OMG!

Retired Maritime Lawyer

Steers Cooperstown Diner

By LIBBY CUDMORE • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com

COOPERSTOWN – When Caspar Ewig met his wife, Patricia, in 1973, she had a condition for going steady with her.

“She told me that if we started dating, Cooperstown was in my future,” he said. “She spent every summer up here, taking horseback riding lessons from the Moffats and staying with her aunt on Pioneer Street.”

Now, 47 years later, he’s fulfilled that edict, taking over as the new manager of the Cooperstown Diner, which is reopening for take-out Thursday, May 28.

“I was looking for something to do and I saw the diner was looking for a manager,” he said. “I called Scott Hayford” – longtime owner Earle Hayford’s son – “and the rest is history.”

A native of Germany who was raised in Yonkers, Caspar and Patricia, the bookkeeper at his office, Hill, Rivkins LLP, married in 1977. She died in 2005.

A maritime lawyer, he worked at the firm until he retired in 2017. “I got to my 71st birthday and I was still ready to work, but they wanted me to retire,” he said.

The Ewigs had purchased a home on Route 166 near Cooperstown, where they planned to retire. “We’d go to the diner a lot when we came up to Cooperstown,” he said. “We’d get that
humongous hamburger!”

Meanwhile, their daughter Kathy has been living there with her son, Jason; her daughter Gabby, and Gabby’s twins, Sean and Amanda, are at SUNY Poly, near Utica, and SUNY Fredonia, respectively.

Ewig’s son, Fred, father of Emily, 11, and twins Rebecca and Ryan, 6, lives in Princeton, N.J.
Last October, Casper moved up from Jersey City and, in April, saw the listing for the new diner manager online.

“I’ve always enjoyed cooking,” he said. “Every church we ever attended, I always helped out with the cooking for luncheons and celebrations.”

After 9/11, he said, he got some restaurant experience helping a friend run her restaurant, Giovanni’s Atrium, in Brooklyn, while she took care of her ailing husband. “I thought I might like to cook,” he said.

The diner has been closed since the pandemic started, and Ewig’s used the time to study the menu and the operations. “I’m a big fan of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’,” he said. “The diner has a great reputation; right now it’s just about tweaking some of the offerings and making sure they all travel well for when people do take-out.”

But that doesn’t mean he’s not going to put his own touch on the diner. “The breakfasts are always good, but the dinners left something to be desired,” he said.

To start, he’s going to add his specialty quiches to the menu. “I’m a big fan of quiche, so I’m going to make individual ones – spinach and ham and broccoli – in little four-inch pans.”

German specialties may soon follow. “The diner has very standard offerings, but I want to do some food that’s more interesting,” he said.

He’ll also offer a $15 “bottomless cup” – buy the mug and it will be filled free for a year every time you come in.

“The staff is very loyal and very eager to open up again,” he said. “There’s nothing better than having a staff who knows the place.”

And, he’s keeping the OMG! Burger – 13 ounces, and written up by Time magazine – among the offerings.