Mather House grill chef Philip Wilkins knows exactly what Harvard students want when they order a hot dog...speedy service and a friendly demeanor that would light up the barracks of any dining hall.

“I’m quick,” he says with assurance. “You don’t have to wait for an order for twenty minutes.”

Wearing a blue warm-up jacket with the words “Team Dunster-Mather” embroidered in white, the man known as “Grill Master Phil” takes the number 1 bus from his home in Roxbury to Harvard Square every day, even to pick up his Friday paycheck on his day off.

Wilkins says he comes in because he loves the community of the kitchen and dining hall.

“It’s like being at home, it’s like a family,” he says, later adding, “in this dining hall, there’s always a smile.”

TAKING UP THE FAMILY TRADE

Wilkins, 40, grew up in nearby Roxbury, Mass., the eighth of nine children in a house full of budding cooks.

His father, who passed away about a year ago, was a chef at the Silver Slipper in Roxbury. His mother worked as a nurse’s aide and later as a nanny at the restaurant Stephanie’s on Newbury Street.

His siblings, Debbie and Michael, are both cooks, while other members of the family have gone to serve in the Air Force and the Marines.

The family lived at Academy Homes in Roxbury from 1970 to 1981, and later moved to Mt. Pleasant Avenue, where Wilkins has lived with his mother ever since.

“If I leave home I think I’d be homesick,” Wilkins jokes.

He has been divorced from his wife for more than eight years now and claims, “I think I’d be miserable [if I got married again].”

Turning his twenty-year-old daughter, Chelsea, he reminisces, “She was always with me.” Chelsea now has a one-year-old son and is pursuing her GED at Rosie’s Place in Boston, where one of Wilkins’ sisters is an advocate.

His mother also volunteers at Rosie’s Place and just recently had her second knee replacement.