‘How are you so fast?’: Twin servers cause double-takes for guests at Mount Prospect restaurant

You know those times at a restaurant when you’re so busy looking at the menu that you only get a casual glance at your server? Then, when you need something, you can’t remember who was taking care of you.

Diners at Jameson’s Charhouse in Mount Prospect have worse odds than most at guessing the right person. Or maybe the odds are oddly better.

Twins Aldo and Erick Gonzalez Vargas have had guests doing double-takes at the restaurant for over two years as they tag-team their tables.

“Sometimes at the end of a meal, when saying goodbye, is the first time they realize there were two of us taking care of them all along,” Erick said.

At age 48, the Arlington Heights residents don’t look identical. But in context and when wearing uniforms, good luck remembering which is which.

Erick started working at Jameson’s about three years ago. Aldo joined him a year later. It’s the first time the two have worked at the same place. But they’ve shared some odd career coincidences.

They both started working in restaurants in high school, with Erick at Red Lobster and Aldo working at Olive Garden next door. They both started in the back of the house and worked their way to the front at roughly the same pace as they got older, ending up as servers.

“One time at work, a lady came up and gave me a hug and kiss and said, ‘I didn’t know you had moved restaurants,’” Erick said. “She kept talking and never gave me a chance to tell her I wasn’t Aldo. She went all red after I told her. It was the funniest thing.”

Over the years, their jobs have coincided repeatedly, like when they both were retail supervisors — Aldo at Target and Erick at Walmart.

The big surprise is that it took them this long to work at the same place at the same time.

“It’s fun to work together for the first time,” Aldo said. “We don’t have to communicate. We just know what the other needs.”

The two share a lot of the traits you hear about twins. They don’t dress identically, but their style is similar. They both wear glasses (same prescription) and big, chunky watches. There are tells, including different hairstyles and the shapes of their faces. But they sure act like twins.

“We do finish each other’s sentences sometimes,” Erick said.

“We don’t even know how it happens. It’s just natural,” Aldo added.

They say they can tell when the other is sick or stressed or in trouble, even if they’re not around each other. They even bought the same model of car, but different colors, within two days of the other without ever consulting.

“Nobody understands but twins,” Erick said.

The two said that kind of “twin-tuition” is extremely helpful when they’re working. Their sections are usually next to each other. So they tag-team tables and split the tips at the end of the night.

Do guests ever get confused?

“People always ask ‘How are you so fast? You just left,’ and I’ll tell them that wasn’t me, it was my brother,” Aldo said.

General manager Eleni Angelos said guests are “surprised and entertained” when they realize they had twins taking care of them.

“When they’re in uniform, sometimes you can’t tell them apart,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter because they’re one and the same.

“They’ve made such a big difference, and I appreciate and enjoy how they work together as twins as a team — and how they treat everyone else here,” Angelos said. “They’re wonderful. They do everything, and they don’t just help each other. They go out of their way to help everyone else.”

Guests only get the twins show a few shifts a week as they usually work opposite schedules. But the brothers always make sure they enjoy it.

“We joke around a lot, pretend we don’t know each other, or tell people they must have had too many drinks because they’re seeing double,” Aldo said. “It breaks the ice, and we end up with a lot of repeat customers. People request the twins. It’s two for the price of one.”