‘An oceanfront corner office.’ Waitress celebrates on 40 years at Sea Captain’s House
Having an ocean-view corner office is enough to make anyone jealous.
From the floor-to-ceiling bay windows, Marie Stowe has seen dolphins and whales swimming through the Atlantic.
It’s her favorite place to work from.
Never mind that she has to share her office with a few coworkers — or that “her office” is actually a giant dining room.
It’s not just any dining room, though. It’s a dining room at the Sea Captain’s House restaurant in Myrtle Beach. And she’s also not just any employee at the restaurant. She’s Beverly Marie Stowe, a waitress of nearly 40 years and the longest-serving member of the restaurant’s waitstaff.
“I just kind of fell in love with the place,” she said. “I never really wanted to wait tables. ... It wasn’t until I came here that I really had waitstaff and managers put their arms around me, really show me the ropes and really love me.”
Here, she learned to see serving as something more meaningful.
Stowe has been at Sea Captain’s House for so long that she’s served guests, their children and later their grandchildren. She’s trained the children of employees who she trained with. For a restaurant with seafaring in its name, Stowe is its masthead.
“We consider her the jewel of Sea Captain’s House,” general manager Nicholas Christopher said. “Forty years and one month of experience in this restaurant, working and adapting to change and adapting to new regimes and seeing a lot of people come and go, she’s been a mainstay.”
‘Never meant to stay’
Stowe put in her server application on her birthday, Jan. 30, in 1981. She had just turned 22.
She got a call the next day but was told she wouldn’t be needed until March, closer to tourism season, though she could drop by to see what she would need for her uniform.
When Stowe walked in later that day, the manager asked how quickly she could get the uniform together. Stowe said by the next afternoon.
Her career began Feb. 1. What she planned to be a summer job, something temporary, turned into 40 years last month. Stowe swears she “never meant to stay.” But she just never had a reason to leave.
Stowe’s unexpected 40 years at Sea Captain’s are not unlike the restaurant’s own unexpected history. Bought in 1962, the house had been an inn for close to a decade. The owners initially planned to tear it down to build a multi-story motel. A lack of money postponed those plans, so Sea Captain’s became a restaurant.
It was supposed to be temporary — one or two years — but nearly 60 years later, Sea Captain’s is still serving Myrtle Beach locals and tourists alike, just like Stowe.
Stowe said she stuck around because she loved Sea Captain’s, the owners, the people she worked with and her guests. And in return, “they loved me back.”
“They welcomed me with open arms and made me feel comfortable,” she said. “I just found a second family and just never left.”
She also admits she loves the “comfort of familiarity” that comes with having worked in one place for so long. She’s worked with some of the other servers for 20 years.
These days, there’s no one else around from when she first started. On a wall near the restaurant’s lobby, a plaque celebrates the longevity of employees who have worked there for more than a decade.
Beverly Marie Stowe is the only person on that plaque with more than 30 years under her belt.
“I didn’t mean to stay there that long — it just went one year after the other,” Stowe said. “I enjoyed my work. I enjoyed the physical demands. I enjoyed the mental challenges, as well. It just worked for me. ... I really like what I do. Being able to create a good experience for the guest.”
A wealth of knowledge
Christopher, the general manager, started at Sea Captain’s only recently compared to Stowe’s tenure.
He said he learned so much about the restaurant — what worked, what didn’t and what needed to change — from Stowe. Even after three years, Christopher admits that Stowe probably knows more than him, at least when it comes to the history of Sea Captain’s, if not the restaurant’s operations, as well.
“Myrtle Beach, I believe, owes her a debt of gratitude just in terms of her dedication and loyalty to hospitality in this town,” he said. “It’s pretty inspiring to imagine how many guests she’s touched and, through that great experience, caused them to return to our area.
“She is certainly not singularly responsible for helping build Myrtle Beach, but she’s one of those great stories of the efforts that were made to help put the beach on the map.”
Christopher said he tries to make sure Stowe is involved in the first or second day of training for new employees. Her dedication sets the tone for the quality of work the restaurant commands. Stowe said she’s trained almost every person who’s walked in the door in the last 20 years.
“To the waitstaff, I am the matriarch,” he said. “That’s part of my stamp, bringing them in, showing them the way, showing them the ways to succeed.”
Ann Brittain LeMay, an owner of Sea Captain’s who has known Stowe for close to 50 years, said seeing Stowe work there for so long makes her feel like she’s “doing the right thing.” The restaurant is family-owned, and LeMay said that Stowe is a part of that family, as well.
LeMay also appreciates Stowe’s dedication to improving Sea Captain’s and her willingness to voice her opinion if something isn’t going well.
Yet Stowe is one of the least imposing people you could ever meet.
“When she has something to say, it’s very thoughtful and heartfelt. She has a big heart, a great big heart and a tiny little body,” LeMay said.
Forty years of experience hasn’t taught Stowe everything. She points out that just like Myrtle Beach, the restaurant industry is constantly changing. The Grand Strand didn’t have 1,700 restaurants when she first started, and it’s forced businesses and employees to adapt and put out better quality in order to compete.
Sea Captain’s, in many ways, stays constant. Stowe said guests appreciate that, especially when the pandemic has upended so many “normal” parts of life.
“There were a lot of our customers who don’t want change,” she said. “I couldn’t tell you how many times over the years our guests, when they see me or some of the other older servers, they’re like, ‘Oh, I’m so glad to see you.’ It’s. relieving to them. It’s a comfort to them to know that we’re progressing, and if we’re we’re still there, everything’s OK.”
Hurricane Hugo
Eight years into her career, Stowe decided against leaving town before Hurricane Hugo arrived in 1989. All she did was leave her house and go a little farther inland to escape the worst of the storm.
One of the strongest in South Carolina’s history, the storm caused $7 billion worth of damage, the most of any hurricane in U.S. history at the time. Hugo damaged or destroyed 80,000 homes in the state.
The morning after the storm passed, Stowe went to go check on her house before making a beeline for Sea Captain’s.
She feared the worst for the then-60-year-old home of the restaurant.
“I just started crying because it was still intact,” she said. Hugo had torn up the parking lot next door, but “the restaurant was still standing, and I just shed tears of joy.”
The restaurant reopened shortly thereafter, once it was deemed safe, to serve the locals or tourists who didn’t leave and now found themselves with many fewer options for finding food in a shutdown beach town.
“If there’s a place that’s open, it’s going to be Sea Captain’s House,” Stowe said.
She takes pride in knowing that the restaurant always does its best to stay open and help the community through major storms. When possible, she’s also worked through other tropical storms and minor hurricanes over the years.
“We feel like it’s a community service is to stay open and be able to serve people when everything else is shut down,” she said. “People who have supported us through the years that are locals, and tourists alike, they know we’re going to be there for them.”
Retirement?
Would Stowe ever leave Sea Captain’s? Would she ever retire? She could if she wanted to, she says while laughing.
At 62, she enjoys the work too much to stop. Her only impediment these days is a bad hip, so management has kept her working on the upper floor, close to the kitchens and without the stairs required to get to the rest of the dining areas. That kind of treatment is what keeps her there.
Plus, the upper level is the “corner office” dining room she so loves.
“I’m just going to keep working until I don’t want to,” she said. “I haven’t really set a target age. I don’t want to limit myself, you know? I feel like if I get to that point, you start kind of lowering your standards and going, ‘Oh, well, I only have one more year.’”
As long as “her old frame” can keep going, so will she. Sea Captain’s keeps her happy and entertained.
Since she never married or had children, her work also keeps her connected to her family there.
“Like a bad penny, they just can’t get rid of me,” she said.
This story was originally published March 3, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
