WISCASSET, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — The restaurant business can be a tough one. Many restaurants don’t stay around long, though some do, and they often become cherished destinations where people return again and again.
That is the story of Le Garage in Wiscasset. But now, after 40 years with the same owner, the story is coming to an end.
Cheryl Rust took over the business from her mother and stepfather in 1977. They lived across the street in the Old Wiscasset Customs House, where they had a shop that sold kitchen implements.
Rust told NEWS CENTER she was working in Massachusetts then as a retail manager but came back to manage the Le Garage, which was then just a summer ice cream and coffee shop. She took over the business the following year and soon transformed it into a year-round restaurant.
Rust said she never imagined at the time she would still be running the restaurant four decades later.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “But I never approached it with the idea it was time limited either. [I] just kept going.”
Rust said she liked working with and managing a team of people in retail and enjoyed it in the restaurant, too. Her longtime head chef, Allan Dodge joined Le Garage that first year and stayed for 32 years.
“No matter how intense it got we all tried to see the lighter side of it, have some fun," he said. "If things get too tense they don’t go well so we tried to have fun while we work."
Rust said she and Dodge have remained close friends.
Other longtime workers say the restaurant became a second family. Barbara Wyman said she started working as a waitress during the summer of 1980 while also teaching full-time. She has continued working there ever since and went full-time when she retired from teaching a few years ago.
Others told us of working for Le Garage for 20 to 21 years. They said the announcement the business would close was “devastating.”
“We’re all family,” said Daphne Coleman. “You spend holidays together because we always work. Mother’s Day, Easter, Christmas Eve, we’re all together all the time.”
Rust said she is confident they will all be in demand for other restaurant jobs. She said she originally thought of closing at the end of last year, but kept the business open until it was close to the busy summer hiring season to help her staff find new jobs.
Waitress Barbara Wyman jokes that she will be able to have Mother’s Day off for the first time in many years. Rust also jokes about the decision to close.
“I keep saying I used to sit at the bar, laughing at Saturday Night Live and the grumpy old man. And now, oh my God, it’s me!”
But Cheryl Rust said it’s time for her to slow down from the 70-hour weeks and devote more time to the charitable work she enjoys, including work for mental health causes. Closing the business and selling the building, she admits, will be as hard for her as everyone else.
“I’m ready but I’m ready with lots of emotion," she said. "I’m sure we’ll have Kleenex on the counters and it's going to be emotional for a lot of us, no question.”
That day will come at the end of April.
Yet, even as she prepares for the closing, Rust will have another emotional moment: next week, the Maine Restaurant Association will honor her with its 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award.