Once a dishwasher, now the owner – Meredith’s favorite diner changes hands

MEREDITH — One of the most important elements of any dish won’t be found on the ingredients list, and it’s one that cooks will try to short, often to their folly: time. At George’s Diner, there’s an attention to process that few fine dining restaurants adhere to, and it’s part of the reason why the small, casual eatery keeps locals and visitors coming back for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

And that’s not going to change, said Owen Price, the new owner of George’s at 10 Plymouth St. Price took over April 27 from the previous owner Roger Rist, who operated the business with his wife, Robin, who passed away earlier this year. Rist was only the second owner of the diner, which was opened by George Danforth.

Though he’s the new proprietor, Price is hardly new to the restaurant. He has worked there for nearly three decades, going back to the days when he would wash dishes on the weekends and after he got out of Inter-Lakes High School. About a decade later, Price was managing the diner, and he filled that role for nearly 20 years.

“I just kept plugging away,” he explained. “I enjoy the work, I like to see people happy out here. Food certainly makes people happy.”

Over the years, Price learned to master Roger’s recipes, which produced food that’s humble and unassuming, yet has many hours of care below the surface. It’s sort of the adage, “Still waters run deep” served on a plate.

For example, a popular lunch item is the Reuben sandwich. Customers can get a Reuben at dozens of other places in the Lakes Region, but they’ll never get one exactly like the one at George’s. Why? Because, at George’s, the corned beef is cooked daily, they make their own sauerkraut and the bread is baked in-house.

And every Reuben is served with a side of french fries, again, which are distinct from what would be served anywhere else. George’s sources its potatoes from a specific farm in Fryeburg, Maine, which grows what Price declares are, “The best French fry potatoes on the East Coast” – a Norwegian variety that crisps as it fries but stays creamy on the inside.

That same farm supplies all of the beans – George’s uses a yellow-eye bean – for the baked beans, which are served as a side to breakfast dishes.

“Our home-baked beans are always very popular, we sell a lot of them,” Price said.

It would be far easier to buy frozen french fries, or serve sauerkraut and baked beans out of a can, but Price said there are things worth the extra time it takes to make them from scratch. Another example is the chipped beef gravy served over biscuits. The breakfast might be cooked to order, but the process was started several days prior – the beef is salted, then smoked, then cured in a walk-in cooler for five days.

“I don’t think you’ll find many people that make their own beef for chipped beef, because you can buy it, but it’s not as good,” he said.

The same goes for all of the desserts, soups and chowders. Price turns away salesman after salesman, each promising that their frozen product tastes just as good as homemade. They’re wrong; Price and his cooks arrive to work at 4:30 every morning to begin the day by baking muffins and desserts.

Some of their cooking includes some items that are increasingly hard to find. At George’s, you can still order liver, which used to be a staple at diners.

“Liver, onions and bacon, we sell a lot of that,” said Price. They also serve some old-fashioned desserts, such as Indian pudding and Grape Nut custard. The most unusual item on the menu is tripe – the lining of a cow’s stomach, which has been pickled and then fried. The tripe isn’t the most popular item on the menu.

“But the people that come in (for tripe) really like it,” he said. Curious about tripe? He said customers should ask their server for a sample. But don’t wait too long, because Price isn’t sure if the dish will still have a place on the menu a generation from now. “I have not seen anybody under 60 eat tripe.”

George’s can seat about 50 people inside, another 25 on its patio. Those seats could be some of the hardest-working in the region, as the diner will serve around 700 people on its busiest days. While he pays a lot of attention to his food, Price said that the service from the waitstaff, which treats customers with the casual familiarity expected at a diner, is just as important. He noted that his servers combine for a century’s worth of experience, and there’s surely as much among his kitchen staff, too.

Price doesn’t plan to make any noticeable changes now that he’s the owner. George’s already has the winning recipe, he said.

“It’s a combination of the food, the service, you know you’re going to get a good meal, you know you’re going to see people smiling and happy around you, and you probably will see someone you know.”

Price’s predecessor had an unusual approach to the business, he said. Rist was flexible, generous and open-minded, willing to consider an employee’s suggestion about how things might be done better. He made the staff feel like a family, said Price. And, Rist promised that he would wait until Price was ready to buy the business, even though it took several years.

“I owe a lot to Roger and Robin. It would have been easy for them to sell this place 10 years ago. But they held out because they knew I had put my time in and that meant something to them.”