WESTBROOK – When asked why Profenno’s Restaurant has remained successful for the past 50 years, most everyone, from the staff to the customers, will tell you first that it’s the food.

But the second reason, hands down, is Peter Profenno himself. He’s run the place for most of the restaurant’s history, and he has learned how to balance a no-nonsense attitude toward troublemakers with a best-friend persona he saves for his staff and customers.

“He’s very easygoing,” said Michelle Collins, 47, who has worked full time at the restaurant ever since she answered an advertisement seven years ago. “He’s very easy to work for.”

Customers like Mike LeConte, 59, who has been eating at the restaurant for the past 41 years, notice Profenno’s gentlemanly side, too, and see it as a kind of common-sense politesse.

“He’s been the consummate professional,” LaConte said.

Profenno himself said he doesn’t know where it comes from. When asked, he just shrugged. His son, Paul, who works the evening shift at the restaurant and is expected to take it over some day, said his father has a dogged dedication to what he does, and to being polite and welcoming to his customers.

“He’s here every day,” he said. “He knows every customer that comes in here.”

Profenno, 78, said he didn’t set out to be a restaurateur. A Portland native, the son of a Portland Public Works laborer and a housewife, he came close to taking different directions several times, starting in 1952. Then a star football, baseball and basketball player at Deering High School, Profenno said he got spotted by some scouts for the Boston Braves. They might have made him an offer, he said, but the team moved to Milwaukee that year before that could happen.

“My life might have changed. Who knew?” he said.

So instead he went into the U.S. Army, and spent two years stationed in Frankfurt, Germany. When he got out, he tried going to Portland Junior College for six months (“I didn’t like it,” he said. “It wasn’t for me.”), then became a salesman, selling cigarettes for American Tobacco.

“I did that for a year,” he said. “I hated it.”

But he liked selling chocolate better, taking a job with the Hershey Chocolate Co., covering Maine and New Hampshire. At age 21, he quickly made his mark, selling more per capita than any other salesman in the country. He made $85 per week, enough to live on for five years.

At the suggestion of a friend, however, he got into the bar and restaurant business, and other than a short stint in the 1980s selling used cars, Profenno hasn’t looked back. He has been married to his high school sweetheart, Mary, for 56 years, and raised three children: Michael, 53, who became a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army; Daniel, 52, who now works for Sappi Fine Paper in Westbrook; and Paul, 48.

Paul Profenno said his father’s easygoing attitude makes diners feel at home.

“They feel like they’re part of something,” he said. “They’re not just a number coming in.”

Customers like LeConte appreciate that, but another thing they appreciate is Profenno’s no-nonsense tone with anyone who threatens that casual atmosphere. Like any eating and drinking establishment, Profenno’s has had its share of difficult customers, but they don’t last long under Peter Profenno’s gaze. According to longtime customers, he is famous for telling such miscreants to hit the road, along with a jabbing thumb gesture reminiscent of an old-school baseball umpire.

“Once there was a problem, out they went,” said Westbrook City Councilor Mike Sanphy, a retired police officer who was on duty for 40 of the restaurant’s 50 years.

And, Sanphy said, the approach worked. He said he remembered often being called to various establishments to break up fights or take charge of people who had drank too much, but that never happened at Profenno’s.

“That’s one place we never got calls to,” he said.

Paul Profenno said that was all part of his father’s desire to preserve the friendly neighborhood atmosphere in the place. Being younger, Paul Profenno said he hasn’t mastered his father’s laid-back approach, but he suspects, since he’s learning from the best, that will change.

“I’m starting to do that now,” he said. “That’s something to say for him.”

Peter Profenno “knows every customer that comes in here,” according to his son Paul. And employees say he’s easy to work for, too.