By the time I walked in for my last training shift on a Sunday night, I was thinner, my spirit was beaten down, and I was worried about the road I seemed to be headed back down.
I was also still broke. I’d trained for seven shifts at $10 an hour, and I was relieved when my trainer asked me to take this shift alone. The managers were nowhere to be found, as usual, and she wanted to meet up with her boyfriend — a musician who was always cheating on her. The restaurant was slow, she told me I now knew what I was doing, and, best of all, she would let me take all of the tips I made home.
At nearly 9 o’clock, three women walked in: two women I’d never seen before and the one and only Catherine O’Hara. I froze. My mind flashed to O’Hara’s squiggly sideburns in “Beetlejuice.” Her iconic “Kevin!” in “Home Alone.” The dozens and dozens of times my sister and I had watched “Best in Show.” All of the characters she’d played that shaped my sense of humor. My sense of joy. How could I possibly serve her without telling her I loved her?
They sat in a window booth with Catherine in the center. When I went to greet her party, her friends enthusiastically interrupted to tell me they were taking her out for her birthday. She shook her head sheepishly, embarrassed and amused.
“We’ve been friends forever,” she told me. “They don’t let me get away with anything.”
As a writer, I try to avoid cliches, but reader, her eyes truly sparkled with life and kindness.
Soon, they were my only table. I folded napkins a short distance away from them and watched the three friends enjoy each other’s company — and one of everything from the starter section, plus a burger, the tuna and the chicken. They shared a bottle of wine and giggled like girls.
Over the course of their meal, I realized that in just a few weeks, the restaurant I stood in had distorted what success should look like, but no one could extinguish the aura of true success that radiated off Catherine. She had “it” — that thing I’d come to NYC to prove I had, too, and “it” wasn’t thinness or ambition at all costs, or even talent, though of course she had that, too. It was her sense of self — how she held herself and confidently, yet humbly, moved through the world — that no one could rival… or take away from her.
By the time I dropped the chocolate soufflé off, their table held the last lit candle in the restaurant.
I placed the dessert in front of Catherine, and then I took a breath.
“I’m not supposed to bother our famous diners,” I said, “but I just have to tell you how much your acting means to me and my sister. ‘Best in Show’ is our favorite movie, and your character is my favorite.”
“Me?” she said, genuinely incredulous. “Your favorite!”
“I’m sorry to bother you. I just had to say something. Happy birthday.” I quickly turned away, mortified.
“Wait,” she called after me, “What’s your name? What’s your story?”
She insisted that I join them in their booth and asked what kind of artist I was.
“Every server in this city has an interesting story,” she said, gesturing her spoon toward me, her mouth full of birthday soufflé, and the trio’s attention now fully, yet comfortably, on me.
I told her all about my dream to be an author and about the short story I was working on.
“What if one of the characters dies?” she riffed, delighted.
Were we collaborating? I could hardly breathe.
I was glad to have refused their offer of a bite of soufflé because the manager suddenly appeared from his basement lair, and I immediately popped out of the booth.
“I’ll just grab you the check,” I said, with my arms behind my back again, in an attempt to look professional. She winked at me as I walked away.
She paid the bill herself, though her friends tried, and though my tip out didn’t reflect it, she left me 100% on their $400 bill and a note that read, “I know your day will come. Keep writing.”
The manager wouldn’t let me keep the receipt, but I didn’t need it.
Catherine had given me something invaluable that night. Her kindness has always stayed with me. She showed me a different way to be an artist — to be a person. She chose passion, curiosity, individuality and humility in an industry that often made that feel impossible.
I never went back to the restaurant again after that night. I left before the thinness of the place convinced me I had to disappear to deserve a future. There were plenty of other workplace cultures ahead of me that would also try to normalize self-erasure as ambition, but years later, when I sat down to write this essay just days after Catherine O’Hara’s death, I could still clearly conjure that moment with her. Thanks to her, I still try to follow my appetite, to seek fullness and to believe, even on my hungriest days, that my day will come.
Sammi LaBue is the founder of Fledgling Writing Workshops (“Best Writing Workshops,” Timeout NY) and basically obsessed with the feeling of having an idea and writing it down. Her latest project is a recently finished memoir written in collaboration with her mom titled “Bad Apples.” Some of her other essays can be found in BuzzFeed, Slate, Literary Hub, The Sun, Glamour and more. To follow her writing journey and find opportunities to write with her flow, visit fledgling.substack.com.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost in February 2026.
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