Winnie’s Manayunk has reopened two weeks after staff revolt: ‘I don’t want people to think that I’m running away’
Winnie Clowry said she accepted responsibility for longstanding payroll issues that had led to a staff revolt at her popular Manayunk restaurant. She reconsidered the closing a day later.
Winnie Clowry had a change of heart after closing her Manayunk restaurant amid a staff revolt two weeks ago.
Winnie’s Manayunk, a fixture on Main Street, has reopened, as has Main Street Market by Winnie’s two doors away.
Clowry unlocked the front door without fanfare last week. A cousin has joined new waiters and a new manager to run the bar, dining room, and catering. The kitchen crew is the same, having stood by her during a dramatic several weeks as more than a dozen workers complained about missed and bounced paychecks. Based on recent interviews with staff, virtually all said they had been made whole.
“I don’t want people to think that I’m running away,” Clowry said. “That’s not what I built here.” The restaurant was Le Bus when Clowry began managing it in 1994; she bought it in 2003. Winnie’s serves a diner menu from breakfast through dinner and is one of Main Street Manayunk’s longest-running restaurants.
Clowry acknowledged what she described as a cash-flow problem that began in mid-December. The pushback from workers, which became public when a grievance letter was posted on Facebook, “made me realize that I got too far away from my staff in the front of the house,” she said.
“I don’t want people to think that I’m that kind of a person, because I’m not,” Clowry, 65, said. “It just was my own fault.”
A day after the Jan. 24 closing, Clowry said, she was discussing the decision with her husband and a friend. “I thought, ‘Wait. I’m not going to go out like that,‘” she said. “This is my life. I love this place and this community.”
Winnie’s annual benefit for North Light Community Center, for which Clowry donates 100% of a day’s proceeds, will go on as planned next month, she said.
Winnie’s had a steady flow of customers at lunchtime Saturday, even though Clowry had not announced the reopening. “I didn’t say I was open because I just thought I’d ride it through,” she said. Her day’s receipts were about half of a typical Saturday, “but that’s fine,” she said. “I’m really happy.”
Right now, she said, “my future is a blank slate. It all depends on how people react. If people don’t want me, I’ll close.”