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Riverside Café Has That Community Feel
By Stephen Fay
A panelist at the
May 18 “Speak Up, Ellsworth” vision session made the following
observation: Ellsworth needs a community center, an old-fashioned
gathering place where both young and not-so-young can gather to
relax and chat. She said the only venue we have now that meets that
description is The Riverside Café on Main Street.
Beth, left, and Barb in 1968, sitting on the steps of the family
home in Spring Lake Heights, N.J.
Beth and Barbara today |
Nor did she
exaggerate.
It is a welcoming
place where the food is tasty and not too fancy (except for Sunday
brunch). The servings are ample, as is the hospitality. The waiters
and waitresses are better known than the members of the City
Council.
Riverside owners
Barbara Guida and Beth Fendl are aware of the role their
breakfast-and-lunch café plays in the life of downtown Ellsworth.
But that wasn’t part of their plan.
Their plan, years
in the making and baking, was to operate a little place in a
neighborhood like the one in
Spring Lake Heights,
N.J., where the sisters grew up.
Beth grew up liking
sports; Barbara preferred horses. What they had in common was the
hospitality industry. They both worked in restaurants in their
seasonal beach community.
They had a dream of
owning their own place and working together. But in 1989 romance
intervened. Skip Fendl, a local New Jersey boy who had gone off to
darkest Maine to seek his fortune, returned to Spring Lake Heights
for a visit. During that visit, he met Beth. They liked each other
instantly. Before long, the two were making wedding plans.
They were also
making plans to live in Maine, which did not bode well for the
sister act Barb and Beth had been dreaming about.
Beth and Skip’s
arrival in Ellsworth involved a portent.. Coming down Bridge Hill
for the first time, Beth spied Dick’s restaurant at the corner of
Main and State. Hmmmm. Nice little spot, Beth thought.
She took a
restaurant job on the island, managing Galyn’s Galley in Bar Harbor.
After two years, Beth was ready to make the move on Dick’s. She and
Skip urged Barbara and her husband, Tom, to come to
Maine. They had some misgivings, but they came up for visits and
took a liking to the area.
One day during one
of Barb’s visits, as the two were walking up Main Street, Barb asked
Beth: “Do you think you’d still want a partner?”
Ye-haw!
They bought Dick’s,
changed the name and cultivated a loyal following. So loyal, in
fact, that when they moved The Riverside up the street to a bigger
space next door to Artie’s Citgo, a small army of their regulars
turned out to help.
All kinds of people
showed up night after night to paint walls, sweep floors, wash
windows, polish fixtures and iron curtains. The volunteer effort
continued for days: a lobsterman up on a ladder painting trim; the
executive vice president of Union Trust pushing a broom; women and
men, old and young, working into the night so the sisters could open
on time. It was like a volunteer work bee at…well, at a community
center.
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