Who is The Waitress in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

Show

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Played by

Mary Elizabeth Ellis

First episode

“The Gang Gets Racist”Season 1, Episode 1, aired August 4, 2005

Role

Side character

Network

FX

Occupation

Coffee shop waitress

Show run

2005 to presentMoved from FX to FXX in 2013.

Also known as

Waitress

The Waitress works at a coffee shop near Paddy's Pub and has spent the entire run of the show fending off Charlie Kelly's devotion. Played by Mary Elizabeth Ellis, she is one of the most familiar faces outside the main gang, and in all those years the show has never revealed her real name.

On It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Waitress's story runs through Charlie Kelly (Admirer), Dennis Reynolds (Crush), Dee Reynolds (High School Classmate), Frank Reynolds (Fling), and Mac (Near Fling).

Who is The Waitress?

The Waitress is the object of Charlie's obsession from the pilot onward. She serves coffee to the gang, overhears the worst possible moments, and makes it clear again and again that she is not interested in Charlie. Her own crush is Dennis, who sleeps with her early in the first season and then treats her as badly as he treats everyone.

She is a recovering alcoholic who has fallen off the wagon more than once, including after a night of drinking with Dee and Artemis. The show later reveals that she went to high school with the gang, which none of them except Charlie remember, a fact that fits her role as the woman everyone overlooks.

Personality and comedy

The Waitress is blunt, tired, and usually right about the gang. She keeps Mace handy and has used it on members of the gang when they followed her at night. When she gets swept up in their schemes, though, she can be as petty and impulsive as any of them, often because she wants Dennis's attention or wants to get back at him.

The longest-running joke about her is her name. She is only ever called the Waitress, and the show goes out of its way to keep it hidden: her name tag goes missing at the high school reunion, Dennis cannot remember it, and in Ireland Dee rattles off every name she can think of while stuck in a bog. When fans guessed she was Nikki Potnick, the name on a tag Frank turns up wearing at the reunion, Glenn Howerton publicly shot the theory down.

Key storylines

In season one the Waitress sleeps with Dennis after hearing Charlie might have cancer, and in season two she volunteers as Charlie's Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, then drops him the moment Dennis shows interest. Charlie's biggest gesture comes in "The Nightman Cometh," when he stages a full musical to propose to her. She agrees to attend only because he promises to leave her alone afterward, then says no.

In "The Waitress Is Getting Married" she is engaged to an old high school boyfriend, and Dee tries to wreck it. After a night together on the Jersey Shore beach that she later blames on ecstasy, and years of rejection, she and Charlie finally sleep together in season twelve's "Dennis' Double Life" and date briefly, until she breaks it off at the start of season thirteen. She keeps turning up in later seasons, from a bowling grudge match with the gang to a muddy confrontation with Dee in Ireland.

Behind the scenes and legacy

Mary Elizabeth Ellis is married to Charlie Day, who plays Charlie, which gives the show's most hopeless one-sided romance a fun real-life twist. She has played the Waitress since the pilot and appears in every era of the series.

The mystery of her name has become one of the show's favorite in-jokes. Howerton has said she does have a name and the show has simply never revealed it, and a behind-the-scenes video poked fun at the fan theories. Fans still debate it, and the writers seem happy to keep it that way.

The Waitress: frequently asked questions

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