POPULAR WAITRESS SERVES UP FAREWELLS.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY

LA CRESCENTA - It's the end of an era next week at Dominick's Italian Restaurant in La Crescenta. Flo Harmon is serving her last plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

After 31 years of opening this family-owned Italian restaurant at 2 p.m. and closing it at 10 p.m. five days a week, the popular Brooklyn-born waitress is retiring.

``When you reach 66, what're you gonna do?'' said owner Carmela Russo, taking the news hard. ``The woman's been on her feet her whole life. I hate to lose her.''

Carmela and her husband, Frank, bought the restaurant in 1969 from his uncle, Dominick, and kept the name.

Flo came on board in 1970, calling Carmela one day from a pay phone to answer an ad in the local newspaper for an experienced waitress.

``She hired me over the phone,'' Flo recalled as she opened for business on Thursday afternoon. ``Carmela said, 'Please come, I'm so tired.' I came the next day and stayed 31 years.''

Sure, like all veteran waitresses, she's been on her feet most of her life and, yeah, they hurt, but that's not the main reason she's retiring next week.

``I want to spend more time with my grandkids,'' Flo said. ``I don't want to wake up one morning and realize they've grown and gone.''

Can't argue with that. Family comes before veal parmigiana.

Carmela, who's already retired, is taking Flo's retirement pretty hard, but not as hard as her longtime loyal customers.

Some of them began ordering Dominick's pizza or lasagna from Flo before they could read it on the menu.

``She's known some of her customers since they were babies, and now they're bringing in their own kids,'' said Diane Sweeney, who has been coming to Dominick's for 40 years.

The Sunland woman paid Flo the highest compliment I've ever heard any customer pay a waitress.

``She makes you feel like you're coming into her home,'' Sweeney said. Nice touch.

``When she has time, she sits and talks - wants to know how your family is doing and how your life is going,'' Sweeney said.

``Where do you find that kind of waitress anymore?''

You don't, said another longtime customer, Jane Omartian, who used to eat at Dominick's every week with her kids. She and her husband, Mike, are still eating there - now with their grandkids.

``She treats everyone like family and makes you feel so special,'' said Jane Omartian, who was in the restaurant last week when some of the guys from the La Crescenta substation of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department came in with a special plaque for Flo.

``She just has that knack for making people feel comfortable and special,'' said another 20-year customer, Pat Ralston.

She's going to miss her customers, Flo said - miss them a lot.

``It's not stretching things to say that I love them, that they're like my family,'' she said. ``I've been waiting on their children, and now I'm waiting on their children's children.''

It's time to start waiting on her own grandchildren before it's too late and they're grown and gone, she said.

She hates to say goodbye, but come around 10 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 29, she'll be serving her last plate of spaghetti and meatballs at Dominick's.

Family comes before veal parmigiana.

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Flo Harmon is serving farewells along with the food at Dominick's Italian Restaurant in La Crescenta, where she will retire Dec. 29 after 31 years on the job.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News