The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
She left her heart in Madison
Beth Cooney McDevitt continues 40-year legacy at The Wharf
MADISON » The beach is a magnetic that has had a pull on Beth Cooney McDevitt since she was very young. Specifically West Wharf Beach, where her earliest memories are romping on the sand with her family.
“I was a September baby, my sister was a July baby and her birthday parties were here on the beach,” McDevitt recalls. “I didn’t go to town beach, I came here to this beach because we had a beach. Everything we did was here.”
These beach days, followed by family dinners and celebrations, were in the shadow of The Madison Beach Hotel and The Wharf Restaurant, which McDevitt’s family owned.
Sitting inside the newly-renovated hotel restaurant, The Wharf, McDevitt talks as though no time has passed, and for this local girl it sure seems that way since she is back working for the hotel that she grew up in.
Her grandparents, Betty and Henry Cooney, Sr., bought the hotel in 1968, and for the next 40 years the hotel was owned by the family. McDevitt worked there from a very young age, working up to a management position that she left five years ago to pursue other opportunities.
In 2008, the McDevitt family sold the hotel and restaurant to current owners Ric and Dawn Duque.
McDevitt and Madison Beach Hotel General Manager John Mathers have known each other for years, serving on the Madison Chamber of Commerce board together. Mathers recalls first meeting McDevitt and thinking, “Jeez, with her history why isn’t she the manager of The Wharf?’”
Yet, convincing her to come back was another thing, Mathers admits.
“It took me a couple years before I first approached her,” he says. “I think I first approached
her with, ‘Gee, have you ever thought about…’ sort of thing, and she kind of laughed and she said, yes, she had thought about it.
“I just kept asking her and asking her and asking her,” Mathers recalls, “and then when the position was available last fall I directly asked her, I said, ‘Geez Beth, I really think you’d be perfect at The Wharf,’ and that’s what started a conversation.”
This is McDevitt’s first summer managing The Wharf since 2008. She joins some of the employees that she worked with almost 10 years ago, including Banquet Chef, Mo Jalil, who she worked with when she was 10 years old and Restaurant Chef, Sean Carney, who, as a teenager, McDevitt hired as a dishwasher.
When Jalil thinks back to the days of working for the Cooney family he remembers an 10-year-old McDevitt serving bread to diners, and now, as he works with her, he can still see that youngster.
“People change, but when I saw her it reminded me of the day I met her when she little,” he says. “Nice smile and pleasant talk and that’s the way she is.”
For McDevitt it has been an easy transition back in to the place where she grew up.
“It felt surprisingly nice and comfortable to come back,” said McDevitt, sitting at a high top table, tucked into a nook at the back of the restaurant, with a perfect view of Long Island Sound.
For as long as McDevitt, 50, can remember, The Wharf has been a part of her life.
She was 11 years old when she began working officially for the family business, she recalls with a laugh.
“I was the laundry girl and then I worked in the restaurant,” remembers McDevitt. “I was the bread girl, I walked around to peoples’ tables and gave them bread for dinner. I was young.”
Jalil remembers these days.
“Her family owned the business back then and she was just enjoying the club, enjoying the place,” he remembers. “Everyone loved her so much.”
As years went by McDevitt took on more and more responsibility.
“Then I became a bus girl and then I became the first food runner and then as soon as I was 18 (years old) I started waiting on tables and serving cocktails.”
She hesitates a minute and interjects, “It might have been a little bit before I was 18. Don’t tell.”
Mathers stresses that it is this family history, in large part, which makes her perfect for the job.
“What a fabulous legacy. It’s a great story,” he says, laughing.
“I’ve gotten to know her dad and the Cooneys,” says Mathers, “and so many guests, when they come to the Madison Beach Hotel, it’s a nostalgic place for them.
“People have been coming here for years and they remember the Cooneys and they remember Beth. Her name comes up many, many times.
“Plus,” he adds, “she’s a competent restaurant manager. She’s very good at what she does.”
While she currently resides in Clinton with her husband, her grandmother, father and aunt still live in Madison.
Most recently McDevitt managed Café Routier in Westbrook.
“It was a nice change,” she says. “It was good to go have some experience in another building.
“All I knew was here,” she adds. “I never felt spoiled by it, but I didn’t realize how much experience I had because I only knew this, so I never had to put anything on resume and say, ‘Here’s what I’ve done. Would you hire me?’”
This commitment to the family business continued throughout most of her life, albeit for a short time away when she attended the University of Arizona as a fine art major/graphic designer.
McDevitt is a jack of all trades when it comes to working at the hotel and The Wharf. From managing the restaurant to coordinating many community events, she has had experience in almost all facets of the venue.
“We had probably 35 to 40 weddings a year, plus other social events, school events,” she remembers, thinking back many years.
“We hosted the Rotary Club every single Thursday for lunch, I hosted the Exchange Club twice a month, I hosted the Lions Club, I hosted the Jaycees annual dinner, I hosted the Madison Chamber of Commerce for their annual dinner, I hosted many of the Madison Country Club tournament lunches and dinners,” she says. “We did weddings, clam bakes on the beach. We did anniversaries, baby showers.”
While she may still lend a hand here and there, these days her primary job is restaurant manager.
Since returning she has reconnected with shoreline people she knew from her former days at the Madison Beach Hotel and looks forward to making more connections.
Mathers believes that it is these connections that make McDevitt’s return so important.
“Like I told her, I said, ‘Beth, this is your legacy. This is where you belong.’”
In talking with McDevitt, it appears she wholeheartedly agrees.
“Part of what I hope to do is maybe bring more and more people back that maybe didn’t want to come down or maybe thought that their old hangout was gone,” McDevitt says.
“I’m happy to be back to my old property, home, my stomping ground,” she adds, “and my customers.”