in a job where she became a Capitol mainstay. The diner?s reputation as a stop on the campaign trail for politicians allowed her to meet the late Edward M. Kennedy and other luminaries. She also developed the ability to strongly urge the occasional rude customer to leave the diner.?One time I had to tell a guy his presence was no longer welcome. He made one of the counter girls cry.”Mercaldi started working at the Capitol when Fennell?s father, the late Buddy Fennell, hired her along with Petrillo. During her years behind the counter yards away from the elevated commuter rail tracks, Mercaldi has served countless Belgian waffles to Capitol regulars like Walter Mitchell who just celebrated his 103rd birthday.She cleaned out the chicken coop the Fennells once kept next to the diner, but left customer eviction work to Buddy.?He could look at people and get the message across quickly,” she said.Mercaldi starts work at 3 a.m. every day, preparing for her work day in the home her parents bought when she was in the third grade. Police officers working the early morning hours keep a lookout for her when she arrives downtown. She opens the Capitol in time for the first food and kitchen supply deliveries.Like Page, Mercaldi credits the Fennells and the Capitol?s loyal customers with sustaining its popularity. When a fire gutted the diner in November 1978, customers and suppliers rallied to help Buddy and Bobby Fennell rebuild.?Good friends and hard work got this place up and running,” Mercaldi said.