A waitress at a family diner in Westville, N.S. is a little more experienced than your average server.

At 85 years old, Barb Barkhouse seems to have more energy and drive than some people have in their twenties.

“I like meeting the people in here, it's wonderful,” says Barkhouse.

She says good health and good genes are the secret to her longevity.

“Well my dad lived to be 97, my mom 95, and my great-grandmother 100 and they were all busy and healthy and everything. I'm healthy,” says Barkhouse.

When Barkhouse's daughter Beth Purvis bought the business eight years ago, she renamed it ‘Barb's Family Diner.’

“When I brought her here and showed her this is what I wanted to do, and I worked at the hospital for 28 years so this was totally different, she believed in me and there's no one in this world I admire more than her,” says Purvis.

That's how many of her customers have come to feel about their favourite waitress.

“I hope that I can be the same way that she is when I'm her age, being able to do what I love to do,” says Brian Leahy, customer.

The diner is open Wednesday to Sunday, and Barkhouse works on two of those days. She says, she could work more but she's got a good reason not to.

“I don't want to, I wouldn't take any of the other girls shifts. I'm just in here for the pleasure of it, really.”

With files from CTV Atlantic's Dan MacIntosh