A longtime and beloved waiter at one of the city’s oldest gay bars and restaurants died earlier this month.
Michael Carney, who spent more than 30 years working at Venture Inn, died Aug. 20 of a heart attack.
Carney, a native of Northeast Philadelphia, joined the Venture Inn team around 1980, initially as a dishwasher, and worked his way up to waiter.
Lenny Cooney, the establishment’s former manager, hired Carney and said that, once he became a waiter, he immediately started building a following.
“In those days, we concentrated on the restaurant more so than the bar; the restaurant actually carried the bar in those days, that’s how busy we were,” Cooney said. “And Michael had a steady flow of clientele. They would come in and would wait hours to be seated at his station. That’s how well-liked he was.”
That popularity only grew with his tenure at the restaurant.
“As soon as people would walk in, they’d say, ‘Is Michael here?’” said Venture Inn bartender Henry Brinton. “He’d know which table customers wanted, what they wanted to eat, drink. He’d pretty much been waiting on some of the same people since he started here when he was young. He’d sit down and talk with them about the old days, about baseball. The other waiters would just be standing around the dining room with nothing to do because everyone wanted Michael. He was very well-liked, by customers and staff.”
Carney was a fountain of little-known facts, Cooney said, especially about entertainment gossip of the day.
“He was very inquisitive about movie stars, wanted to know all about them. When computers first came out, he was one of the first ones to go out and grab one and would go home after work and spend time looking up all this gossip,” Cooney laughed. “He could tell you when stars were born, who they slept with, all kinds of stuff. It was a big joke at the restaurant that anything you didn’t know, you could ask Michael. He was a very smart man.”
Carney was also a gambling enthusiast and would often take trips to Atlantic City.
“He loved the casino,” Cooney said. “We’d head down there and have comps for meals, shows, and we’d get a group and he’d use his comps. He was a very giving, caring, sharing person. He would give you the shirt off his back if he could.”
That generosity extended throughout his relationships, Cooney said.
“If I was ever troubled about something, he’d sit with me and talk and listen. And he gave some good advice for a young fellow. I listened to him,” Cooney said. “He was an all-around good person.”
Details on a memorial service are pending.
In addition to his Venture Inn family, Carney is survived by his father, sister, brother-in-law and nephew.