There was a red fire button on the wall which would dispense some sort of fire-retardent all over the stove, so my parents told me. There was a small window opening so that my dad could pass the dishes to my mom. The back of the room had a big double-door that would be open for big shipments of restaurant consumables. It wasn't dirty, but it was messy. Lots of little bits of food and grease all over the place, and a lot of noise from the fans over the stove.

Across the hall from the kitchen were two bathrooms and a small closet. The bathrooms were huge. Standard toilet and wash basin, But they each were twice as big as they need to be to be comfortable. Well, it was good for disabled people, although I don't know if those laws were in effect back then. The whole layout of the place was virtually unchanged from what they inherited from the previous occupants. So the bathrooms were big.

My sister and I, well mostly my sister, helped out. I was a lazy kid and spent my time watching television. My sister bused and cleaned the tables. Sometimes I'd wash the many dishes and pots and pans. There was always a lot of work to do, and there were only the four of us. My parents would go to work at 09:00 or so to get the place open by 11:00. It'd be open for lunch, then closed from 14:00 to 16:30 which I didn't think was odd back then, and it still isn't odd if you remember that that's siesta time in Peru. Then it would be open until 21:00 and they'd get back home by 22:00.

Come to think of it, Steph and I didn't spend that much time at the restaurant. Once we moved to a house, a few blocks from school, we just walked ourselves to school and back and only saw our parents maybe in the morning and when they got back from work. Also just before they went back for the dinner shift. My dad would bring back whatever the leftovers of the lunch special were, so I'd eat lunch after school. Fried chicken wings and fresh rice were my favorites. I don't remember the other specials; it was a different one each day of the week.

Dinner was always after 21:00, and we pretty much continued that custom even after they sold the restaurant and got normal jobs. One of those culture shocks I got when I went to college was how early everyone ate lunch and dinner. Noon? Six PM? Way too early! But that didn't stop me from eating.

When we were young, my sister and I would be stuck at the restaurant, since our parents didn't like us to be home alone, I guess. Although they did relent a year or two later. And still I see no problem with latchkey kids. Anyway, we'd play out back during the day. Like any sort of shopping area, there's a sort of road going round the back of all the stores. Then there were bushes and a fence and then homes and such. We'd hide in the bushes and crawl around behind them aways down the road, trying to hide from the occassional pedestrian or car. I also had this little clear plastic box with a magnifying glass built into the lid. I guess so you could catch a bug and watch it closely. Being a boy, I naturally used it as a chamber of death to fry any bug I could get inside of it.

At first I was a little sad when my parents sold that restaurant. But now I understand better. They put in about ten hours a day every day of the week, and more time during the weekend (it was only open for dinner in the weekends). And they did that for like six years. They're happier now working normal jobs, interacting with their coworkers, not having to worry about running a business. But it was a focus that had an influence in my young life.