‘With a very happy heart I say farewell’

RYE — For Paul Mackey, the longtime owner of The Carriage House restaurant, the community’s warm response to the end of his ownership has been overwhelming.

“I guess I didn’t realize how many people I touched, and how many people The Carriage House touched, and the crew touched,” Mackey said.

Since Mackey announced the sale of the restaurant, he’s received an outpouring of emails and visits from patrons telling him how much the establishment has meant to them over the years. “It’s been like a Saturday night every night,” said Mackey, who will close for the last time this Sunday at 10 p.m.

This past week, the restaurant has been busy with “people coming in either for their last [veal] Pasquale or last steak au poivre. To say goodbye to this crew,” Mackey said. That was one of the hardest things about the process, he said, having to tell his crew about the closure.

Mackey said he always intended for The Carriage House to be his retirement, but he hadn’t been certain about the timing until the recent sale. “I just knew it was time,” he said. “Feels like 35 years went by in a flash. I knew I would get here.”

R.J. Joyce and James Woodhouse, owners of Louie’s in Portsmouth, purchased The Carriage House at 2263 Ocean Blvd. and plan to keep its name and the same sign by the entrance when they reopen it after closing for six to eight weeks for renovations.

Mackey said it was the perfect time to change hands, as the weeks between Valentine’s Day and Easter tend to be slower than other times of the year, and he feels like he’s handing it over to the right people. “I have a lot of respect for those guys and I think they’re very capable. I hope that they’re extremely successful,” he said.

He said he’d had many offers to develop The Carriage House into condominiums over the years but he never accepted. “I wasn’t going to do that to this town,” he said. “It’s an institution here, and if I can come here 20 years from now and have dinner here, it’s going to be huge.”

Mackey learned cooking and the restaurant business from his family. He grew up with a Sicilian grandmother who had her own garden and made her own pasta and bread from scratch, and instilled his farm-to-table ethos. His mother, Josephine ran a country club and worked at an Italian bakery. Mackey said both his parents were at his opening.

“With my mom being in the restaurant business that was a big deal. She was so proud of me for following in her footsteps,” he said.

Mackey bought the restaurant in 1983 from the previous owner who called it Michael’s Carriage House. Before that, it had been Carpenter’s Carriage House, and the original owner called the restaurant Swenson’s Grill when she built it in 1931.

“I was 29 years old,” Mackey said of when he took over the restaurant. “It was a big undertaking at the time.”

Mackey said the restaurant hasn’t changed much over the years but he did expand it to the second floor, which used to be apartments, so they could increase the volume of diners to around 120 at once.

“I’ve gone through generations of people here too,” he said, adding some of his original customers who brought their children, then came with their children’s children, some having even worked there.

Mackey’s two sons worked at the restaurant serving tables and bartending.

Mackey remembered one customer in her 90s who had lived on Straws Point in the summers. “She would come in here all the time and sit by the fireplace with her scotch on the rocks and she would tell me stories,” he said, recalling how she told him she used to travel by horse and buggy as a child from Manchester to Straws Point, and then back again in the fall.

Mackey said he’s gotten to know endless patrons. “There’s a lot of people that summer over here,” he added.

“Restaurants can be personal,” said Mackey, who has worn many hats in the business, from bartending and managing to being in the kitchen, and the chef for years at The Carriage House. “That’s the key to the success of the restaurant, that’s the key to any restaurant, is how well do you know your customer.”

As Mackey walked around the second floor dining room minutes after the doors opened at 5 p.m. Friday, he exchanged greetings with the many diners already seated at tables and headed to the bar to shake hands with more patrons.

Among patrons at the bar was Kelly Mannes, who said she was there to enjoy all her favorite menu items before they close. “It’s a magical place,” Mannes said. “Great food, great people.”

Mannes said when she moved to Rye, down the street from the restaurant, 10 years ago she began going to The Carriage House. “I met a lot of great people here,” she said, adding on occasion said she could be seen at the town staple up to five nights a week.

“It’s just that feeling that people get when they come in the door. That warm comfortable feeling that you’re at The Carriage House,” Mackey said. “It’s more of a home, their home, than it is coming to a restaurant.”

Mackey will continue to be in the area, as he performs in the local band the Tonymack Band. He also has a restaurant in St. Augustine, Florida, The Kingfish Grill, which will continue to operate.

“I just hope I’ve touched people’s lives in a good way, and with a very happy heart I say farewell.”