End of an era: Sisters and family say goodbye to Royal Court

Editor’s note: We recently learned that Dorothy Sturtevant, owner of Royal Court with her sister Marilyn Ryan, passed away on Sunday at the age of 96.

For 50 years, sisters Dorothy Sturtevant and Marilyn Ryan ran Royal Court, a family restaurant on Ithaca’s South Meadow Street that became a second home to many locals.

Over the last five decades, the restaurant has earned many loyal customers who come to Royal Court for its casual atmosphere and affordable homestyle cooking; the Reuben sandwich and chicken wings are two of the most popular items on the menu, said Ryan’s daughter, Chris Wallace, who worked at Royal Court with her mother for 40 years.

Now, the sisters and their family have decided to close this chapter of their lives. The adjacent hotel, the Meadow Court Inn, will remain open, but the restaurant is closing its doors.

Sturtevant, now 96, and Ryan, 84, both worked at the restaurant well into their 80s. Ryan was waiting tables until recently, with the help of a rolling cart that made bringing food to the tables easier. Determined to help out, she stayed busy while maintaining her characteristic positive attitude, coworkers said. Eventually, though, health issues prevented her from working.

Wallace said she hopes that someone will lease the restaurant space and reopen it, whether or not it retains its current name and style.

Ryan was widowed when she purchased the Royal Court with her sister, Wallace said. The sisters’ father, Lawrence Hull, owned Hull Heating and Plumbing and had a good reputation as a trustworthy businessman. His friend owned the restaurant and hotel and wanted to retire.

“So, the story goes that my grandfather told Mom and Dorothy that all they had to do was come down and sign checks every week — that the hotel had a manager and that the restaurant was leased,” recounted Wallace.

This was in 1973, and the bank wanted the women’s father to sign the loan documents. The sisters refused, Wallace said. Fortunately, everyone at the bank knew who their father was and, backed by his good name, they were able to sign the papers themselves.

“Part of it was on our track record,” Ryan said in a 1979 article in the Ithaca Journal. “Everyone was wondering if we could do it or not.”

Then, as luck would have it, almost as soon as the papers were signed, the lease ran out on the restaurant space and the person running Royal Court declined to renew.

“I’m not sure who was leasing the restaurant at that point, but they didn’t want to do it anymore. It wasn’t profitable, so they were like, ‘We’re out,’” Wallace said. 

All of a sudden, Sturtevant and Ryan found themselves running a restaurant all on their own. They made the best of it, to the tune of 50 years in business. 

“Do your own thing,” Ryan said, when asked by a reporter for the Ithaca Journal what advice she had for women business owners. “You’ll work hard. It’s like getting married. You feel a little bit chicken before you start, then a little bit chicken the first day. Then you get your feet wet and then you’re okay.”

“We do everything,” she said in the article, six years after taking ownership. “I do the dishes, bartend, waitress, hostess, bus tables and work as a clerk. I’ve even been the maid here. When you have a small business, you have to do everything.”

The sisters led with a strong work ethic that was quickly adopted by the staff.

“We kind of went by the example of Dorothy and Mom,” Wallace said. “We work together; if a waitress saw the dishes need to be done, she did it. If the cook saw that food needed to be delivered, he’d bring it out.”

“Marilyn was great to work for,” said Rosie Beckwith, Royal Court breakfast waitress. “She had a great personality and never yelled or hollered. … She was a hands-on person and was there every minute.”

“Even though we weren’t family, we are family,” said Wallace. “And that’s why it’s so heartbreaking, because a lot of people have been here forever.”

Darlene Reynolds, Royal Court general manager, has worked at Royal Court for 50 years as of this month.

“I love working in a family-oriented restaurant,” Reynolds said. Her favorite part of the job was seeing the customers every day.

“It breaks my heart,” she said of the restaurant closing, “because we’ve got customers that have been coming here 30 years, 40 years.”

The restaurant had 15 to 20 staff members and could seat more than 100 people inside, not including the outdoor dining space on the deck.

“Oh my God, it’s so beautiful,” Reynolds said of the outdoor dining space. “You don’t hear the road because there’s trees around it. It’s just really nice.”

Royal Court was known for its New Year’s Eve and Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations. In fact, Reynolds said, it was New Year’s Eve of 1977 when she worked her first shift — on one of the busiest nights of the year.

“I was in college, and they needed somebody,” said Reynolds, whose work experience up to that point was limited to her very first job at McDonald’s.

“They just threw me in,” she said. “It was crazy.”

The restaurant remained a touchstone for its customers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, when it stayed open to bring hot food out to their cars. It was the generosity of customers, who often gave an extra $10 or $20 when paying for their to-go meals, that helped the restaurant pull through the pandemic, Reynolds said, adding that it is the customers she will miss the most. She loved the human connection at Royal Court and would give a hug to every customer who would take one.

“A lot of people just were lonely, so they would come in and just want to chat and want somebody to know their name,” she said. “It was just like ‘Cheers’ — everybody knows your name.”