An employee of popular Suffolk restaurant George’s died on New Year’s Eve, and her family has decided the eatery was such an important part of her life that Shirley Winsor will be buried in her uniform.

A Michigan native, Winsor worked at George’s for 36 years. She was a waitress for most of that time but in the last year or so, the 81-year-old worked preparing food, as she was unable to carry the trays anymore.

Her family tried to convince her to stop working, but “she wasn’t having none of it,” daughter Vicky Nyberg said.

“She wanted that job,” Nyberg said, adding her mother also resisted her children’s pleas to move closer to them in Virginia Beach, because she knew doing so would mean giving up her job at George’s. “She was not leaving Suffolk. We tried and we tried.”

Daughter Patti Philipps said her mother enjoyed seeing the customers at the restaurant.

“She just loved being there and being with the customers and talking with the customers,” Philipps said. “She wanted to stay out there, and she wanted to stay working at George’s.”

George Taglis, who owns George’s with his brother John, said Winsor started working at George’s only a couple of months after it opened in 1978.

“We’ve been with her longer than we’ve been with our wives,” Taglis said. “She’s been with us for a long time.”

Winsor was a “very dependable and honest employee,” Taglis added.

On Dec. 19, John Taglis called Nyberg to report her mother was not doing well, Nyberg said. He told the family he was going to ask her to take two weeks off so she could get better.

By Dec. 23, Winsor was in the hospital, and doctors reported her heart was operating at only 10 percent. She came home from the hospital on New Year’s Eve to live on hospice care and died later that night with her daughters by her side.

When Nyberg and Philipps were deciding what to bury her in, they found mostly George’s aprons in her closet, Philipps said.

“The thing she had the most of was George’s Steakhouse uniforms,” Philipps said. “We said, ‘She loved it so much, let’s bury her in a uniform.’”

Winsor’s burial outfit will come complete with an apron, a pen and a blank order check, Nyberg said.

When she wasn’t working at George’s, Winsor enjoyed shopping, lottery scratch-off tickets, watching her hummingbirds, crossword puzzles and country music, according to her obituary.

She is survived by four children and three grandchildren.

Visitation will take place Wednesday at Rosewood-Kellum Funeral Home, 601 N. Witchduck Road in Virginia Beach, from 6 to 8 p.m. Burial will be private.