The Parrot Tea Room, New Parrot Restaurant, Hotel, and Stand on Outer Washington Street

The New Parrot Restaurant, a longtime staple on outer Washington Street, neither replaced the original Parrot, located nearby nor was its commonly known name originally what it was called. Construction began on the restaurant in 1932, and it opened the following year on April 11th as “DeVito’s Casino,” named after Michele “Michael” DeVito, the father of many a restauranteur and a popcorn man in this city.

Upon the DeVito family’s arrival to Watertown in the early 1900s, Michael operated an ice cream and confectionary store in the basement of 100 Public Square in the Flat Iron (Fairbanks) Building on the American Corner, later home to Lantern Tobacco.

He then joined the Public Works department in 1911, working there for 21 years before retiring, at least as a city worker. During that time, he continued his business selling ice cream, peanuts, and presumably popcorn via a horse-drawn ice cream wagon that was involved in an accident in 1917 at the corner of Fair and Coffeen Street, not far from the homestead in The Flats at 147 Smith Street.

Four years before building Devito’s Casino in 1932, which was renamed the New Parrot Restaurant shortly afterward, Mr. and Mrs. H. S. Evans of Watertown opened a new gasoline station with a tea room, which was fashionable at the time and named it “The Parrot Tea Room.” It operated under “Smith’s” briefly when Glen Smith took over from its previous proprietor, Fred White, who ran Devito’s Casino in 1935. Several months later, The Parrot Tea Room was destroyed in a fire, as reported in the Watertown Daily Times on November 1, 1935—

The Old Parrot Tea Room on the Outer Washington Street highway and its contents were destroyed by fire at about 4:15 a.m. today. The loss is estimated at $6,000, partly covered by insurance.

The property was owned by Sol Simon, 141 Haley Street, and occupied by Glen Smith. The building, erected seven years ago, was valued at $4,000. Mr. Smith lost large quantities of liquors, wines and beer, as well as practically new furnishings and tables. His loss was placed at $2,000.

 

The cause of the fire, which originated in the kitchen, is unknown. It was discovered by a hunter who was passing through the back lots. He notified a resident living across from the tea room who in turn notified Mr. Simon. He called the fire department. No water supply was available so the fire department was unable to save the structure, although it used about 100 gallons of chemicals. The blaze had gained too great headway by the time the firemen arrived.

Mr. Smith had been operating the place since last May (as “Smith’s.”) Previous to that Fred White conducted it for three years until he took over the Casino, which he now calls the New Parrot Tea Room. E. A. Evans operated the burned place for three years before Mr. White.

That same year, Michael DeVito constructed The New Parrot Stand adjacent to DeVito’s Casino. The stand was a seasonal venue operated by Fred White, with refreshments, fish fry, BBQ, homemade ice cream, world-famous Hoffman Hot Dogs, and fireworks around the 4th of July.

In March 1937, DeVito’s Casino was remodeled, and around this time, it reopened as The New Parrot Restaurant, with the old Parrot Restaurant destroyed. The makeover included changing seating arrangements, with booths and tables now lining the walls and the center space devoted to bands and dancing. While still under Fred White’s direction, the orchestra and floor shows became regular features.

In 1938, different articles reported that Michael’s son Louis “Jake” DeVito was leasing and/or purchasing The New Parrot restaurant from his father. A former Watertown High School football star who graduated in 1933, Jake would take over operations from Fred White, who stated he was retiring for the time being but had plans to enter the business again.

Jake continued to play football for Red & Black after high school. His involvement with the team lasted from 1933 to 1949, during which he took on dual roles of coach and manager for about ten years in addition to being a star player. His popularity on and off the field propelled The New Parrot’s business. The restaurant later became the opening setting for fellow WHS graduate (January Class/1947) Frederick Exley‘s award-winning 1968 “fictional memoir” A Fan’s Notes (Winner of the William Faulkner Foundation Award for Notable First Novel in 1968, and a 1969 National Book Award finalist.)

In Exley’s novel, the shadow of his father’s success and popularity both on and off the athletic field hung over him as he struggled to find his own in the world, something that was evident in his high school yearbook photo (see above.) Exley wrote of his father Earl in A Fan’s Notes—

Dead at forty, which never obviates the stuff of myths, my father acquired over the years a nostalgic eminence in Watertown; and, like him, I wanted to have my name one day called back and bantered about in consecrated whispers.

Exley frequented the New Parrot every Sunday during football season to watch his beloved New York Giants play. He found a measure of success at the time by vicariously living through Frank Gifford, Exley’s classmate at USC, who happened to be the Giants’ all-world fullback.

The book also details Exley’s learning of his father’s vulnerabilities: a big fish in a small pond, Earl Exley was a three-sport all-star who went on to also star for the Red & Black. He was well-known and liked locally but was rebuffed on a trip to New York (with his son Fred) in an attempt to get the Giants’ head coach, Steve Owen, to agree to a scrimmage against the Red & Black. The trip highlighted the disparity between being a small-town hero and not much more than an afterthought in the big city.

Exley’s life was fascinating; his novel was compared to and is seen as a modern-day version of The Great Gatsby by many. Though his history with the New Parrot is brief, it’s worth sharing here as he immortalized the restaurant in his critically acclaimed book.

In April 1951, the New Parrot Stand, still owned and operated by Michael, was destroyed by an early morning fire of unknown origin. The loss was expected between $50,000 and $60,000 for what the Watertown Daily Times reported as “one of the north country’s most modern road-side refreshment stands.” The business was partially insured and would be rebuilt, opening on June 28th of that same year.

Michael continued to operate the New Parrot Stand until 1956 when he sold it to his son Jake after suffering a stroke. His health continued to worsen in the ensuing years, and he passed away at the age of 83 in March 1964.

Jake sold the New Parrot Restaurant two years earlier to his enterprising brother, Patsy, who had been operating it since October 1961. Before that, their brother-in-law and sister, Nick Kowalick and Mrs. Jennie DeVito Kowalick, operated under a lease agreement from October 1957 until Nick’s untimely death in 1961.

Jake continued to own the New Parrot Stand and Motel, and his mother, Maria, managed the latter from its conception for a few more years before selling the motel in 1968 and the stand to his son, David, in 1971. The 22-unit motel was sold to Charles S. and Francine Kubinski, Charles a patrolman for the Watertown Police Department, and Francine a teller with the National Bank of Northern New York.

In 1971, the New Parrot Stand changed its name and operated under “Cork’N Fork” for several months before reverting to DeVito’s Restaurant, which ran through 1975. David’s father, Jake, passed away in 1972 at the age of 60.

In 1976, the Kubinskis sold the New Parrot Motel to William H. and Patsy-Dean W. Landers. They also assumed ownership of the New Parrot Restaurant from 1983, having previously operated as Mr. Roberts from 1976 to 1980. The Landers sold the restaurant in 1992 to The Dohl Development Corporation, a for-profit company whose stock was held by a Jefferson Rehabilitation Center-owned holding company. The New Parrot Motel’s sale occurred in 1997 when Mr. Landers retired before passing in 1999.

In 1984, The New Parrot Restaurant would go down in a blaze of glory—a controlled blaze, as the Town of Watertown fire department used the structure for a firefighters drill in March. As written in the Times article published February 25—

The controlled fire was proposed by Bill Hettig and Brian Fraser, co-owners of both the New Parrot site and the Sun-Dance Leisure store located behind the former restaurant. 

The two bought the weathered restaurant site in December with the intentions of razing the structure and providing their pool and leisure apparatus store with greater visibility to Washington Street traffic. 

The restaurant as part of a trio of well known New Parrot establishments that included a motel and hot dog stand. 

A new “New Parrot” opened next to the former site before the original was razed. No further information could be found after its sale in 1992. The motel eventually closed in the 2000s after several incidents caused bad press.