Mel's Diner in Phoenix, Arizona is the setting for this long-running series. Alice Hyatt an aspiring singer arrives with teenage son after the death of her truck-driver husband. Mel gives her a job as a waitress. Her fellow waitresses are naive and not too attractive Vera and the raucous red-headed Flo who is later replaced by Belle who is herself replaced by the spunky, curly-haired Jolene.