Longtime Gainesville restauranteur dies

GAINESVILLE - A man who was well known in the Gainesville restaurant business most of his adult life, W.H. Maxey, has died.

Starting in 1948, Maxey worked as a cook at the old Dixie Hunt Hotel (now the Hunt Tower), the family's restaurant on Athens Street, the Holiday Inn, Elks Club and Holly's Landing Restaurant (five locations in two states) where he became vice president of operations.

In 1983, he opened the Dry Dock Seafood Restaurant in the Gym of '36 building at Academy and Washington streets in Gainesville, and operated it until it burned in 1988.

But, Maxey's association with the restaurant business goes back to his childhood, when he helped his father in the kitchen of the Mountain Ranger Hotel in Helen.

Maxey, who was 82, once credited hard work for his success, along with a refusal, "To serve any food that I wouldn't eat myself."

(A full obituary can be found on the AccessNorthGa.com Obituaries Page.)