This is not about an inn with history going back almost 200 years. Nor is it about detailed corporate and legal matters about its purchase by Encompass Health Corp, its scheduled closing on June 25, or its eventual demolition.
It’s about a family who believed in hard work and in America.
Few remember the Great Ionian Earthquake of 1953 that measured 6.8 on the Richter scale leveling 90 percent of the homes on the Greek Island of Kefalonia, plunging it into social and economic darkness. Out of this darkness came brothers Alex and Jerry Hionis who would make their impact on the Brandywine Valley.
At Alex Hionis’ death in 2018, the Brandywine Valley Premier Hospitality Group would boast the Concordville Inn, the Concordville Best Western Hotel, the Mendenhall Inn, the Inn at Mendenhall as well as other independently owned properties.
While the presence of the Concordville Inn at the 1777 retreat from Brandywine may be apocryphal, records at the Concord Township Historical Society show it was opened by John Way in 1830. Its mansard roof dates to the 1850s at the earliest.
The Hionis family became the 25th owners in 1975, renovating the run-down inn and building an award-winning reputation with its signature crab imperial and prime rib.
Long-time Sales Manager Dottie Sonsalla joined the team in 1988.
“I remember Alex senior having a conversation with me one day. He told me that there were people that may have saved their whole lives to have a party with us,” she said. “He knew I would take good care of them and that our team would take care of them, no matter how small or how large that party might be.”
“I also remember guests coming, mostly to have a personal conversation with [Jerry] about something financial – an unexpected death in the family and a funeral luncheon needed to be planned,” she said. “I remember a handshake was all that was needed.
A payment plan would be established after the luncheon. The most important thing that Jerry wanted them to do was to take care of their family first.”
This writer worked for the Hionis family at their Mendenhall property from 1987 to 2013. But for 10 months I worked in their sales office at Concordville where I was assigned to Coretta Scott (Mrs. Martin Luther) King in May 2002, who wanted to honor her sister, Edythe Scott Bagley, a department head at Cheyney University, who had survived cancer. She arrived Monday night, I met with her over three days, and the dinner reception was Friday. Did the Concordville team embrace this very nervous sales neophyte? Yes!
But why the demise of this popular restaurant that was so much a part of the Brandywine Valley? I spoke with owner Steven Angeline who answered, “Covid, the price of food and labor issues.”
“We tried to sell it as a restaurant,” he explained, “but no one builds a restaurant that large anymore.”
My husband and I recently went to the Concordville Inn one last time. The dining room was full. When I inquired about the closing, our server told us he was already in training two days a week at Harry Savoy in Wilmington.
The Concordville Best Western Hotel will remain and add a lounge, bar and some banquet facilities. In addition, they are offering staff placement at the hotel or at the Mendenhall.
As Sonsalla, now the director of wedding and ballroom events at Mendenhall remembers, “We were a team, we were a passionate force, we cared about others, we were family.”
About Sally Denk Hoey
Sally Denk Hoey, is a Gemini - one part music and one part history. She holds a masters degree cum laude from the School of Music at West Chester University. She taught 14 years in both public and private school. Her CD "Bard of the Brandywine" was critically received during her almost 30 years as a folk singer. She currently cantors masses at St Agnes Church in West Chester where she also performs with the select Motet Choir. A recognized historian, Sally serves as a judge-captain for the south-east Pennsylvania regionals of the National History Day Competition. She has served as president of the Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates as well as the Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford where she now curates the violin collection. Sally re-enacted with the 43rd Regiment of Foot and the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment for 19 years where she interpreted the role of a campfollower at encampments in Valley Forge, Williamsburg, Va., Monmouth, N.J. and Lexington and Concord, Mass. Sally is married to her college classmate, Thomas Hoey, otherwise known as "Mr. Sousa.”
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