When Bet Finocchiaro started Bet's Famous Fish Fry in 1993, the average price for a gallon of gasoline was $1.07, Jurassic Park broke box office records and the New England Patriots went 5-11 behind rookie quarterback Drew Bledsoe.

Finocchiaro has been through two trailers and a lot of fish and potatoes in those 20 years on the Boothbay Common.

But some things haven't changed; the stand still offers fried fish and potatoes served up with much fanfare and little fuss; customers still know not to ask for a lobster roll and that free beer will be served tomorrow every day.

When she started frying up fish two decades ago, she sold 10 pounds of fish per week out of the back of an old camper and said she couldn't see the stand making such an impact.

“I went up to Brewer and bought an 8-foot camper and gutted the whole thing,” she said. “I took out all the bunks; I gutted the bathroom and that's where I kept the mayo.”

She rented the front of the general store for $50 a month from Alfred Lewis and began selling fish she had caught and fried up potatoes.

“People used to roll down their windows and yell 'Get off the corner,'” she said. “Instead, I bought that corner.”

She had Rae Barter, then a high school junior, come and paint the outside of the trailer with some of her now famous sayings like “Get in here,” “Free beer tomorrow” and the shark and lobster paintings.

“It was quite a spectacle on the corner,” she said. “I think people just stopped in to see what I was on.”

But, business began coming in.

“The next year we grew a little, then the next year we grew a little, then the next year, a town truck went through it,” she said.

The truck demolished the first stand, causing Finocchiaro to find a car trailer. It was again painted up and business became steadier still. With Alfred retiring she was given first refusal to buy the general store.

“I had to buy the general store to keep my trailer here,” she said. “Now, I just rent the store out.”

The second trailer was replaced by the modern wooden building by her husband, Tony. The fish isn't caught by Finocchiaro, but instead trucked in by Mill Cove Lobster from Portland.

Everything is local, and Finocchiaro doesn't own a scale; she said always errs on the side of extra large for her customers.

“I sell 900 pounds of fish in four-and-a-half days and we go through 1,000 to 1,500 pounds of potatoes in a week,” she said. “I use about 12 gallons of mayo a day in my special sauce and tartar sauce.”

The secret to success is getting repeat customers to keep coming back, but hard work is her special weapon, Finocchiaro said.

“I never changed a thing,” she said. “The food is the same as it was 20 years ago. We've just focused on quality, and that's basically it.”

Ben Bulkeley can be reached at 207-633-4620 or bbulkeley@boothbayregister.com. Follow him on Twitter: @BBRegisterBen.