Cafeteria Worker Has Spent Decades Feeding Statehouse Employees

• By Isaac Gleitz, TheStatehouseFile.com
• May 30, 2022, 2022

INDIANAPOLIS—Brenda Ward, 62, can’t stand it when people look at their cell phones while trying to order their food.

When someone has their face buried in pixels, she skips them for the next person in line.

Ward misses the “hot-dog days” of years past when she and the staff would set out a bar offering unlimited toppings.

It frustrates her when people ignore the obvious, too. On cue, a customer approached her and asked for a V8.

“If they aren’t up there, we don’t have ‘em,” she replied abruptly.

He placed his items next to the register. She grinned and rang up his order. She wiped the popcorn machine with a paper towel and glass cleaner and cleaned an overused tea kettle with a rag.

“When it’s time to go, you ready—gotta get outta here at 3.” She sighed. “We never get out at 3.”

She and her coworker, Nancy, gathered their belongings at 3:08 p.m, and Ward sealed the cafeteria in the basement of the Indiana Statehouse behind a metal gate.

She’s been cleaning and serving for 20 years.

“I’ve been doing it for so long now that it don’t even phase me,” she said.

Her glance tilted upward as a man left the register with soda in hand.

“Thanks, Hunter,” she said.

He visits every day.

Brenda Ward serves a customer in the Statehouse cafeteria. She said Monday is a hodge-podge day, Tuesday is for tacos, Wednesday is for pulled pork nachos, Thursday is leftover day and Friday is for the regular menu items.

Ward said the visitors come for the chat. She knows their names and has many of their orders memorized.

“They love us, and that’s true. They love the customer service and the way we treat ‘em,” Ward said. “We treat people with respect.”

She likes to tell people about her family: She has four children, 15 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

“Our children are grown, so it’s a quiet life,” Ward said. “They ain’t been down here [the Statehouse] in a long time … They used to come in their younger years and just walk through and just visit their mama.”

Her current spell marks her second time working at the Statehouse. She spent a few years working at Government Center South, but she’s back to her home base.

During the legislative session, she rarely gets to sit down. She regularly runs out of certain food items, especially beef hot dogs.

Legislators eat a lot of beef hot dogs, and she doesn’t know why.

“I like a lot of [the legislators] because they do sit down and talk to you,” Ward said. “They don’t just walk away. We talk. We conversate.”

She listed her favorite politicians, straining her memory for the names of sharply dressed people who have stopped to gab—it’s a long list. Perhaps she’s had her fill. She plans to retire in August and spend more time with her 81-year-old mother.

An older man pointed at her as she cleaned the counter.

“You missed a spot,” he said.

“Behave,” she retorted.

She gestured with a smirk. “He’s been my boyfriend for years. Remember when you gave me that card when I turned 50? I still have that. It’s been a while.”

“That was just yesterday,” he said.