Celebs Who Fell In Love With Restaurant Workers
We've heard plenty of rags-to-riches stories from celebrities, including how a few A-listers worked in restaurants before making it big. There's comedian Chris Rock, who worked at Red Lobster scraping shrimp, stars like Rachel McAdams, James Franco, and Jay Leno flipped burgers at McDonald's; and even legendary pop diva Mariah Carey tried her hand at waitressing. However, it didn't go well for Carey, who claimed to have a bad attitude.
Working at a restaurant is a great first job, but it could also potentially be where you meet the love of your life. Though the stars mentioned above didn't meet their future spouses at a drive-thru window, the stars listed below did. Well, they didn't exactly fall in love while getting their coffee orders taken, but you get the gist. The few stars mentioned here just happened to marry or date those working in the restaurant business. From servers, bartenders, and chefs, these celebs didn't need their partners to have any star status before dating them. People find love just about anywhere; for these celebs, it was probably where they least expected.
Check out which stars fell in love with restaurant workers.
Jeff Bridges married a waitress
Jeff Bridges has worked with several female actors throughout his seven-decade career. He's even dated a few of them, too. Bridges dated actor Cybill Shepherd for a brief time after the two starred in 1971's "The Last Picture Show; he dated his "Fat City" co-star Candy Clark and found himself in a romance with actor Valerie Perrine with whom he starred in 1973's "The Last American Hero." However, the woman who ended up stealing Bridges' heart had no affiliation with the world of Hollywood, with the pair still happily married.
While working on the film "Rancho Deluxe" in Paradise Valley, Montana, in 1975, Bridges met restaurant waitress Susan Geston. According to "The Big Lebowski" actor, it was love at first sight. "I'm doing this scene with Sam Waterston and Harry Dean Stanton, and I cannot take my eyes off this gorgeous, I didn't know what she was, a maid, a waitress, I couldn't take my eyes off of her," Bridges shared with "Today" (via People) in 2018. Although Geston initially declined a date with Bridges, the two crossed paths at the film's wrap party, where Bridges shared, "We danced and we fell in love and boom that was it."
The couple wed in 1977 and welcomed three daughters. Having celebrated over 40 years of marriage, Bridges told People in 2022, "We love each other, but we really like each other. I was 21 when we met. We were kids. And we still feel like kids."
Jennifer Lopez's first husband worked at a Miami restaurant
Jennifer Lopez has a long list of boyfriends and husbands, including prominent A-listers, but her first marriage was to a regular guy named Ojani Noa. According to the Daily Mail, Lopez met Cuban-born Noa while working as a waiter at the Miami restaurant Larios on the Beach. "I had no idea who she was. Our eyes glanced at each other and I thought she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen," Noa recalled to the news outlet in 2022. The pair had a whirlwind romance and wed in February 1997, but after eleven months, they called it quits.
According to Noa, the immense fame surrounding Lopez may have contributed to their split. Lopez found crazy success with the release of the 1997 film "Selena" and was beginning to work on her debut album "On the 6." "We fell in love when she was already famous. But during our marriage, she became a megastar," Noa told the Daily Mail. Despite their failed marriage, Lopez hired Noa in 2002 to work as a manager at her Los Angeles restaurant Madres, but he was fired in 2005.
Things turned sour for the former lovers when Noa attempted to tarnish her reputation by writing a tell-all book and leaking an intimate video of the star. According to The Daily News, Lopez won over $500,000 in a lawsuit that ended any tell-alls, and in 2009, Noa was prohibited from using a sex tape in a movie about his life.
Nicolas Cage met his third wife while she was a waitress
Nicolas Cage may be known for his over-the-top acting performances, but also for his five marriages. The "National Treasure" star's first two marriages were to two women in the entertainment industry — Patricia Arquette, whom he married from 1995 to 2001, and the late Lisa Marie Presley, whom he wed from 2002 to 2004. Cage gave marriage a third try, but this time it was to someone who wasn't in Hollywood.
Cage married former waitress Alice Kim in July 2004. The two began dating that February after meeting at the Los Angeles restaurant where Kim was employed. Though it seemed like a fast-paced romance, the couple were married for eleven years and welcomed a son named Kal-El in 2005 before their divorce in 2016. Despite going their separate ways, they remain on good terms. Cage's fourth marriage was his shortest — he tied the knot with makeup artist Erika Koike in March 2019, but he filed for annulment four days later.
Cage is currently married to his fifth wife, Riko Shibata. The pair wed in Las Vegas in February 2021, with Kim in attendance. In September 2022, the couple welcomed a daughter named August. With five marriages under his belt, Cage told GQ this one would last. "I am a romantic, and when I'm in love, I want to give that person everything I can. It's my expression of saying, 'I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.' And this is it for me,'" he said.
David Schwimmer's former wife waited on him
Actor David Schwimmer traveled to England to shoot his 2007 comedy "Run Fatboy Run." There, he met waitress Zoe Buckham who was working at The Cuckoo Club in London's West End and who happened to be the server for the "Friends" star.
The two hit it off as People reported that Buckham, a photographer, left England behind to be with Schwimmer in the States. They announced their engagement in March 2010 and secretly wed that June. The following year, the couple welcomed a daughter named Cleo. Though the duo wasn't known for talking to the press about their marriage, Buckham did give some insight about being with the actor in 2016, "I come from a really creative family; both on my mother and father's side there were a lot of bohemian theater people ... I just personally never want to act; I'm not at all interested in that. But then look at who I married ... so it's like you run away from something but yet you bring it into your world," Buckham told Interview.
However, their marriage was over in 2017, with the exes releasing a statement to Us Weekly: "It is with great love, respect, and friendship that we have decided to take some time apart while we determine the future of our relationship."
Drew Barrymore married a bar owner
Drew Barrymore has dated many famous faces, including Corey Feldman, David Arquette, Luke Wilson, and Justin Long. However, she wouldn't end up marrying any of these A-listers. Instead, the "Charlie's Angels" star's first marriage was to Los Angeles bar owner Jeremy Thomas. Barrymore was 19 when she wed the then-31-year-old in March 1994 after dating for six weeks.
The couple's wedding took place inside Thomas' bar. It appeared to be on a whim, with People reporting that their wedding officiant was "a minister-psychic-private detective who arrived with her English bulldog, Jimmy." However, the newlyweds didn't even make it to their honeymoon after they split nineteen days after saying their I Do's. The exes' divorce was finalized in 1995. That same year, in an interview with Rolling Stone, Barrymore referred to her ex-husband as "the devil."
Barrymore married two more times. Her second marriage was to comedian Tom Green, but their wedding bliss was brief. The couple wed in July 2001, and Green filed for divorce in December. The actor's third marriage to Will Kopelman appeared promising, with the two tying the knot in 2012 and welcoming two children. However, they split in 2016. With three divorces, Barrymore told People in 2020 that while she still hopes to find her one true love, marriage will forever be out of the question. "Never. Never, never, never. I will never get married again! And I also believe people should not say the word 'never,' and I will never, with a capital N-E-V-E-R, never get married," she said.
Zac Efron had eyes for a cafe worker
In 2017, actor Zac Efron told reporters in Australia (via Us Weekly) about his love for the land Down Under while promoting the film "Baywatch." "I've fallen in love with Australia and the fans out here, the people, the culture, the beach ... [I've] made great friends over the years here. I kind of sneak over here on my own time as well." You could say Efron admired the Aussie lifestyle even more when he began dating Australian native Vanessa Valladares three years later.
Efron and Valladares met and began dating in the summer of 2020 when she worked as a waitress at the Byron Bay General Store & Cafe in Byron Bay, Australia. A source for Us Weekly shared, "Things moved quickly, and Vanessa spends most nights at Zac's house. They are both very smitten with each other." However, after less than a year of dating, the couple went their separate ways in April 2021. According to a source from People, the "High School Musical" star was the one to end things: "Zac broke things off with Vanessa recently. It just didn't feel right to him anymore."
Since their split, Valladares has worked as a model for Australian fashion labels Love St and Spell. She was also spotted attending the St. Agni runway show for Australian Fashion Week in 2021.
Matt Damon's wife of nearly two decades was a bartender
Matt Damon and his wife, Luciana Barroso, have different stories regarding how they first met. In an interview on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Damon recalled spotting Barroso in a bar in Miami in 2003 while he was shooting the film "Stuck on You." "I literally saw her across a crowded room, literally. Eight years and four kids later, that's my life. I don't know how else our paths would've crossed if that didn't happen," he shared.
However, Barroso's story is much more detailed than that. In fact, she told Vogue Australia in 2018 that while working as a bartender in Miami, Damon and his film crew happened to come in for a drink. When patrons began to notice Damon, he hid behind the bar. However, Barroso decided to put the actor to work as a bartender, and he even ended up making loads of tip money! But the connection between her and Damon was inevitable: "We definitely had a connection right away, it was easy to talk to each other, we were very comfortable [with each other]." After Damon asked Barroso out, she shared that she had a young daughter from a previous relationship. However, that didn't stop the actor from pursuing Barroso. "When you meet somebody that you have a connection with, that's just the person that you have a connection with, all the other stuff — the movie star stuff — wasn't really a factor," she added. Damon and Barroso tied the knot in 2005.
Amy Schumer married a celebrated chef
Amy Schumer kept much of her romance with chef and farmer Chris Fischer on the down low. Case in point, in February 2018, the comedian made their relationship Instagram official after attending Ellen DeGeneres' birthday party, and just days later, the two wed in a super secretive ceremony in Malibu. Celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence, Judd Apatow, Jennifer Aniston, and Larry David attended the couple's wedding. The pair had allegedly only been together for a few months before their big day. Talk about a whirlwind romance!
Unlike Schumer, who is constantly in the spotlight, Fischer remains mostly low-key. He is a celebrated chef who runs his family farm Beetlebung Farm in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. He won the James Beard award for his 2015 cookbook, "The Beetlebung Farm Cookbook," while Esquire named his Beach Plum restaurant in Martha's Vineyard a favorite among former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.
In May 2019, the couple welcomed their first child together — a son named Gene. During the pandemic, they came together to launch their cooking show "Amy Schumer Learns to Cook" on the Food Network Channel. The tv series was nominated for an Emmy award but lost to Netflix's "Cheer."