Globe & Laurel heading to new location

Sharing a meal at the Globe and Laurel restaurant in eastern Prince William County has been a tradition for Marines and law enforcement officers for almost 40 years.

Quantico Marine Col. Mike Riley said he first heard about the Globe and Laurel from an instructor at The Basic School in 1979.

"He told us it was something we should check out and we did," Riley said.

Word of mouth at the various schools aboard the Quantico

Marine Corps base and at the FBI National Academy that the Globe and Laurel was a special place of camaraderie has been the draw -- no matter its location.

The Globe and Laurel, which had been in Triangle for 32 years after a fire forced it out of its original home in the town of Quantico, closed for good on Wednesday. It will, however, reopen at a new location in north Stafford County later this month.

Retired Marine Maj. Richard Spooner opened the original Globe and Laurel in the town of Quantico in 1968. He remembers the cold October day six years later when a fire destroyed most of the building.

It had started in one of the apartments above his restaurant and burned for hours before firefighters were called. But when they were called, so was Spooner, who rushed down to see what could be salvaged. "We were devas-tated," he said.

As word spread that the Globe and Laurel was in danger, Marines and off-duty police officers quickly headed for Quantico ready to help.

The restaurant -- and Spooner -- had already become a special to these groups of men.

"In three hours, we salvaged almost everything," Spooner said, including the table and chairs still used by the restaurant.

Upon learning that the owner of the building was not going to rebuild, Spooner and his wife, Gloria, who works with him in the restaurant, started looking for a new site.

"We had to find a new place so we took this dumpy little building, as bad as it was," said Spooner of the Triangle location.

"You could see daylight through some of the walls. They were just wooden slats," Spooner said. "The flooring was supported by wooden Coke cases. The building was barely standing."

Spooner, his staff and friends went to work to convert Jim's Char Broiler, built in 1932, into the Globe and Laurel.

"I'm a Marine. We are going to work on this. We are going to make it something special and make it something worthwhile," Spooner said.

Slowly, Jim's Char Broiler became the Globe and Laurel with its Tudor-style facade and its dark-paneled and dimly-lit interior resembling a Scottish pub down to the tartan carpet.

The ceiling, covered with thousands of law enforcement patches representing agencies from across the country, is the heart of the restaurant.

"I've never really counted them because they don't belong to me," Spooner said recently before the restaurant closed. "They belong to the police officers who have brought them here."

Spooner said police officers follow their own set of rules with regard to their patches. They cannot be asked for but only offered; and a patch can only be given by a police officer who is authorized to wear it.

"Every patch in here represents a cop who is entitled to wear it," Spooner said.

The walls of the pub and the rest of the restaurant were lined with shadow boxes and Marine memorabilia including items from marine organizations around the world such as Korean Marines, Dutch Marines and British Royal Ma-rines.

As with the police patches, all the military items on display at the Globe and Laurel were given to Spooner by ser-vice members from those units.

"Some of the [displays] took many years to acquire because people would come in and give us a few pieces at a time," Spooner said.

For example, Spooner said it took him 15 years to put up the display of Royal Marines officers insignias.

The intimate atmosphere of the pub with the surrounding memorabilia had always been part of its allure.

"There are no strangers here," Spooner said. "If people are not talking someone sitting next to them, we'll go over and get them started talking to one another."

Spooner said he hopes to replicate that allure as much as possible in the new location.

While the new location in north Stafford which once housed The Keep restaurant, then later Filly's, is much larger, Spooner is sectioning off a portion of the building in order to replicate the pub area of the Globe and Lau-rel.

The police patches will be placed on the ceiling and the memorabilia and shadow boxes re-hung on the walls. Even the tartan carpeting is making the move.

"We've taken lots of pictures so we can make it look the same," he said.

The larger restaurant also provides new opportunities for the Globe and Laurel.

"We will have space to put up more artifacts and more seating so we won't have to turn people away when they have parties," Spooner said.

And although Spooner has closed the doors of the Triangle restaurant for good, he is counting on the Marines, the law enforcement officers along with the Globe and Laurel regulars to find their way to the new location.

Retired Marine Col. Ed Stallknecht, 95, of Dumfries, had come to the restaurant every day for lunch. Although the drive will be a little farther for him, Stallknecht said he would continue to be a regular. "I'll move with him," Stallknecht said.

"Marines are used to having to find places," Riley said. "They'll find the new location. It's really just down the street."

Staff writer Aileen Streng can be reached at 703-878-8010 or astreng@potomacnews.com.