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Just A Gal: Actress stops by for lunch, and you'd never know her from any other celebrity
Photo Courtesy of Johnny Cortesis
Johnny Cortesis, one of the owners of Cloverdale Kitchen, gets a Simpson snapshot.
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Published: January 24, 2009
When singer, actress and general celebrity Jessica Simpson talks about being "just like you" -- she means it.
Simpson was in Winston-Salem yesterday to perform last night as an opening act at Joel Coliseum for Rascal Flatts, one of the top acts in country music. Simpson has enjoyed considerable success as a pop singer, a reality TV star and most recently, a country singer. So given her level of celebrity, it is almost a given that she would dine at one of Winston-Salem's tonier restaurants.
So Carol Mimmer, 60, a waitress at Cloverdale Kitchen in Cloverdale Shopping Center, figured that something was up when four beautiful women, escorted by a man with a Blackberry glued to his ear, entered the just-folks restaurant at 12:45 yesterday afternoon.
"The shortest one was obviously somebody," Wimmer said, adding that she is known as "the waitress with a sense of humor."
"She was wearing sunglass, with a sweatshirt with the hood up. I know that drill. So I kept looking at her, and it came to me -- it was Fergie."
For the uninitiated, Fergie is the popular singer for the Black-Eyed Peas, as well as a solo star of considerable popularity.
"I was sure it was her -- I was going to ask her to sing … this song for my grandson -- but when I got up on her, I realized who it was."
She did not order buffalo wings or tuna (Chicken of the Sea), each of which looms large in her fame.
Instead, Simpson ordered fried chicken -- "She was evidently not worried about her figure," Wimmer said-- and was, most important, a big tipper. But Wimmer declined to say how much. She didn't have dessert, though Wimmer tried to persuade her.
"She was nice, especially so," Wimmer said. "But I was surprised at how short she is. And everybody left her alone, although a couple of tables in the back called me back to ask who she was."
Johnny Cortesis, one of the owners of the restaurant, asked if he could have his picture taken with Simpson. "When she said yes, I got so nervous that my heart was pounding like I was working out," Cortesis said, grinning. "But she was nice as could be. She just didn't want to take the picture out in the middle of the restaurant."
For those who want to park their caboose in the same seat that Simpson perched upon -- she sat at the second table in the middle row, the chair on the far right, facing the TV.
"I was sorry that we didn't have CMT (Country Music Television) on, so we could have watched her watching herself," Cortesis said, laughing.
Cortesis said that the brush with celebrity was exciting, and he was pleased that everybody kept their cool. Neither the customers nor the staff bothered her.
"One of our busboys picked up the chicken bone on her plate and said, ‘I'm going to keep this and sell it on eBay.' I told him to put it in the garbage and behave himself.
"But it probably wouldn't have been a bad idea."
■ Ed Bumgardner can be. reached at 727-7365 or at ebumgardner@wsjournal.com.
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