Tina's Groove
Tina's Groove is a Canadian comic strip by Rina Piccolo with a restaurant setting. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it began in 2002. The comic strip ended its run on July 2, 2017.
Characters and story
"Tina’s Groove chronicled the personal and workplace adventures of a single, smart, attractive waitress who worked at Pepper’s restaurant. Shrewdly self-aware, Tina refuted clichéd notions of single women as neurotics obsessed with career or marriage. Tina found her groove and empowered herself by embracing life and everyone she met head-on."Tina works as a waitress at Pepper's Restaurant and is "happy being Tina", living life rather than waiting for it to begin. She is described as "smart, funny and real", an everywoman in her 30s who "struggles to deal with her job, dating and the ups and downs of day-to-day living".Gus, Tina's boyfriend, whom she met at a speed dating event in 2012.Suzanne, Tina's best friend and fellow waitress is "always looking for a good time" and enjoys casual relationships with a large number of men.Monica, the hostess at Pepper's, is spacey and oblivious. Maybe she sees things others don't, or maybe she's just crazy. She is hopelessly in love with Rob, although the feeling is not mutual.Carlos the chef is known for his ego and his outdated views on gender and romance.Rob the general manager is shy and reserved, but a bit of a control freak.- Other recurring characters include Claud the taxi driver, Tina's mother, Jake the bartender, and various unnamed customers.
Readers have wondered if Tina is depressed or deeply worried about something, but Piccolo explains that this impression is mistaken and may be an inadvertent effect of Tina's hairstyle, specifically the hair bangs being drawn "at the same angle that you’d use to draw a 'worried eyebrow' expression".
The strip ran in such newspapers as the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Arizona Republic and the Toronto Star, and it is also available through King Features' DailyINK email service.