Ed Kane, the founder of Great Adirondack Steak & Seafood Co., and Great Adirondack Brewing Co., is seen here making a toast inside the Main Street establishment he bought 35 years ago. (Photo provided — The Kane family)

LAKE PLACID — Like many business people who moved to the Olympic Village to pursue their own version of the American Dream, Ed Kane was introduced to the community by News correspondent Laura Viscome in her weekly “Odds and Ends” newspaper column.

“The Artist’s Cafe at No. 1 Main Street has changed hands,” Viscome wrote in the July 15, 1982, issue of the Lake Placid News. “The new owner is Ed Kane, formerly of New Jersey, who also has an office above The Quilted Turtle from which he operates his business.”

That was 35 years ago, when the Lake Placid Center for the Arts was still the Center for Music, Drama and Art, when Ned Harkness was still the CEO of the newly formed state Olympic Regional Development Authority and when the Lake Placid Business Association was still meeting at Frederick’s Restaurant.

Viscome gave News readers a quick, two-sentence “hello” to a man who would become a restaurant icon in Lake Placid for more than three decades. This week, the community says “goodbye” and “thanks for the memories” as Ed Kane died Saturday, Jan. 14 at the age of 86 after a long battle with cancer.

“I’m certainly going to miss him for all of the years he would step out of his office and walk around Mirror Lake,” Lake Placid Mayor Craig Randall said Tuesday at the village board meeting. “I remember seeing him every day making that walk around the lake. He was religious about that. And certainly our sympathies go out to his family.”

Village Trustee Art Devlin echoed the mayor’s remarks.

“He was one of Lake Placid’s colorful characters,” Devlin said. “Lake Placid is known for having quite a few. He’s a good guy who cared about Lake Placid and wasn’t afraid to get up and speak his mind, which a lot of people aren’t always inclined to do. He’s certainly going to be missed.”

When Kane and his wife Joan moved their family to Lake Placid, he was 51 years old and had already built a successful career.

Born on Nov. 21, 1930, in Brooklyn, he was the son of Kathryn (Sussdorff) Kane and Edward L. Kane. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Pace College (University) and entered the U.S. Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Class in 1952 while in college. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the USMC Reserve in 1953. He served in Korea for 16 months from 1954 to 1955 as an occupation troop member (motor transport officer) after the Korean War armistice was signed on July 27, 1953.

This Brooklyn boy met Joan Moeller, a Brooklyn girl, in 1949, and they married on Dec. 26, 1953.

After his military service in Korea, Ed began a career in the business world in the New York City and northern New Jersey area. He worked in sales for Allied Chemical, Lehn & Fink (Sterling Drug) and in 1976 established Metalworking Chemicals & Equipment Co. Yet Ed’s memories of spending summer vacations with his grandfather in Port Kent drew him to the Adirondack Mountains for the second chapter of his career. He relocated his business from New Jersey and buying the Artist’s Cafe in 1982.

Operating a restaurant in Lake Placid was a natural for the Kanes. It was, after all, a family tradition. Joan’s maternal grandfather was one of the original managers for Nathan’s Famous at Coney Island, opened his own delicatessen and managed Joe’s Restaurant, a Brooklyn institution. Ed’s grandfather, William Sussdorff, built Northern Pines Inn and Golf Course in Port Kent in the early 1900s, and his father managed the Essex House Hotel in New York for many years.

Needless to say, hospitality runs deep in the blood lines of the Kane family, and three of their sons — Fred, Willie and Rob — continue the family tradition at the Great Adirondack Steak & Seafood Co. on Main Street, which they opened in 1987, and the Great Adirondack Brewing Co., which was established in 1998. The family operated the Artist’s Cafe until 2001.

“My father was a very caring man,” Great Adirondack Steak & Seafood owner and General Manager Rob Kane said. “He liked helping people because he grew up with nothing. Every chance he had to help someone, he loved doing that. And my father never looked for anything in return. He always felt that if he could help someone and they moved on in life, then he’d done his job.”

When the Great Adirondack Brewing Co. posted a photo of Ed Kane pouring a beer from one of the restaurant’s taps on the company’s Facebook page Monday, a quote from former President Ronald Reagan was also included:

“Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. Marines don’t have that problem.”

“I think it was what my father stood on for all these years,” Robert Kane said about the Reagan quote. “He was one of his favorite presidents, and I think that (quote) is kind of his value. It sums up the man he was. … My dad and I worked together for 30 years side by side, and his values never changed: how he felt about the country, him being a Marine. He grew up during the Depression with nothing, and he brought himself through college into the Marine Corps, met my mother, married, had us and worked his way up from the gutter.”

Ed’s grandson Robbie Kane, the family business’ sales manager, also joined the Marines, serving for five years, including two tours of duty in Iraq from Oct. 2, 2006, to April 28, 2007, and again from April 24, 2008, to Nov. 23, 2008. He learned a lot from his grandfather.

“We are all sad to see him go,” Robbie Kane said. “He was the center of the company for almost 35 years now. We will try to carry on his legacy.

Laura Viscome is no longer around to announce Ed Kane’s departure in the local newspaper; she died in 2010 at the age of 83. But he didn’t want people to fuss over him anyway. Per Ed’s wishes, there are no calling hours or visitation.

“My grandfather didn’t want anything,” Robbie Kane said, “but I think that’s unfair because I think a lot of people out there want to pay their respects to him.”

Lake Placid will get a chance to say goodbye to this Brooklyn boy who eventually returned to his boyhood playground in the Adirondacks. The family will celebrate Ed’s life in the spring, and his cremains will be placed in the Sussdorff Family Cemetery in Port Kent at that time.