The café shares space in Cupertino with Yamagami Nursery in what could be one of the earliest strip malls in the area. The place is a traditional morning destination for Saratogans and Los Gatans heading down De Anza Boulevard for Highway 85.

"We have lots of regulars," says Carpenter, 59. She has owned the place for a decade, using it during early years as a job-training ground for her three children and scores of their friends.

She recognizes the customers, not by their names, but by where they sit or what they order.

"There's the guy who orders French toast with catsup or the one who wants his iced tea with no ice," she says with a smile. They are all like family, and so is the staff. "There's an old rule that says you shouldn't hire friends or family, but that's not true for me. I know where they live," she jokes. Besides the generation of high school students who waited and cleared tables for her and now have returned as customers with their own children, there also are longtime veterans of service, such as Pam Inman, "who came with the place" and head cook Ruben Garcia.

Garcia makes the eggs and chorizo the same way they were made decades ago. "You can go away for 10 years and come back, and the menu is the same," Carpenter says.

While she added some salads in recent years, such as the Asian chicken, the fare remains the same. On Sundays, the 59-seat place is filled to overflowing and, weather permitting, into the out-of-doors.

The most popular breakfast is bacon and eggs. Pancakes with the Italian sausage and linguini supplied by Neto's in Santa Clara come in a close second. Lunch offerings include traditional hamburgers, grilled cheese and club sandwiches with homemade soups and chili. Nothing on the menu is more than $9.95, and $6 is the average.

On the days when a young mother comes with a baby, Carpenter gives her a respite by taking the baby and leaving the mom to eat in peace. It's a familiar sight to find her perching an infant on her left hip while she tops off cups of coffee from the pot she carries in her right hand.

"I love the public," she says. "The best part of my job is the waitressing work." She considers her customers extraordinarily nice. As far as the rare nasty one is concerned, "If we can't fix their problem, we ask them to go somewhere else--we send them to Denny's."

Bobbi's was started in 1971 by Roberta Shephard, aka "Bobbi." In 1995, Carpenter and her friend Kathy Reeser, both working moms with six children between them, came for breakfast. When Shephard informed them that she was retiring, the women jumped at the chance to buy her out. For a while, Carpenter worked two jobs--a day job as a manufacturer's rep for electronic equipment and "a before-work, after-work and on weekends" job as a business owner. With her own three children and a fourth child who moved in with them, she found the load too consuming.

"It's predominantly a man's restaurant," she says of the diner, which wears a comfortably scuffed and lived-in look. "They seem to like that we don't change and our food is simple--no lattes, just comfort food. But it's also a place where women feel comfortable coming in alone."

Bobbi's Coffee Shop, 1361 S. De Anza Blvd. in Cupertino, is open for breakfast and lunch from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 7 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Sundays. Call 408.257.4040.