The Spot: Catherine's, at the old general store

We always hear about the shiny, new restaurants. This is one in a series about the Philadelphia area's more established dining establishments and the people behind them. 

Two years before they got married, Marybeth Brown and Kevin McMunn got hitched. That is, they opened a restaurant together. It wasn't altogether surprising, considering they'd worked alongside each other for over a decade — Brown was just 16 when she began waitressing at the West Chester bar where McMunn was a cook — and had hit it off right away.

Fifteen years and a move to Unionville later, their American restaurant Catherine's is still going strong. Even more impressively (or perhaps essentially?), the business continues to evolve. Brown now operates an art gallery/retail shop adjacent to the BYOB, and obtained a license to vend a trio of customer favorites at farmer's markets around Chester County.

Even so, McMunn's cooking remains the main draw to the historic former general store just north of Kennett Square, where the candle-lit dining room fills to the brim every Friday and Saturday night and overflows during Sunday brunch. I spoke with Marybeth via telephone to find out more about Catherine's namesake, and discover the secret to running a restaurant that forswears computer ordering in favor of handwritten tickets.

Who was Catherine

She was my grandmother, though everyone called her "Kitty." She grew up in Philadelphia, and waitressed at different places until she was 74, when my mom made her quit. I have a photo of her at her first job — she's 16 years old and is working the sandwich order window at Mitchell, Fletcher & Co. The stand was underground, right where Reading Terminal Market and the subway are now.

That's where she met my grandfather, he delivered bread. After that job she worked at Dairy Maid's at 15th and Chestnut. My mother eventually worked there too, when she was in high school.

So waitressing runs in your family?

Yup. My first job was actually at Wanamaker's — I grew up in Southwest Philly, but my father was a Fire Department battalion chief and his territory was Center City, so I was there all the time. Then I moved to West Chester to go to West Chester University and started waitressing at a place called the Restaurant and the Bar, where Kildare's is now. After college, I realized I really loved waitressing and being a restaurant manager. But I knew if I was going to stay in the industry, I had to do it for myself, run my own business.

So I did a stint at the Wharton School of Business in 1999, did the legwork to figure out how to open a restaurant. Then Kevin and I looked for a spot. A West Chester restaurant called Crawdaddy's was for sale, so we bought it, ran it for a few months, then closed it and turned it into Catherine's.

When and why did you move the restaurant to Unionville?

Developers wanted to turn the strip into a shopping center. This was around 2003. They were going to triple the rent! My friend Linda owns Sovana Bistro, right on Unionville Road, and she suggested we check out the old Unionville General Store. "It's always for sale," she said, and what do you know, it was.

So we bought the place, which was built in 1851, and moved the restaurant there. A bit later, we moved into the attached house, which dates back to 1740.

Did the space need many renovations?

We put in a lot of work. It had been a general store until around 1998, and then was a breakfast place, so the bones were there. But we built the patio and added a lot of touches, like hanging French doors. Almost everything is antique — the walk-in is from the turn of the century, with two huge butcher block doors. We light the restaurant exclusively with candles, 160 of them. And we handwrite all our checks; we have no computer system.

Isn't it tough to run an 80-seat restaurant without a computer ordering system?

Well, there's only one chef in the kitchen — my husband — so he has a good handle on everything. He bangs out over 100 dinners every night, by himself. There's another guy who helps him plate the food, but Kevin does all the cooking, no sous chef or anything. He's the master of prep. He's a workhorse.

Also, nearly everyone here has worked together for over 20 years. Lisa, the pastry chef, worked with me at my previous restaurant job. So did Susan, who does the books. I know people say you shouldn't hire your friends, but I found the complete opposite.

I have a great core staff in general, which was really a big help when I had kids. Turns out it's a lot easier to find good people to work in a restaurant than it is to take care of twins.

How old are the twins now? Do they help in the restaurant?

They're 8, a girl and a boy, and they do help...though that term is relative. They're still young. When they get a bit older, I plan to expand a bit more. I have a retail license for three of our products — the wild mushroom jumbo lump crab soup, the key lime pie and the tomato-basil dip we serve instead of butter — and I sell those things at our store next door, which is a local crafts shop and gallery. But the next frontier is to really expand our presence at retail markets and stands. I've been planning this since 2008, but the kids come first.

Time flies. I actually can't believe it's been 15 years. I can't believe Kevin and I are still together, and still love running our restaurant. It just works.