On one summer day every year, you can forget about calling Debbie Alldredge by her given name. On that day, just call her babe—but not just any babe. For the last 18 years at the Chester Rotary Lobsterfest, Debbie has been a beer babe as one of the servers who pours cups of beer to thirsty customers.

The Rotary’s Lobsterfest, which takes place at at the Chester Fairgrounds on Saturday, Sept. 7, is an annual event designed to raise funds for the club’s community activities. This year, funds are earmarked for the construction of a pavilion in North Quarter Park. The Town of Chester is putting in the concrete slab on which the pavilion will stand, but the Rotary is paying for construction and is furnishing the space with tables and chairs.

“There is really no place to sit at North Quarter Park and no place to get out of the sun,” Debbie says, pointing out the need for the pavilion.

It is impossible to mistake Debbie’s allegiance on the day of the Lobsterfest. She dresses for the occasion with lobster earrings, bracelet, and a headband with claws, as well as a lobster T-shirt and a lobster sweater if the weather demands it.

“I have it all. It is quite stunning,” she jokes.

COVID has changed the Lobsterfest. Debbie’s describes it as “reimagining” the event in a post-COVID world. To keep operating during the pandemic, it became a takeout event. Now, there are tables for sit-down dining and entertainment at the fairgrounds, although the takeout option continues.

“People can come and pick up meals and use us as a catering service,” Debbie says.

The meal includes a one-and-a-half-pound lobster or a 12-ounce steak, corn on the cob, a baked potato, rolls, coleslaw and, according to Debbie, “loads of melted butter.” She adds that there are butter babes whose job it is to melt the butter.

Patrons may purchase beer, wine, or soft drinks. Diners may also bring their own alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages, along with appetizers and desert.

There will also be live music at the fairgrounds from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tickets for the event are only sold online at the Chester Rotary website at: chesterrotary.org.

Debbie spent most of her career working in real estate. It was not what she had planned when she went to college. Debbie majored in theater at the University of Connecticut. In high school in South Windsor, she had loved appearing in musicals and singing in choral groups. Still, when Debbie graduated from college, she did not think she was ready to move to New York on her own and make the rounds of theater auditions.

Debbie started out in banking, but her mother had been a real estate broker and convinced her to go into the field. Now retired, Debbie has worked for several local agencies.

Debbie loved showing and selling houses, but she grew tired of the increasing amounts of paperwork.

“It had just gotten to the point where I had done it for too long,” she explains.

Through all her professional life, Debbie never gave up theater. She performed and then directed for many years with the Meetinghouse Players in Chester—a group which she says is now “going through transition.” One of her living room walls is covered with framed posters of performances by the Meetinghouse Players in which she was involved.

Debbie remains an avid theatergoer. She regularly attends performances at the Goodspeed, Ivoryton, and Eugene O’Neill theaters and, once a year, she also does a New York theater weekend with the oldest of her three daughters. This year’s trip is coming up, and Debbie intends to see two new productions: Water for Elephants, a musical based on the best-selling novel of the same name; and Suffs, a musical about suffragettes which lists as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Nobel-prize winner Malala Yousafzai as co-producers.

Debbie got involved with the Meetinghouse Players through the Rotary. The late John Goselin, a former Chester selectman, was a member of the theater group and was also once president of the local Rotary chapter.

When her grown daughters were young, Debbie was a member of the Chester Board of Education and was also on the Zoning Board of Appeals, where she thought her real estate background would be an asset. She also served for a time as the assistant town clerk, but she emphasizes that it was not a volunteer position. It was a part-time job.

Debbie and her husband Kyle enjoy ballroom dancing and take lessons “occasionally here and there,” as she puts it. They dance both in Connecticut and in California, where they spend five months of the year. One of their daughters now lives out there.

“But we are Connecticut residents,” Debbie wants to make clear.

On the day of the Lobsterfest, Debbie has a table for her extended family, which comes from all around the state for the event.

“Eight people or so,” she says.

The lobsters they eat start the day in Maine. According to Deb, the Rotary purchases the crustaceans through Adams Market, which sends a refrigerated truck up there early in the morning to then bring the lobsters back to Chester.

Even after 18 years, Debbie has no plans to stop being a beer babe.

“I am going to do it as long as I can pour beer,” she says. “But maybe I am not the babe I used to be.”