A new restaurant opened in Waterford on Thursday at the former New London Country Club.
Langley’s, which is owned by David and Ann Mortimer and ran by Brian “Butch” Langley, opened Thursday. The restaurant is located within the Great Neck Country Club, but it is open to the public, and the goal is to have a restaurant that everybody feels comfortable at, Langley said.
“I want it to be a destination,” Langley said. “I tried to have something for everyone.”
Although the restaurant and bar is located within a country club, the hope is it is used by all Waterford residents, Ann Mortimer said. For example, no entrée cost more than $25, and that was done on purpose to ensure people would not see it not as a place for the elite, but a place for all, she said.
“I wanted to make it an upscale place, but comfortable,” Mortimer said. “Almost like a neighborhood-feel. I wanted to make people comfortable here.”
Langley’s is split in three different sections. The front is a bar, capable of holding around 40 people in plush, padded seating. The dining area holds 90 people, and then there is an outside seating area that holds 40 to 50 people.
The outside seating area is heated, so it is open throughout the entire year, Langley said. The area the bar sits in was completely renovated, and the dining area was added on as part of an addition to the country club, he said.
“I’m ecstatic,” Langley said. “There were no corners cut on this project at all, we did everything top notch. And it shows.”
The Restaurant
Langley was the longtime manager of food, beverage, and banquets at Groton Inn and Suites and held a similar position at the Water’s Edge in Westbrook before taking a job at the Great Neck Country Club at the beginning of 2012. Langley, like David Mortimer, is a lifelong Waterford resident and the two graduated Waterford High School the same year and are close friends.
Langley brought along his longtime head chef, Vito Trento, to be the head chef at Langley’s and his sister, Beverly Slattery, to run the banquets at the country club. He said he has been in the restaurant business for 38 years, but this is the first time he’s had a restaurant named after him.
“That kind of ownership I feel over this place is special,” he said. “It has my name on it, and that means something. I really want to make it special.”
The premier meal at the restaurant is a longtime specialty by Langley, the prime rib, which is $23 and will be served every night. He also recommended the scallops, which are described on the menu as “blackened, pan-seared sea scallops topped with gorgonzola crumbles,” and costs $19.
The goal is to have a wide range of foods for a wide range of people, Langley said. There is a kid’s menu, and he worked hard to have a lunchtime staple the best around.
“I really wanted something for everybody,” Langley said. “So, for example, I wanted to have the best cheeseburger. And we worked at it, and we really have the best cheeseburger in the area.”
The bar, the dining area and the outdoor seating area all have fireplaces. Langley also thanked his wife Jessica and his children Asia and Jayden for supporting him along the way.
The Country Club
The goal of the restaurant is to keep the cost golf memberships down, Ann Mortimer said. The hope is the restaurant and the banquet hall turn a good profit, with those dollars keeping the price of the golf memberships to the country club down, she said.
Mortimer said she hopes to keep the memberships affordable because she doesn’t want an exclusive-feel at the club, but instead more of a neighborhood-feel. She added that having the restaurant open to the public, along with that making it more profitable, makes the club more available to the general public as well.
She said that her and her husband have no plans to sell the country club. Instead, they hope to pass it down to their four children, and for it to stay in Mortimer family for years.
Langley's will be open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. The restaurant will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The restaurant is located within the Great Neck Country Club at 28 Lamphere Road.
