Empire Grill stirs controversy
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
SKOWHEGAN — While the rest of the town was rolling out the red carpet for the cast and crew of the HBO movie "Empire Falls," Glenice Woodman was greeting them with picket signs.
Riverside Restaurant owner Glenice Woodman, center, and several others protest the Empire Falls movie work that they say has decreased business on Water Street in Skowhegan, a short distance from where parts of the movie will be filmed.
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Woodman, the owner of the Riverside Restaurant on Water Street, said rebuilding Patrick's Pizza Joint as the Empire Grill for the movie about a hard luck mill town will mean the death of her business.
For years to come people will stop to have lunch or dinner in the diner where Paul Newman and Ed Harris once acted and ignore her place altogether, she said: "The tourists will be going there, where now they come here."
Tuesday she stood in front of her restaurant holding a bright yellow placard lettered with black magic marker — "Save Our Community Restaurant —Riverside.
Several of her employees and some loyal customers carried similar signs saying things like "don't let the movie production take our Riverside family and community businesses" and "rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Don't let us suffer."
Woodman said her business has already been hurt because tractor-trailers bringing in equipment for the movie block access to her parking spaces in the rear of her building.
Toby Merrill said he was demonstrating on Woodman's behalf because "Glenice has been nothing but good to me, even when I couldn't afford to pay for meals. I'm trying to return the favor."
Liz Pratt of Skowhegan said she is a Riverside customer who believes that Woodman will be unable to compete with the newly renovated Empire Grill once it reopens.
"I think it's going to hurt her for a while after they're gone. People will want to get in there, especially tourists," she said.
Meanwhile, down the street, the set decorators and construction crew put the finishing touches on the Empire Grill as Town Manager Patricia A. Dickey and Police Chief Butch Asselin looked on.
Dickey, who has been a cheerleader for the filming, said she doesn't believe Woodman's business will be hurt long-term. If anything, it might benefit simply by being just down the street from a diner created for the movie, she said.
"If she has good food, good service and a good clientele, that she says she has," said Dickey.
Lynn "Kip" Kippax, the location manager for the HBO movie, called it a "classic example of no good deed going unpunished."
He said Falls Films, Inc., the company making the movie, has no interest in running a restaurant, and no desire to harm anyone's business. "I know everyone associated with the production wants and hopes that she succeeds," Kippax said.
Joe Rankin — 474-9534, Ext. 341
jrankin@centralmaine.com