east hampton star article
george gets some press, east hampton star june 1:
Playing by His Own Rules By Kate Maier
George Watson, the owner of the Dock restaurant at the end of a commercial fishing pier at Montauk Harbor, stands apart in a place full of characters — fishermen, surfers, immigrants, artists, and hermits among them.
The former fishing village is in transition as exorbitant real estate prices and posh restaurants make their way east, but it still retains its character, at least for now. If Montauk is truly the Wild West as neighbors in more “civilized” places tend to say, Mr. Watson is making a last stand as a small-town saloon-keeper.
A former New York City police officer, fireman, and Marine Corps corporal who served in Vietnam, he has been playing by his own rules since 1973, when he made the transition from firefighter to restaurateur.
“I would term the majority of the customers here as possibly blue-collar,” Mr. Watson said in a morning discussion of restaurants, newspapers, and politics, during which he consumed four cups of coffee and finished off a cigar. He spent much of the time scuttling around the Dock in search of the papers, photographs, and bar coasters that he was describing.
The first thing people tend to notice at the Dock is the decorating scheme, inside and out. It looks something like a cross between a voodoo lounge and a hunting lodge, with pansies in flower boxes outside and stuffed foxes and deer heads inside. There is a bulletin board crammed with leftist political messages, obscene pictures, and tattered, family-style candid shots of “the locals.”
Once the retina has adjusted to the dim light, the finer details of the interior begin to emerge. An ancient glass soda bottle perched on a bar shelf reads, “Jeff Groves’ ashes. $15 a snort.” Mr. Watson described the former bar patron as a good friend, a drug addict, and an incredibly intelligent person.
“I always liked this building,” he said, reflecting fondly on childhood summers spent in Montauk, first at Hither Hills and then at a house built by his father.
After returning from a Marine tour in Vietnam, Mr. Watson took a job with the New York Police Department. About a year later, he heard from the fire department, and set out to follow in his father’s footsteps.
He had almost no experience in the restaurant business when the opportunity to buy Fitzgerald’s Bar and Grill in Montauk presented itself in 1973. “I tended bar one time,” Mr. Watson said. “My wife thought she was marrying a lieutenant in the fire department, and wound up out here. We learned the hard way.”
The Dock serves casual food from mussels to burgers to somewhat fancier daily specials. One thing that really makes it stand apart from other restaurants, however, is the signs. “The Rules,” enforced by Mr. Watson himself, are clearly written on doors, on coasters, even on the staff uniforms, which consist of T-shirts and blue jeans.
“No checks, no credit cards, no cellphones, take screaming children outside.” Ideas that seem reasonable enough are greeted with varying degrees of amusement and shock by the public, but the primary rule stands: If people venture to tick off Mr. Watson, they will be asked to leave.
“I kick people out all the time,” he said. “I throw people like myself out. No big deal. They come back the next day.”
Mr. Watson’s use of a bullhorn to discourage cellphone use in his establishment is one of the more controversial approaches to enforcement. But in general, he said, he handles most situations calmly.
“I always make it a point, when people come in with kids . . . they get the coaster, and they get the big glass,” he said, demonstrating the strategic positioning of the coaster and pint glass, both adorned with the Dock’s guidelines, which his staff of waiters is trained to follow.
Mr. Watson doesn’t want children playing in the silverware trays or running in the aisles. “But you’ve got to give them enough rope before they hang themselves. You can’t just start screaming at people. And I don’t scream at people.”
In general, if a child is “out of line,” Mr. Watson asks the parents to take him or her outside. Whether they take offense is their own prerogative.
“Now tell me those people would not be the first ones to sue you, if you accidentally spilled something on a child. I think it’s abuse. You can’t allow children to run around a restaurant. It’s insane,” he said.
Mr. Watson explained that his policies are meant to protect not only his own ears but also those of paying customers. “I think it’s extremely rude. It’s rude to everybody around here. What about the people that came in and hired a babysitter so they could go out and enjoy themselves? And you’re going to sit them down next to a screaming kid? I don’t think so.”
Many who work at the restaurant have been there for decades, which anyone who’s had the pleasure of carrying a bowl of steaming soup past a child wearing roller-sneakers will probably understand. “When it’s busy, George is working his ass off,” said Jennifer Gillen, a waitress who landed a job at the Dock last summer. “I’ve never once made a cappuccino while he was there. He’s like an extra server that we don’t have to tip out.”
Mr. Watson’s controversial views on the finer aspects of the service industry are enough to make people take notice, but the fact that he fancies himself a writer helps some who live in Montauk survive the summer.
“At the Dock, we feel that in order for a joke to be funny, it must be told at someone’s expense,” Mr. Watson asserts at his new Web site, www.thedockmontauk.com. This philosophy can be seen at work in “the paper,” as his self-published newsletter is called by those who cringe to see their names appear in it.
Bound with a staple and featuring a hand-drawn depiction of a muscle-bound Mr. Watson wrestling a snake, the little stack of photocopied pages is titled “The Truth: Sometimes It Hurts.” The author said his publication has a circulation of “more than 200” and comes out “whenever necessary.”
Mr. Watson makes sure to include himself among those he derides. “Unlike The East Hampton Star, this paper will print all letters to the editor, be they anonymous, slanderous, libelous, obscene, racial, or ethnic,” the newsletter says.
“The only letters that won’t be printed will be the ones that are derogatory toward Mr. Watson. Since all the letters to the editor this week were of a disparaging nature concerning Mr. Watson, none will be printed.”
Even a gonzo-journalist like Mr. Watson has limits. “There are certain things you just can’t write about,” he said, going on to explain that he ignores repeated requests to “report” such real-life matters as infidelity. “It’s a fine line that most people don’t realize. Insulting people, it’s an art . . . you want to make fun of people, you don’t want to humiliate them.”
Aside from employing his newspaper to circulate local gossip, Mr. Watson uses it, and his restaurant, as a way to air his political views.
“I hate George Bush,” he said. “I was over in Vietnam, and the only thing that I thought was good that was going to come out of Vietnam was that we would never, ever, make this mistake again.” He paused and thought a moment. “And it’s so, so, sad.”
Yet he is a registered Republican. “I mean, do you have a brain?” he asked. “Each issue is separate, don’t you have to weigh things out in your mind and see what’s right and what’s wrong?”
One issue he was eager to discuss was immigration. “These people are no different than the Irish, the Italians, the Jews, the only thing is they have dark skin. They are good, hard-working, family people, who are just trying to make a buck . . . they have jobs that the fat, lazy Americans won’t take.”
“I have been here 33 years. I can’t remember the last time, never ever, do you get an American person, a kid, or whoever, looking to wash dishes. It’s always the Spanish people who have been working landscape jobs all day and now are coming down to do their second job. These people are not taking American jobs, and none of these people are being exploited out here.”
Mr. Watson closed his restaurant on May 1, the day of the nationwide immigrant strike, to shoot a commercial for Plum TV. It features an assortment of Dock regulars as well as Mr. Watson enforcing his cellphone policy on the bullhorn. It will air from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
“The only time I advertise, generally speaking, is when we open,” he said. “I don’t like being lumped in, next to. . . .I’m not going to mention names, but other restaurants which suck.”
The commercial was his wife’s idea. “I have 12 local characters, all lined up in costume, and we bring a camera in and just sort of introduce them,” he said with a smile, declining to go into further detail.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with Mr. Watson’s policies, politics, and prose, he makes an impact. And diners certainly have fair warning.
“If you are looking for a cold beer, good food, and a laugh, stop in,” Mr. Watson says on his Web site. “If you are self-absorbed yuppie scum with a cellphone and ‘free-spirited’ children, go elsewhere.”
Playing by His Own Rules By Kate Maier
George Watson, the owner of the Dock restaurant at the end of a commercial fishing pier at Montauk Harbor, stands apart in a place full of characters — fishermen, surfers, immigrants, artists, and hermits among them.
The former fishing village is in transition as exorbitant real estate prices and posh restaurants make their way east, but it still retains its character, at least for now. If Montauk is truly the Wild West as neighbors in more “civilized” places tend to say, Mr. Watson is making a last stand as a small-town saloon-keeper.
A former New York City police officer, fireman, and Marine Corps corporal who served in Vietnam, he has been playing by his own rules since 1973, when he made the transition from firefighter to restaurateur.
“I would term the majority of the customers here as possibly blue-collar,” Mr. Watson said in a morning discussion of restaurants, newspapers, and politics, during which he consumed four cups of coffee and finished off a cigar. He spent much of the time scuttling around the Dock in search of the papers, photographs, and bar coasters that he was describing.
The first thing people tend to notice at the Dock is the decorating scheme, inside and out. It looks something like a cross between a voodoo lounge and a hunting lodge, with pansies in flower boxes outside and stuffed foxes and deer heads inside. There is a bulletin board crammed with leftist political messages, obscene pictures, and tattered, family-style candid shots of “the locals.”
Once the retina has adjusted to the dim light, the finer details of the interior begin to emerge. An ancient glass soda bottle perched on a bar shelf reads, “Jeff Groves’ ashes. $15 a snort.” Mr. Watson described the former bar patron as a good friend, a drug addict, and an incredibly intelligent person.
“I always liked this building,” he said, reflecting fondly on childhood summers spent in Montauk, first at Hither Hills and then at a house built by his father.
After returning from a Marine tour in Vietnam, Mr. Watson took a job with the New York Police Department. About a year later, he heard from the fire department, and set out to follow in his father’s footsteps.
He had almost no experience in the restaurant business when the opportunity to buy Fitzgerald’s Bar and Grill in Montauk presented itself in 1973. “I tended bar one time,” Mr. Watson said. “My wife thought she was marrying a lieutenant in the fire department, and wound up out here. We learned the hard way.”
The Dock serves casual food from mussels to burgers to somewhat fancier daily specials. One thing that really makes it stand apart from other restaurants, however, is the signs. “The Rules,” enforced by Mr. Watson himself, are clearly written on doors, on coasters, even on the staff uniforms, which consist of T-shirts and blue jeans.
“No checks, no credit cards, no cellphones, take screaming children outside.” Ideas that seem reasonable enough are greeted with varying degrees of amusement and shock by the public, but the primary rule stands: If people venture to tick off Mr. Watson, they will be asked to leave.
“I kick people out all the time,” he said. “I throw people like myself out. No big deal. They come back the next day.”
Mr. Watson’s use of a bullhorn to discourage cellphone use in his establishment is one of the more controversial approaches to enforcement. But in general, he said, he handles most situations calmly.
“I always make it a point, when people come in with kids . . . they get the coaster, and they get the big glass,” he said, demonstrating the strategic positioning of the coaster and pint glass, both adorned with the Dock’s guidelines, which his staff of waiters is trained to follow.
Mr. Watson doesn’t want children playing in the silverware trays or running in the aisles. “But you’ve got to give them enough rope before they hang themselves. You can’t just start screaming at people. And I don’t scream at people.”
In general, if a child is “out of line,” Mr. Watson asks the parents to take him or her outside. Whether they take offense is their own prerogative.
“Now tell me those people would not be the first ones to sue you, if you accidentally spilled something on a child. I think it’s abuse. You can’t allow children to run around a restaurant. It’s insane,” he said.
Mr. Watson explained that his policies are meant to protect not only his own ears but also those of paying customers. “I think it’s extremely rude. It’s rude to everybody around here. What about the people that came in and hired a babysitter so they could go out and enjoy themselves? And you’re going to sit them down next to a screaming kid? I don’t think so.”
Many who work at the restaurant have been there for decades, which anyone who’s had the pleasure of carrying a bowl of steaming soup past a child wearing roller-sneakers will probably understand. “When it’s busy, George is working his ass off,” said Jennifer Gillen, a waitress who landed a job at the Dock last summer. “I’ve never once made a cappuccino while he was there. He’s like an extra server that we don’t have to tip out.”
Mr. Watson’s controversial views on the finer aspects of the service industry are enough to make people take notice, but the fact that he fancies himself a writer helps some who live in Montauk survive the summer.
“At the Dock, we feel that in order for a joke to be funny, it must be told at someone’s expense,” Mr. Watson asserts at his new Web site, www.thedockmontauk.com. This philosophy can be seen at work in “the paper,” as his self-published newsletter is called by those who cringe to see their names appear in it.
Bound with a staple and featuring a hand-drawn depiction of a muscle-bound Mr. Watson wrestling a snake, the little stack of photocopied pages is titled “The Truth: Sometimes It Hurts.” The author said his publication has a circulation of “more than 200” and comes out “whenever necessary.”
Mr. Watson makes sure to include himself among those he derides. “Unlike The East Hampton Star, this paper will print all letters to the editor, be they anonymous, slanderous, libelous, obscene, racial, or ethnic,” the newsletter says.
“The only letters that won’t be printed will be the ones that are derogatory toward Mr. Watson. Since all the letters to the editor this week were of a disparaging nature concerning Mr. Watson, none will be printed.”
Even a gonzo-journalist like Mr. Watson has limits. “There are certain things you just can’t write about,” he said, going on to explain that he ignores repeated requests to “report” such real-life matters as infidelity. “It’s a fine line that most people don’t realize. Insulting people, it’s an art . . . you want to make fun of people, you don’t want to humiliate them.”
Aside from employing his newspaper to circulate local gossip, Mr. Watson uses it, and his restaurant, as a way to air his political views.
“I hate George Bush,” he said. “I was over in Vietnam, and the only thing that I thought was good that was going to come out of Vietnam was that we would never, ever, make this mistake again.” He paused and thought a moment. “And it’s so, so, sad.”
Yet he is a registered Republican. “I mean, do you have a brain?” he asked. “Each issue is separate, don’t you have to weigh things out in your mind and see what’s right and what’s wrong?”
One issue he was eager to discuss was immigration. “These people are no different than the Irish, the Italians, the Jews, the only thing is they have dark skin. They are good, hard-working, family people, who are just trying to make a buck . . . they have jobs that the fat, lazy Americans won’t take.”
“I have been here 33 years. I can’t remember the last time, never ever, do you get an American person, a kid, or whoever, looking to wash dishes. It’s always the Spanish people who have been working landscape jobs all day and now are coming down to do their second job. These people are not taking American jobs, and none of these people are being exploited out here.”
Mr. Watson closed his restaurant on May 1, the day of the nationwide immigrant strike, to shoot a commercial for Plum TV. It features an assortment of Dock regulars as well as Mr. Watson enforcing his cellphone policy on the bullhorn. It will air from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
“The only time I advertise, generally speaking, is when we open,” he said. “I don’t like being lumped in, next to. . . .I’m not going to mention names, but other restaurants which suck.”
The commercial was his wife’s idea. “I have 12 local characters, all lined up in costume, and we bring a camera in and just sort of introduce them,” he said with a smile, declining to go into further detail.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with Mr. Watson’s policies, politics, and prose, he makes an impact. And diners certainly have fair warning.
“If you are looking for a cold beer, good food, and a laugh, stop in,” Mr. Watson says on his Web site. “If you are self-absorbed yuppie scum with a cellphone and ‘free-spirited’ children, go elsewhere.”
posted by The Dock Montauk at 12:13 PM
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