By Emma Stanton, Staff Writer
As Woodstock’s The Prince & The Pauper prepares to serve its final meal on Saturday, March 14, the Standard talked with the owner and staff, who have helped carry on the iconic restaurant’s service to this community for the past 54 years.
Owner Liz Schwenk, with tears in her eyes, made time for an interview on Saturday afternoon, before the restaurant filled with patrons — many of whom were visiting for one last meal.
“I’m feeling a lot of mixed emotions,” Schwenk told the Standard. “A lot of gratitude, a lot of sadness. I say to our customers all the time that I am not the person who came up with this lovely restaurant, but I do feel like the steward of it. It’s coming up on seven years of stewardship. We had one year of normalcy before COVID-19, which was comprised of strange, surreal, and uncertain times — offering take-away from a table outside so our local patrons could still enjoy a familiar meal. Then COVID passed, and these walls got used to hearing the sound of laughter and the clinking of glasses, the greeting from a warm and welcoming server. There is a lot to say goodbye to.”
As for the next chapter of The Prince & The Pauper, Schwenk is unclear about what the future holds. “I don’t know yet what ‘the next chapter’ will be. I’m keeping all my options open. I really want to try and take the next few months to process everything and decide what the best choice will be moving forward. I have two small kids and plan to spend the next few months with them, just processing and taking a moment to breathe.” Schwenk will save as much from the restaurant as she can — from the wooden booths to the servers’ hutch to the Victorian maître d’ stand.
“My husband has rented a storage unit; I still own all the recipes and the name, so even though we will not physically be in this space anymore, I’m hoping this is just the closing of a chapter, not the end of the story.”
Schwenk sat in her restaurant on Saturday, surrounded by staff who feel more like family than employees. Some, like Liz Steinrisser and her husband Clemens, have been working at The Prince & The Pauper for 25 years. Liz Steinrisser told the Standard, “It’s interesting when we started working here, we were surprised to find that many of our co-workers had already been here for ten or fifteen years. We thought that was a long time for any individual to work in one restaurant, but then we realized that the main reason people stayed here for such a long time was because it was a wonderful place to work.
At left, the entire staff of The Prince & The Pauper. The historic restaurant will serve its last meal on Saturday, March 14. Emma Stanton Photo At right, The Prince & The Pauper.
“We never thought we’d be here for this long, but even as the ownership changed hands throughout the decades, this never stopped being a wonderful place to work, full of extremely kind and talented people in both the front and back of house.”
Along with nice owners, Steinrisser remarked on the incredible clientele, who came back week after week, year after year. “I have seen young children grow into adults and still come back with their parents or their grandparents,” Steinrisser said. “Anniversaries, rehearsal dinners, birthdays, a regular Tuesday night — you name it. Being here for so long, I can see the impact this place has made on the community, and I obviously feel the support of that very community each and every night.”
“You don’t get that same level of intimacy at a restaurant anywhere else that you get in a place like this, especially a restaurant that has been around for over five decades. We not only have a reputation for excellent food and service, but The Prince & The Pauper has become just a special place to visit. Whether it’s a tourist traveling hours to enjoy a meal with us, or a regular Woodstocker coming in for their Thursday evening salmon, or girlfriends catching up at the bar over a few cocktails — this place has been alive for so many years. It’s strange to think of the white tablecloths rolled up, and the lights dimmed.”
Fellow server Amy Kaminski detailed her story of staring across Elm Street from where she used to work at Bentley’s a few decades ago, and seeing the servers and staff enter The Prince & The Pauper. It took some time and a few more jobs, but for the past five years, The Prince & The Pauper has been Kaminski’s home away from home.
“I’ve never worked anywhere in the restaurant industry where the staff gets along so well,” Kaminski said. “I’m not only losing a paycheck and a job, but I’m losing my best friends, my tribe.”
The closing of the restaurant came as a surprise to all the staff, “We were shocked when we found out,” Kaminski added, telling the Standard the news started out as nothing more than a rumor over Wassail weekend.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she added. “But if I had to attribute one word that encapsulates the time I have spent here, I’d have to say it’s been inspiring.”
Executive chef Matthew Barrett told the Standard, “What drew me to The Prince & The Pauper was the creativity of working with the seasons, working with fresh-grown seasonal vegetables. Paying homage to the legacy of this restaurant has been such an enjoyable and humbling journey. I wanted to keep a lot of the classic menu when I came into the kitchen three years ago — the lamb dish is very popular; the salmon was a fan favorite. But within that classic French style, I still worked to find ways to make these meals my own.”
Barrett detailed choices of adding fresh tomato gazpacho to a meal at the height of summer, or when asparagus was in bloom during a cooler spring day, adding a warm asparagus soup to the menu. “One of the greatest compliments of my career came the other night, when the old owner dined here one last time and said the meal was just as good as he remembered from his time in this restaurant nearly a decade ago.”
Among the kitchen staff are several young women, all trained under Barrett to one day run their own restaurants. Sisters Liz and Abby Kowalczyk work as cook and dishwasher. Liz Kowalczyk has been with the P&P for two and a half years and told the Standard that she enjoys the creative freedom of working in this kitchen, where the staff is always encouraged to try new things. “It’s been wonderful. These people are my second family,” she said.
Her sister, Abby Kowalczyk, has worked at The Prince & The Pauper since last June, and for her, blending her work family with her own family member has been a particularly memorable experience.
Line cook Madison Moon, who took a leap moving back east and switching from a role in office management to the restaurant business, told the Standard, “I’ve been working with The Prince & The Pauper for around six months, and they are the most supportive and caring people I’ve ever met. They made my transition here so much more bearable and really showed me why I wanted to come to Vermont in the first place.”
When Moon looked back on the experience, the one word that came to mind when thinking about her culinary journey at The Prince & The Pauper was “healing.”
Maggie Burns, who has worked at The Prince & The Pauper on and off for three years now, credits the restaurant for providing her with job versatility, as she started out dishwashing, moved up to working as a line cook, and finally stepped into the role of hostess.
“My mom used to work here twenty years before I did,” Burns said. “She worked with both Clemens and Liz and recently got to reprise her role as maître d’ on Valentine’s Day this year, so we got to work together before this place had its final farewell. The Prince & The Pauper has just been an incredibly supportive and versatile experience, and one I will never forget.”
Cathy Howland, who has worked for The Prince & The Pauper for the past six years, commended the team’s ability to work like a well-oiled machine. She told the Standard, “From the bartender to the office workers to the front of house servers to the dishwashers to the chefs — if one person is missing, nothing runs smoothly. Together over the years, I have seen this team create something truly special.”
Emma Schmell, the office manager who has worked at the P&P for three years, reminisced to the Standard about her time at The Prince & The Pauper as both an employee and a diner.
“I have been coming here with my family for many, many years — it’s a special place,” Schmell began. “My husband asked me to marry him here; my late father used to dine with us here all the time. It’s a place that holds so many memories.
“When I look back on the decades I dined here, and the years I spent working with Liz, I find that this place just feels so meaningful — meaningful in the way that is significant to people’s lives. This place has been the cornerstone of so many joyous evenings, so many quiet conversations, family reunions, even a few arguments, I’m sure. But the reason it is so hard to let The Prince & The Pauper go is because it was a rare restaurant that survived long enough to form a legacy. It was special enough to mean something to people — it really did make a profound impact on all who entered these four historic, red-brick walls,” Schmell said.
Liz Schwenk held her rehearsal dinner at The Prince & The Pauper nearly a decade ago. Now, this Friday, she’ll host one final rehearsal dinner before serving her final meal Saturday, March 14. “I cannot thank this community enough,” Schwenk told the Standard. “For all the love, light, and memories you have blessed us with. It is something I will hold on to forever.”