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Duffy’s Offers Home-cooked Food in a Down-home Atmosphere
By John Hubbard
Duffy’s Restaurant
offers real home-cooked food and more—a down-home, friendly
atmosphere.
The Tinney family
has run the restaurant since 1974. They know their customers as
though they are all one, big family.
Sarah
Worcester, daughter of owners Bill and Betsey Tinney, has worked
at the restaurant since she was 7. |
Sarah Worcester,
daughter of owners Bill and Betsey Tinney, was at the restaurant
last Thursday afternoon, serving two customers who sat at a small
table discussing their on-the-road sales.
Worcester
has worked at the restaurant since she was 7. “All my life,” is how
she phrased it through a genuine smile as brilliant as the white
uniform she wore.
Worcester
started out by helping her mother during special occasions when
busboys were needed. She helped more when she turned 11 and by the
time she was 14, she was waitressing.
“All my brothers
and sisters worked here, too,” Worcester said during a quiet moment.
Her brothers, Glen (who has since died) and Robbie, and two sisters,
Marte and Linda, all took a hand in the family business. But now
it’s mostly Sarah, her parents and the kitchen manager, Art Modeen,
who run the cozy eatery.
How did a family
named Tinney choose “Duffy” as their restaurant name? Cape Cod taxi
drivers gave it to them, Worcester explained. The Tinneys had a
restaurant on the
Cape in the
1960s and the taxi drivers liked to refer to it as Duffy’s Tavern,
from a popular radio show. She checked with her father by phone to
be sure of that part of the restaurant story, but it was something
she was sure enough about, having heard the tale many times at
family gatherings.
The large dining
room includes signs showing the day’s specials. Thursday it was
Chicken tetrazini with cole slaw, a favorite Maine side dish.
Another board over
the cash register told customers that breakfast is served until
10:45 a.m. and listed two specials.
Worcester
attended the University of Maine and planned to become a nurse. But
she realized shortly before completing her courses that she didn’t
like the idea of being around sick people or seeing people die.
Nursing just wasn’t for her, a bubbly personality who takes great
pride in her family’s business and feels at home with “the folks” in
Duffy’s.
“The folks” are
more than her parents and Art Modeen.
“There are lots of
regulars. That’s the base of our clientele,” Worcester said. “The
tourists are nice but if it were not for the Steady Eddies we
wouldn’t be here.” |
