Betty White pops in for lunch. So does the local Rotary Club.

Robert Redford once sat on the back patio, drew a caricature of himself on a napkin, signed it and left the employees to fight over the sketch.

The famously quirky and historic La Playa Hotel – chock full of early California memorabilia – is up for sale, leaving its 90 employees to wonder if the Carmel institution will go corporate, and whether they’ll have jobs when new owners take over.

“Who’s going to hire a 57-year-old bartender?” asks Noe Hinojosa, who has worked at the hotel more than half his life.

Dressed in a crisp white shirt, he pours drinks for customers like Jack and Connie Harshman, regulars from Southern California, celebrating their anniversary on a Monday night.

“Hopefully it won’t change that much,” Connie says. “We know Noe. We know [the head gardener]. If I see [them], it’s like being home.”

“We let them be themselves,” says Food and Beverage Manager Kathy Kressman of the workers she supervises. “It’s genuine hospitality. This is the anti-Pebble Beach.”

Hinojosa says La Playa has been such a great place to work that his long tenure at the hotel isn’t that unusual. The housekeeping department includes two octogenarians, and the chef has been cooking there for 23 years.

“Where would we go?” Hinojosa asks.

Most non-tipped workers at La Playa take home $14 to $16 an hour. Health benefits are paid for, and seniority, not favoritism, rules.

Likewise, union officials say, negotiations with owner John Cope have long been smooth and respectful. But this year, with the contract up for renewal, the workers are bracing for a fight.

Hinojosa says they want Cope to guarantee their jobs and honor their union contract no matter who buys the hotel. Seven other unionized Monterey Peninsula hotels have similar agreements.

Cope was unavailable for comment.

Battles over so-called successorship provisions are “as old as time,” says Cornell University labor expert Kate Bronfenbrenner. But such battles have intensified, she adds, with the nationwide proliferation of investor-owners: “They have no attachment to the industry, the product or the community.”

The Copes also own the Huntington and the Galleria Park in San Francisco; all three properties are for sale as a package.

San Francisco hotel consultant Rick Swig says family-owned hotels are a dying breed: “This is the end of the trail.”

But don’t discount hotel workers’ power to preserve their jobs and benefits, Bronfenbrenner warns.

She says UNITE-HERE, the international union that represents La Playa workers, is known for its creativity in reaching out to the community, potential guests and local pols to make its members’ voices heard.