What truly matters - faith, kindness, and hope

Most people spend their entire lives waiting to meet a real bonafide angel. But anyone in Greensboro will tell you that all it takes is to have a seat at Tenchi Spanish American Kitchen and pray you get the blonde waitress, the one rightly called Smiley.

Smiley admitted that she’s been called an angel on Earth more than once, but she laughs it off and says “I always tell people my halo is bent and it’s been through the recycling about 100 times!” She got this reputation by being “full of love and compassion, always ready to encourage and uplift,” as Tenchi owner Nick Wake puts it.

Smiley, whose real name is Eleanor Weiber for anyone wondering, was raised in the small neighborhood of Margate in Glen Burnie, Maryland. “I didn't realize we were poor, because we always had food and things like that. My daddy had, like, three different jobs, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom. But it was very nice,” she said, “I remember my father raised chickens and vegetables, and I would help collect all the vegetables, and we would sit by the fence and get the nickels and quarters helping him sell the vegetables on the property.”

Besides her mom and dad, Smiley lived at home with her sister and twin brothers. “When I was really little I would help my dad with the chickens and I always liked to shake my mom's rugs and clean. I always liked to clean. And I loved to rock. I’d sit on the back porch and just rock and rock and rock and look at the stars.” But Smiley says she wasn’t always so fond of her family’s simple life, “sometimes I would kind of lie instead, like, ‘I live in that house over there’ because I guess I was embarrassed we had a poor little house.”

Smiley’s mother suffered from debilitating health problems that caused her to be in constant pain and even left her wheelchair-bound, but she “never complained one time.” She called both of her parents extremely hardworking – which just might be where she gets it from.

Her first waitressing gig was at a small diner, where her father got her a job when she was 14. “My sister would say ‘Smiley, you work with all these girls going to college. They're going to be an attorney, a nurse, they're going to do this. What are you going to do?’ I’m like, I'm going to be a waitress because that's what I love to do,” and so that’s what she did.

To Smiley, waitressing is more than serving food and drinks. It’s an opportunity to serve the Lord – something she is incredibly passionate about. “I wouldn't want to do anything else, because it's one one-on-one with the people and they touch your heart. You wait on all walks of life, and we get to talk about Jesus and the animals.”

“Animals” in this context references her famous collection of rescue cats, but we’ll get to that later.

Smiley moved to Caroline County in 1997 and has been here ever since. She raised her daughter, Melissa Lynn, here and has worked at a handful of local hotspots like the now-defunct Snappy’s Bar and Grill in Denton. Her interview process for a serving position at Tenchi was quite unusual, “When we first came to look at the restaurant, interested in possibly opening a business, we found a note taped to the back door. It was in a small envelope, and inside it said, "I have worked here and in restaurants for a very long time; I love people, and if you open a restaurant here, please call me. I would love to work for you. - Smiley." We did indeed call her; she was our first employee,” Wake said. Smiley says she has never been one to jump ship – most of her job moves have been due to her employer going out of business. But she has found her forever home at Tenchi, “I’m not going anywhere…I always tell people, we're going up in the rapture in the [Tenchi] food truck!”

Not a shift goes by that Smiley doesn’t pray over, with, for, or about someone at the restaurant – “I always say by the time they leave, they'll either have dessert or get saved,” she jokes. “It's just something that flows out of me from the Holy Spirit, that even sometimes when you don't make a tip and you wait on one person, it's just like a preacher going to church, and the congregation isn't that big, but if you can touch that one person and they plant that seed and goes on and on and on and, yeah, it's a beautiful thing.”

Even if you have four legs instead of two, you’re in luck, because she will cherish you just the same. As alluded to earlier, Smiley transcends the title of animal lover. “She’s truly the cat lady down the street who loves every animal that has ever existed,” Wake noted, “she spends her days helping, rescuing, or caring for various animals.” From turtles to birds to whitetail deer, Smiley has made it her personal mission to ensure every one of “God’s creatures” is treated with care and respect. The State Highway Administration probably owes her back pay for all the roadkill she has given a proper burial. But rescuing cats is her forte.

She says that when she first moved to the Eastern Shore, she noticed that there was a big stray animal problem due to all of the barn cats and dogs. So she started “saving them and getting them fixed,” and it has grown from there. “I've taken the ones who've been abandoned and no one wants. Some have very bad behavioral problems and some have cancer. So the ones I take in nobody wants, kind of like how God is like he knows you're worth something. He believed in me and saved me. So I wanted to save his creatures, and that's what I continue to do.”

In addition to running her own miniature rescue, Smiley is always supporting the Caroline County Humane Society in any way she can. Wake made sure to mention that, “over the eight years we have been here, she has helped raise thousands of dollars for the Humane Society, and she makes sure that every year we help get some of her furry friends adopted around Christmas time.” Wake also sets up yearly birthday fundraisers for the Humane Society in Smiley’s honor.

To say that Smiley would give the shirt off her back to help anyone (human or animal) in need would be an understatement. But despite her dedication and obvious impact on the community, Smiley remains humble, saying “I fall short every day.”

She truly loves all of her Caroline County customers, whom she collectively describes as “Tightly knit, sometimes opinionated, but so down to Earth and have worked hard all their life.” As far as what gets her up in the morning, Smiley credits “God’s grace”, her animals, and her job at Tenchi. Wake says she is the “foundation of everything that happens at each table throughout the week.”

“I’ve worked with hundreds of people throughout my career in the restaurant industry, and she is one of, if not the most, dedicated person to making each customer smile. I don’t think she even realizes her impact on each person she serves. It’s truly special to witness and be a part of each day.”

When she considers the advice she’d give to someone else (because who wouldn’t want to be more like Smiley?), she thinks back to those early days on her family’s tiny farm in Margate. “We all wish we could go back in time, and I wish I would have been better to my mom and dad when I went through my teenage years… and I hope I get to tell them in Heaven.” She also stressed that it’s “never too late to forgive someone” and not to “take each day for granted.”

Wake will tell you that Smiley’s presence “is a gentle reminder of what truly matters—faith, kindness, and hope.” But if you ask Smiley herself, she simply says, “I just ramble on and love God's people and creatures.”