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Pauline MacArthur, 94, center, sings to Fred Bowen- Smith, right, of Hobe Sound, and Gene Stenger, of Pittsburgh, left, while at Harry and the Natives restaurant on Wednesday. MacArthur, the matriarch of the restaurant, still comes to work six days a week. (Sara Grille/The Post)
Harry & the Natives cafe
Smile, natives. It’s a spectacularly routine day.
In Hobe Sound’s most iconic café this means a gator burger with a side of twisted humor, real-deal Florida funk and a tableside song from Mom.
Mom is Pauline MacArthur, four months shy of 95. A farm-raised Michigan girl of hardy stock, Mom still comes to work at 6 a.m., six days a week, serves breakfast and keeps the books.
Oh, and she sings.
“When you’re smiling, when you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you…” she crooned on a recent weekday as lunchtime waned. “When you’re happy, when you’re happy, the sun comes shining through…”
Mom has been the matriarch of Harry and the Natives since its previous incarnation, when the place was a one-stop hub called The Farm and it served as a motel, a Western Union post, a Greyhound bus stop and a gas station.
Mom has been here, in the pecky cypress splendor of it all, for 57 years. She and her husband, the late Jack MacArthur, bought the place in the spring of 1952 and settled in Hobe Sound with their three young daughters. Later, they had two sons, the younger of whom is the restaurant’s namesake, Harry.
Harry started working at the restaurant when he was old enough to carry water glasses to the patrons. Like his siblings, he pumped gas, cleaned the motel cottages, fussed about in the kitchen, and soaked in the blissfully unorthodox philosophies of his parents.
Pauline MacArthur, 94, clockwise from bottom left, poses with her son, Harry, and daughter, Paula, at Harry and the Natives restaurant in Hobe Sound. ( Sarah Grile/ The Post)
“My parents would tell me, ‘You have to make someone smile every day,”” recalls Harry, who went on to travel the globe, surf in Hawaii and work as a hotel executive chef before coming back to The Farm, three years after the 1986 death of his father.
Serving community, too
The once-vibrant restaurant had been running as a beverage-only place for a few years, when Harry approached his mother about a revamp. With Mom’s blessing, he remodeled the kitchen, dreamed up a new menu and renamed the establishment Harry and the Natives.
The place was reborn, but it kept its vintage soul, its walls and tables appointed with relics of the days of community gatherings and weekly covered-dish dinners, of the Old Florida spirit of hard work tempered by attitudes as breezy and salty as sea wind.
It still served World Famous Pancakes à la Jack MacArthur at breakfast. It dispensed snippets of the MacArthur family humor on the menu, listing “cash, dishwashing, silver rolling, honey dipping, oceanfront homes, table dancing” as acceptable forms of payment, in addition to Visa, MasterCard and American Express.
And it still featured Mom, a song on her lips and a big red hibiscus flower in her hair. She’s the woman you’d like to be when you grow up, an energetic soul fully engaged in life. She walks every day. She grows orchids and roses. She writes crisply lettered longhand. And, most inspiring, she takes requests.
This is a woman who volunteered at the Manors nursing home in Hobe Sound on her only day off, running bingo games, baking sugar-free cookies and regaling the residents with fresh flowers. She did this until she turned 94.
It’s no wonder her son Harry has made his own mark as a humanitarian and community force, helping locals through his Natives Helping Natives charitable organization.
“Always give back. You have to. That’s how we were raised,” says Harry, 51, whose seriously noble deeds contrast sharply with his not-so-serious fashion sense. He’s the guy with the whimsical get-ups, the shark hat, the joke T-shirts. He wears tuxedo shorts to fancy galas. That guy.
Anniversary gift to patrons
Now, as the family café approaches its 20th anniversary in September, the MacArthurs will celebrate the way they always do – by doing something nice for their customers. For the entire month of August, they’re serving free coffee and cold drinks.
No need to plan a big celebration, says Harry, not when everyday life is a party.
“It’s pretty special that we’ve been able to work together,” says Harry of the partnership with his mother, who lives next door to him and his family in Hobe Sound.
When she hears him say this, she smiles.
“There’s been no trouble at all,” she says. Her oldest daughter, Paula, an artist, is also working at the restaurant. And as is family tradition, the entire clan gathers for dinner on Mondays, the only day Harry’s is closed.
Service with a song
Before the family bought the restaurant, it had been through a slew of owners. But for the Mac-Arthurs, it was a magical place. It’s where Jack came to heal from a back ailment, after spending years sailing freighters on the Great Lakes. Hobe Sound brought him health and rebirth.
“Here, he would swim in the ocean every day, sometimes twice a day,” recalls Mom, her face framed by green beaded eyeglass holders. “There would have to be a hurricane to stop him from swimming.”
So it is fitting that the restaurant has survived for nearly two decades, running on sea breeze and a sizable helping of MacArthur gusto.
Mom rediscovers the magic of the place each day, as the regulars show up for breakfast. What song will she sing for them? She has no idea. But she knows one thing: It’ll make them smile.
Participating Dunkin’ Donuts shops will give you a free donut on Friday, June 5th, which is National Doughnut Day.
