Massachusetts restaurant owner, Alice Brock, who was immortalized by a popular Arlo Guthrie song, has died at the age of 83.
Brock died in a hospice on Thursday in Wellfleet from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, her caretaker Viki Merrick told The New York Times.
She was best known for Guthrie’s 1967 antiwar song Alice’s Restaurant, a Thanksgiving staple classic-rock production.
In the 18-minute song, Guthrie sings ‘you can get anything you want’ at Brock’s restaurant and rambles a recounting of a visit to her restaurant the Back Room in Western Massachusetts for Thanksgiving dinner one year.
In the lyrics, Brock cooked a big meal for Guthrie and his friend Rick Robbins the day before they appeared in court for littering; Guthrie sings about how he and Robbins left trash in a ravine.
Brock, who bailed the men out in 1965, even helped the songwriter write the first half of the song.
‘We were sitting around after dinner and wrote half the song,’ she previously said.
After the song’s release, the restaurant owner became a bit famous herself and people began to recognize her from it.
Massachusetts restaurant owner, Alice Brock, who was immortalized by a popular Arlo Guthrie song, has died at the age of 83
An old photograph of Brock
‘I was very uncomfortable because public figures are not really treated with much respect,’ she told WAMC Northeast Public Radio in 2014. ‘Once your name is in the paper, people feel that they can go: “Oh, are you Alice? Turn around,” like they want to see my behind or something.’
Guthrie performed the song at the 1967 Newport Folk Festival and it was also the title track off his first album.
The singer paid tribute to his friend, writing on his record label’s Facebook page: ‘This coming Thanksgiving will be the first without her
‘Alice and I spoke by phone a couple of weeks ago, and she sounded like her old self. We joked around and had a couple of good laughs even though we knew we’d never have another chance to talk together.’
He shared a photo of them together for Thanksgiving in 2022.
Despite her short dose of fame from the song, Brock put her energy into the restaurant business and tried other establishments and wrote several books.
But she closed up her last one in 1979 before she moved to Provincetown in Cape Cod, where she took painting as a career.
However, the restaurateur couldn’t fully escape the fame Guthrie’s song brought and she eventually leaned into it.
The singer paid tribute to his friend, writing on his record label’s Facebook page : ‘This coming Thanksgiving will be the first without her,’ alongside a photo of them enjoying Thanksgiving together in 2022 (pictured)
In the 18-minute song, Guthrie sings ‘you can get anything you want’ at Brock’s restaurant and rambles a recounting of a visit to her restaurant the Back Room in Western Massachusetts for Thanksgiving dinner one year
‘I resented it for a long time, she told the radio station. ‘But I’ve come to realize now that people are just delighted when they hear my name, so how can I complain?’
Brock was originally from Brooklyn, New York, where she was born Alice May Pelkey in late February 1941 to a real estate mom and a printmaker father, according to The Times.
She had a short stint at Sarah Lawrence College, but left during her second year as she went on to support ‘unpopular political causes.’
She eventually moved back to New York and lived in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighborhood, where she met her husband and architect Ray Brock.
The pair married in 1962 and moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, shortly after, where they began work as school teachers at the local private institution.
While at the school, they befriended Guthrie, the son of folk singer Woody Guthrie.
After giving up teaching and at the prompting of her mother, Brock opened the Back Room. Around the same time, her mother helped them acquired a deconsecrated Episcopal church, which they transformed into their home, according to The Times.
She closed the restaurant in 1967 and sold the church a few years later.
She opened the Back Room at her mother’s prompting. The Back Room closed in 1967 (pictured: the business now in its place)
Guthrie bought it back in 1991 to make a home for his archives and create a community action center.
While living in Provincetown, she wrote several books, including The Alice’s Restaurant Cookbook in 1969 and My Life as a Restaurant in 1976.
She also illustrated Guthrie’s book Mooses Come Walking, according to The Times.
As she reached old age, the previous business owner suffered from health and financial issues and a friend of hers set up a GoFundMe to help her.
It quickly raised more than $170,000, according to The Times.
‘Thanks for giving back to the American icon we all love,’ the fundraiser read.