Retiring Dishwasher Cleaning Up to Tune of $100,000

This is a tale of the dishwasher and the restaurant owner. Not exactly screenplay stuff, and nothing that’s going to excite the New York publishing houses either.

It’s a pretty simple tale, actually, of a guy just trying to make an honest living and a boss who had an idea.

I’ll kill the suspense right now: It has a happy ending.

Belgium-born Marcel Pitz came to the United States in 1964, trained as a chef and hoped someday to own a restaurant. In 1977, he opened Dizz’s As Is in Laguna Beach. It was his first business venture, and it proved to be a quick success.

He calls the place “the mismatched restaurant.” The chairs don’t match, the plates don’t match. The style is Art Deco, and the cuisine is continental. The name is supposed to suggest an air of informality and comfort.

About the same time as Dizz’s opened, Antonio Ojeda arrived in Orange County from Torreon in the Mexican state of Coahuila.

“When I arrived from Mexico,” Ojeda said, “a cousin of mine said she knew of a restaurant and some other places where I might find work. She had been here a few months. I didn’t know where to look. I arrived with her, and with her help I went and asked for a job. It was she who recommended me to Marcello. And that’s how I got my job.”

Pitz gave Ojeda a job as a dishwasher. As you might expect, dishwashers come and go in the restaurant business, as do other employees. Employee longevity is not an industry trademark.

But Ojeda proved the exception. He showed up for work day after day and week after week. In a business where hours can be all over the map, Ojeda often put in 10-hour days. Pitz dutifully recorded them.

Eventually becoming the father of nine, Ojeda was content working as a dishwasher. He didn’t aspire to become a cook or a waiter and, for whatever reason, never bothered to learn much English. He says he isn’t sure, but he thinks he made about $80 or $90 a week when he started.

And he played out his professional life at Dizz’s. “He was a hard worker, he always showed up to work, he never was sick,” Pitz said of Ojeda. “He never said a word; he just did what he had to do.”

You’ve got the picture of Ojeda.

Then there’s Pitz, 54, who turned a profit early on with the restaurant and was looking for ways to defer taxes. With his accountant’s help, Pitz settled on an employee pension fund.

While conceding that he set up the fund to improve his tax situation, it should be noted that there were other places where Pitz could have put the money. Nor was he legally required to establish a pension program.

As Ojeda came to work day after day, his fund grew.

Now 65, Ojeda is retiring. And as the paperwork was completed on his retirement plan, everyone at the restaurant was stunned.

It was discovered that the immigrant dishwasher will receive somewhere in the ballpark of $100,000.

“We all knew the money was there, but we didn’t know it would be that big,” said Mark Pitz, the restaurant’s manager and Marcel’s son. “We didn’t pay any attention to it, and we didn’t fathom it would ever add up to that much.”

He attributed the size of the payoff to all the hours that Ojeda worked and his age.

Ojeda said he isn’t sure what he’ll do with the money. He said he didn’t know until about two months ago that he was even enrolled in a pension plan.

“I had absolutely no idea that after working here I would have any money,” he said. “I was content with my job here, and when I left, that was it.”

Knowing that other immigrants are often either ripped off or left with nothing after years of work, Ojeda is thankful for his good fortune.

He and his wife, Lydia, may relocate in Mexico, he said. At the very least, they’re planning a trip back to his hometown.

As for Marcel Pitz, he only said that he’s happy for Ojeda.

“I started in the trade at 15, and one of the things I learned is that you have to respect the dishwasher as much as the chef and as much as the maitre d’ to make the restaurant function properly,” Pitz said.

“When I set the thing up, I was thinking about trying to keep people. Dishwashers are as important as the chefs if you can keep them. The guy did perform, and he lasted with me for so long. It’s not that easy a job washing dishes. It’s the kind of job everybody takes for granted, but it’s not easy.”

At the end of the month, Dizz’s will throw a little party for Ojeda’s retirement. There will probably be jokes about how he’ll spend his loot. Pitz has already put him in touch with an accountant for investing advice.

“It’s almost like winning the lottery for him,” Pitz says.

I talked for a while Friday morning to Ojeda’s granddaughter, Susie Suarez. She said she had never heard her grandfather complain about work. “He came here for the same reason everybody comes,” she said. “To make a better life.”

With Marcel Pitz’s help, Antonio Ojeda got one.