George Phillips, 79, restaurant owner

When he was a child, George H. Phillips worked in the kitchen of his family's restaurant in Sea Isle City, N.J.

"He opened clams, got a penny apiece," his wife, Linda, said.

When ownership of the business - Busch's Seafood Restaurant - passed to him from his mother, Anna Busch, he was back where he started. "He was the cook; he kept the back of the house going," his wife said.

Though the restaurant employed as many as 120 workers at its peak, she said, "he sweated like everybody else in that kitchen."

On Tuesday, April 7, Mr. Phillips, 79, who retired at age 62, died of cancer at his Sea Isle City home.

Opened in 1882 as the Atlantic House Hotel in Townsend Inlet, Linda Phillips said, the business was sold in late 2014 and the block-long building was demolished to make way for a mixed-use development.

The 450-seat restaurant was open each year from Memorial Day to Labor Day, she said, but in its last year sold only takeout food and only at its bar.

Mr. Phillips, an only child who was the fourth generation of his family to run the business, passed it on when he retired to daughter Kimberly Schettig and her husband, Albert.

During Mr. Phillips' ownership, his wife said, "we were jumping."

Not only was food served from 4 to 10 p.m., she said, but "we also had a lounge with music that started at 10 and went to 2 a.m., last call."

The building was home away from home each summer for a changing cast of foreign student workers. "I called it the U.N.," she said. "George would employ Bangladeshis, Russians. We had Irish, Bulgarians."

They were on short-term work visas and, she said, "we could accommodate them all. We had rooms over the restaurant. We boarded them all, at least 15 a summer."

Born in Somers Point, N.J., Mr. Phillips graduated from the former Bordentown Military Institute and earned a bachelor's in accounting at Villanova University.

Before joining the family business, his wife said, he was an accountant in Philadelphia for what is now ExxonMobil.

When young, he was a right-handed pitcher for semiprofessional baseball teams. A member of the Wildwood Country Club for more than 20 years, he was a former president of the Sea Isle City Chamber of Commerce.

Olga Reid, his caregiver for the last 14 months, said Mr. Phillips was "most of all a man of God, a man of integrity, a man of compassion."

Besides his wife Linda and daughter, Mr. Phillips is survived by daughters Tracy and Lauren, two grandsons, and former wife Mimi Kerr.

A visitation was set from 10 a.m. Saturday, April 11, at the Radzieta Funeral Home, 9 Hand Ave., Cape May Court House, before an 11:30 a.m. memorial service there.

Donations may be sent to Beacon Animal Rescue, 701 Butter Rd., Ocean View, N.J. 08230 or http://beaconanimalrescue.org.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.radzieta.com.

610-313-8134 @WNaedele