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By MARY GROW
Correspondent 11/24/2007

Two connections, says Norman Elvin.

Elvin is owner and president of G & E Roofing in Augusta, which he started in 1975. As of October, he is also the hands-on owner of the China Dine-ah on Lakeview Drive in China.

The first common denominator is people, Elvin says: he likes people and likes to please them.

And the way to please people is the same for both businesses: provide a high-quality product and good service at a fair price.

Co-manager Sherri Glidden seconds Elvin. The best part of her job is seeing everybody, she says. A China native and former educational technician in local schools, Glidden is always happy to greet her many old friends and make new ones.

The 70-seat restaurant served 5,107 meals in its first three weeks, suggesting that Elvin, Glidden and co-manager/bartender Dennis Herrick are doing things right.

Elvin said the two most popular meals head chef Patrick Cotnoir turns out are baked haddock stuffed with crabmeat and seafood and reuben sandwiches. The prime rib served Friday and Saturday nights is well received, too.

Also in the kitchen are prep cooks Rhonda Boynton and Marilyn Bragg, with Bragg doubling as baker (her pies, doughnuts, cream puffs and biscuits are locally famous), and breakfast cooks Ralph Arbour, a veteran of the Waterville House of Pancakes, and Terry Haskell.

Bragg is Glidden's aunt, and Haskell is Bragg's niece on the other side of the family.

Elvin has a total staff of 31 -- 14 full-time and 17 part-time. He hired people for their friendly personalities, not their experience, he said, knowing he could train the right people.

He spends many hours in the Dine-ah, greeting patrons, busing tables, getting drinks, making sure diners are satisfied and "doing things that an owner should do."

The interior scheme is his, with help from Glidden and others: Distressed wooden booths and tables in shades of brown, tan, gold and green. Elvin has distressed wood in his camp and likes the way it feels; it's warm and friendly, and looks as though it's been used and has a story behind it, he said.

The booths are roomy, the tables -- for two or four -- can be combined to accommodate larger parties.

Glidden said she and Elvin traveled together and measured booths and tables in every restaurant they stopped at to find comfortable sizes.

The breakfast and lunch bar has a gleaming copper foot rail. China Dine-ah has a liquor license, and patrons stop at the bar for a drink while waiting for a table, but the emphasis is on food.

Herrick has experience as a bartender and a trainer of bartenders. When Elvin told China Planning Board members he was going to offer liquor, he promised responsible use and no incidents. So far, he said, there have been no incidents. Glidden's grandparents on her mother's side started two China restaurants, the Lake Breeze farther north on Lakeview Drive, where she waitressed as a youngster, and The Landing at the head of China Lake.

Her grandparents on her father's side owned Dowe's Diner in South China.

Elvin became a restaurant owner almost by accident.

After Glidden's parents closed their hardware store, they asked Elvin to help them sell the building. No one else was interested and the price was right, so he bought it himself.

Town officials wouldn't give him a permit to use it until they knew what kind of business he planned, because different businesses need different-sized septic systems.

Elvin wanted a large septic system, so he'd have flexibility to use part of the building and rent out the rest. A restaurant would justify a large septic system, so he decided to open a restaurant.

He knew experienced people to hire, he said. And besides, his business friends told him a restaurant was one of the hardest businesses in the world to start and make a go of -- a challenge he couldn't resist.

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