Country Corner makes national registry

MAYVILLE – There isn’t a Cape May County town whose business environment is changing faster – with a tip of the hat to the Wildwoods as they decide what they want to be versus what they once were – than Middle Township.
Big box stores and national retailers have changed the face of retail here. Everything from home improvement superstores to alcohol warehouses and national sandwich shops – some failed, some still hanging on – have challenged the small-town privately owned businesses. Some of the locally owned stores have answered the challenge. The national chains haven’t forced out all local paint stores, hardware or kitchen/bath design places because, as many of them say, they beat the big boys with better customer service.
When Dean Clary took over Country Corner in Mayville three years ago in October, he was among the local business people who decided to stick to serving the locals with – if you will – country charm.
Country Corner is as Rockwellian as you can get for a Cape May County restaurant. A small soda fountain countertop with swivel bar stools serves about a half-dozen customers at a time. Waitresses chat up the customers and always seem to have a pot of coffee in their hands. In the kitchen, Clary passes completed orders to servers through a pass-through cutout window. The dining area is one room, filled with small tables and big booths, and plenty of local folks catching up on each other’s lives.
It’s much the same as what Clary and his Pennsylvania Dutch background is used to, and what he wanted for his now 3-year-old restaurant.
“Everything I’ve ever read or heard for making it in this business is five years, so we’re almost there,” he said.
Asked about the legion of loyal clientele he has commandeered, Clary said, “(We’re) part of their home here, part of their community. (We have) to be part of their life, or we don’t make it. This year I saw more of a regular customer clientele coming in than I have for the first two years,” citing a reason to stay optimistic.
“It doesn’t happen overnight,” he added.
Change with the flow, he said. Adapt. Listen to your customers and give them what they want – even if it’s a brand spanking new 37-inch high-definition TV, thanks to the lobbying efforts of a certain hostess who gathered signatures to force the issue.
“That’s been great. It took some convincing but this is what the customers wanted,” he said. “Even before I made the decision to put it in, I’d have people coming in and pointing to the spot where they wanted it. ‘Put it right there. It’ll look great right there,’ they’d say.”
Serving breakfast and lunch daily from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., and dinners on Fridays and Saturdays, Clary continues to look for ways to improve business and make his customers comfortable. Now he’s added a Monday Night Football BYOB buffet, complete with Buffalo wings, chicken fingers, Buffalo nuggets, chili, dogs with kraut, ham and cheese sandwiches, chips, pretzels and dip.
“It starts at 8 and I’ll stay here until the last person leaves,” Clary said.
“Great,” I said to him, “you’re going to be real good in the kitchen Tuesday morning.”
“I’m off Tuesday morning,” he shoots back, “so I’m covered.”
Clary was recently the proud recipient of a plaque of recognition from The Heritage Registry of Who’s Who for American restaurants, thanks to a tip from one of his customers.
“One of them called the Registry, I guess. I don’t know who it was. Then the company called me and grilled me for about 45 minutes, asking all kinds of questions about what we do and my background,” he said.
His background does not include a culinary school diploma. It doesn’t even include a high school diploma. He learned his trade by bouncing around from kitchen to kitchen, learning a little bit here and little bit there. He started in the business when he was 14; now he’s 40.
“My theory was to keep moving on every three or four years because chefs will only teach you a few of their tricks and then they stop teaching you. My thing was memorizing recipes because they don’t let you copy anything down,” he said. “One thing I learned -- and it’s proved true here -- is to cook everything from scratch. People really can tell the difference.”
He talks of tricks of the trade where some restaurants claim to have pies “baked on the premises,” but that doesn’t mean homemade. Or sometimes a place will say they have homemade pies. Yes, homemade, but by someone else who used a prepared pie crust.
Everything Clary serves is made in his kitchen, from the pies to the pancakes.
“I had a salesman coming in for weeks trying to sell me this great new pancake mix. He swore it would make better buttermilk pancakes than what I was making from scratch. So one day I gave him some of my pancakes and he never tried to push that product again. In fact, now when he comes in, he orders the buttermilk pancakes,” he said.
“It’s all about trying to find out what the customer wants. If anything, over the past three years, we’ve downsized the menu, and we didn’t raise prices at all this year,” he said. “They don’t like to see that extra dime or nickel.”
One of the staples at the Country Corner is the 2-2-2 special: two eggs, two pancakes, two pieces of bacon for $2.22. It’s a smash hit.
“I don’t think we’re overly cheap and we’re not overly expensive, although that 2-2-2 deal, you can’t get much cheaper than that,” he said. “And people like the simple stuff. That’s why the 2-2-2 works so well for them. There’s nothing complicated about it. I’ve always wanted to do a volume breakfast and business has really picked up, and that 2-2-2 is part of it. It’s nice to see that extra business, especially this time of year, because business is definitely up for us,” he said.
Recently, the Middle Township School District honored their bus drivers for exceptional service, and they took them to Country Corner for breakfast to celebrate. Clary was given a plaque in appreciation of his service. That’s Country Corner. That’s community service.
“That’s being part of their lives, and that’s important,” he said.

Rob Seitzinger can be e-mailed at seitz[at]catamaranmedia.com or you can comment on this story by calling 624-8900, ext. 250.

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