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“Every patch here represents a policeman who is entitled to wear it and has been to The Globe and Laurel,” explained Spooner.

The Globe & Laurel restaurant had more icons and artifacts than most town museums and offered the finest in traditional dining and excellence in service and hospitality. Maj Spooner himself provided the tour de force by enthralling guests with his presence, ability to strike friendships, encyclopedic knowledge of the Marine Corps and love of country. Customers came to see “The Major” as much as they did to dine, drink and enjoy the atmosphere.

It was relatively smooth sailing for 32 1/2 years. Then came the recent news that Prince William County planned to widen a portion of Route 1, razing adjacent establishments—including The Globe & Laurel. Many thought it meant standing down and retirement for the Major and his wife of more than five decades, Gloria, the co-owner, who has worked beside him as “chief of staff and sergeant major.” For the Spooners, their restaurant was more than a business; its employees and their customers had become family, and The Globe & Laurel was the center of their social life.

“I can’t give up and retire,” said Maj Spooner. “That’s what old men do.” He started looking for yet another Globe & Laurel site. Spooner wasn’t having much luck finding a place in Prince William County that was close enough to the Marine base.

Enter the Stafford County Economic Development Authority. When the EDA’s director, Tim Baroody, heard scuttlebutt about The Globe & Laurel moving, he and other members of the EDA along with Stafford County Supervisor Paul Milde weren’t going to pass on an opportunity. Baroody knew the restaurant was “legend among the Marines.” The EDA called their spokeswoman, Wendy Surman, saying, in essence, “We need to bring The Globe and Laurel to Stafford County.”

Wendy remembers answering: “What’s The Globe and Laurel?”

“I took my three children, and I found friendliness and warmth and inspiration in Major Spooner,” she said.

For years, friends of Rick, who gathered for lunch or formal occasions in the restaurant’s “Privates’ Mess” often told him: “You need a bigger place! One with a lot more parking.” A few were gimlet-eyed and suggested a place south, just the other side of the county line in Stafford. It would take work, but had potential. It had formerly been “The Keep” and, later, “Filly’s” restaurants.

Rick, years ago, did a reconnaissance and said that it would not only take work, but more money than he had. Members of the Privates’ Mess, who were wealthy in ideas, but not so affluent when it came to cold cash, went back to grazing in their Niçoise salads.

The Stafford County Economic Develop­ment Authority also had been looking and went to the Major with a recommended prime location that needed work but sat at the entrance to the new Quantico Corporate Center, a one-million-square-foot development of Class-A office space spread among several buildings in a campus setting. It sat near the base’s back gate, on U.S Route 1, off I-95’s Exit 148, and only two miles south of the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Those with global positioning satellite navigation sys­tems can punch in 3987 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Stafford, Va., and be guided into what was once Filly’s Restaurant parking lot.

The Major was gung-ho on the idea, but as he’d noted before, it was risky. Staf­ford County officials worked hard for two months to convince the Major they wanted his business and they stepped up to the plate not only with words, but action. Stafford’s EDA provided a cash incentive for relocation and renovation costs and promised annual support over the next three years. Wendy Surman and Marine veteran Jim Pierce of the Quantico Government Contractors Association, another Globe & Laurel booster organization, went to work directly helping the Spooners and serving as liaison to the county.

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