Familiar Face - Dawn Dunlap

"I like stuff I can learn from," said Dawn Dunlap, a waitress at the Garden Gate Cafe who has been working at her job in Niwot for the past eight years. Before that, she had been a waitress in Lyons but she lost that job when the town flooded in 2013. "I love it here," she said, with a bright smile. "People in Niwot are so kind."

We were sitting at an outside cafe table one recent afternoon, shortly after her 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. work-day had ended. She didn't look fatigued in the least. Talking about what she likes to read, she said, "Not fiction. I just like non-fiction – biography and history. I love learning something new. And I love learning from my customers. Like there is a great group of Vietnam War veterans who meet here for breakfast on Saturday mornings, and I've learned so much from them."

"I was born in Texas," she explained, "and raised a bit of everywhere. I've lived in Oregon and Idaho and Maryland and West Virginia and, of course, Colorado. My Mom moved us around a lot. We were three girls and a boy. I hated working as a waitress in bars, because drunk customers are really a pain, but I always liked working in diners."

A Colorado resident for the past 15 years, Dunlap said she started waitressing in Niwot after losing her job in Lyons because of the flood. "I didn't even know where Niwot was," she recalled, "but I have a wonderful boss and great co-workers and wonderful customers. The regulars are my faves – people here are all quirky, different." Then she told about a family she had just met at the Garden Gate Cafe who had recently relocated to Niwot from South Africa.

Dunlap is the mother of "two kids, four grand-kids and two great grand-sons." Most of her family, she explained, is in Idaho – "a 12-hours drive away." One son, however, still lives at home with her in Longmont. "His name is Pete. He's 29. He has Asperger's," she said. Although Asperger's Syndrome has limited her son's ability to communicate, Dunlap said, "I always pushed him. I believe you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move on," noting that her son, who has limited social skills and "is unable to talk to people," is now working in the kitchen in a diner where he doesn't have to talk much. "I'm proud of him," she said with a grin.

Dunlap works five days a week – Wednesday through Sunday – every week of the year. The only days off at the Garden Gate Cafe are Christmas and Thanksgiving, she said. With six servers and two cooks, the small cafe in Cottonwood Square where she works, and the town of Niwot, she said over and over again, feel like home. "I don't think I've ever been anywhere where there is every kind of nice people. Here people care about their neighbors."

She gave an example, explaining that her mother, whom she visited every day in a local elder care facility, suddenly dropped dead of a stroke last November. She looked as if she were about to cry. But her face brightened when she said, "And you know what, the owner of a local store, she showed up for me. She came to the Cafe and brought me a vase of flowers. It meant so much to me. It was surprising how that little jar of flowers cheered me up so much."

Dunlap mentioned the dog she recently adopted. "His name is George. He is special needs. He is blind in one eye and he's handicapped and he runs sideways and he falls. George is a great little dog."

The owner of the cafe, Steve Gaibler, stopped by on his way out. Both told how "really scary," in Dunlap's words, the pandemic was, but reported that the business now, again in her words, "is just as strong as before the pandemic."

"We are definitely a family here," she added. " We feel like family."

"I've been in Colorado 15 years," she explained after her boss left. "Steve has run the Garden Gate Cafe for 22 years. I really appreciate being in this town and appreciate my customers."

Sitting out in the sun, Dunlap recalled her near daily visits to her Mom before she died last fall. "There were so many other people who lived there in that facility" she said, "and nobody ever came to visit them. They were so lonely and now I try to help them."

After her long day of work, this kind waitress who described herself as a person who liked "adventure, moving, learning, seeing new things," was off to join some volunteers she had recruited to make Easter baskets for some of the residents in the elder care facility where her late mother had lived. "They need to know someone remembers them," she said, adding, "and we make baskets for them at Valentine's Day and Christmas too."