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Jiri “George” Banecek saves breakfast

Lucas Brown
Connector Contributor

It is 7:30 a.m., and you’re a sleepy-eyed freshman. Your “8 a.m. every day” schedule makes you so sleepy that class can seem like a nightmare.

College has been packed with exciting new knowledge and opportunity; a sensory overload of growth potential, but growth can be hard without healthy sustenance.

The dining hall is everything you heard it would be: loveless and subpar, yet edible and plentiful. The red meat is never anything but grey, fibers are few and far between and sugars and carbs run rampant as far as the eye can see.

Eggs are some of the only truly healthy fare and, surprisingly, they’re actually delectable. From where does this ray of light originate?

If you look to where the eggs are split, there’s one man there spreading the sunshine day in and day out.

There is, however, a routine that can help alleviate your morning woes, a routine that the hero of this article is the key part of. Not only is he the face of breakfast to many South Campus majors, but he is a staple of the South Campus community.

Though Jiri Banecek’s name plate reads “Jiri,” many students know the cook as “George.”

Hailing from the Czech Republic, George moved to the United States to follow friends and opportunity. He serves the most important meal of the day with a kind smile and very distinctive thin beard on his face.

George serves egg sandwiches and omelets at Mill City Restaurant on South Campus every day from 7:30 a.m to 10:45 a.m. If you just can’t seem to find a half hour to eat a real breakfast before your 8 a.m. class, he can be a lifesaver.

For many, including myself, breakfast is a sacred routine, one that my whole day is based on. I get the exact same thing every day: two eggs on a whole wheat bagel with American cheese and Broccoli, an egg over easy on the side.

At this point, I am a regular. George knows my usual order, and he’ll usually start making it as soon as he sees me walk into the dining hall.

He and I have been tied by this routine for over a year now and I don’t know if I could be a morning person without him.

I sat down with George to get better insight into the man behind the griddle, and learn the right way to say his name.

He says his breakfast of choice is two eggs sunny side up, heavily peppered, with a bagel and cream cheese. Or at least that was his breakfast the morning we sat down.

Speaking with George, he says he is a humble man; he speaks to me of the gospel of self-reliance and I say amen. “If you don’t do it, no one else will do it,” George says.

I believe there is a universal truth to this statement, something that has been drawing George and me together since before we shared any personal philosophy.

Self-control is the hardest lesson in life that one has to learn, and I’m sure George knows this better than many of the students he so lovingly serves.

George also says he really loves the students. Interacting with the diverse and beautiful UMass Lowell student body was, in his words, “the best part of my job.”

When asked about how many regulars he has, students whose orders he has memorized through daily interaction, George said, “Oh, about sixty or seventy.”

Before I could feel jealous, I was impressed. This man felt like some kind of hero, and I guess this was his super power. George has the particular breakfasts of over sixty different students memorized and he makes their breakfasts with next to no specific instructions.

At first I wasn’t even sure I should include this figure, because it’s so unbelievable to me. How does he remember so many people’s usual breakfasts?

Did he just simply make a mistake with his English? It’s his second language and six and sixty are different by only two letters.

But when I looked over the rest of my notes from the interview the answer cleared up. Something George made very clear during our conversation was that the best part of his job was interacting with the students.

A large part of this interaction is the specific instruction from the student for their desired breakfast, but it does not have to be, like when there are no instructions to give. When your breakfast routine is someone else’s, too, there’s something intimate about that.

When he saves you that time in the morning, all he asks for is warmth from the student body. If you’re also a regular, and you haven’t already, I urge you to take the time to look George squarely in the eyes and thank him.

At the very least, I’ve seen George eat breakfast with students a number of times. I believe it is this simple gratitude and warmth that nourishes George’s encyclopedic memory of breakfasts. I find it’s easier to remember the breakfast you cooked for someone when you’re eating it with them as well.

Specific thoughts are precious at 7:30, and therefore, having breakfast be thoughtless is a true blessing.

When I finished my interview with George, and he returned to fueling students’ mornings, another regular reached out to me immediately.

“Are you interviewing George? I don’t get the same thing every day, but that man cooks a damn fine egg,” he said.

I guess there are a lot of us regulars, and I will agree with his last claim, and that will be undisputed.