Bite Me

Sadly, though, I wasn't calling Douglass to trade jokes. I wanted details on the coming closure of his 32-year-old restaurant. According to him, the decision to sell Tante Louise "wasn't planned." His friend, Ed Novak (of Brokerfame), had come to him, looking to pick up a piece of property, "and Ed just said to me, 'What do you think?'"

Douglass thought it was perhaps time to make a graceful exit -- at least temporarily -- from the industry that's been his obsession for most of his life. "I'm an anal operator," he says. "I'm here all the time. I didn't know how to do it any other way." His presence has been the secret to Tante Louise's success: an owner-operator always in the house, on the floor, every night, personally overseeing every table.

Plans are for Douglass to hand over the keys at the end of the month to Novak and Jerry Fritzler, general manager at the downtown Broker. "I'll be taking a vacation," he says. "You know, I haven't had more than maybe three days of vacation in the last fifteen years, so I'm excited about it." Meanwhile, there will be a couple of weeks of remodeling, and then the space will reopen as the Cork House, a wine bar and restaurant featuring New American-leaning cuisine. One of the reasons he was so comfortable with the deal, Douglass says, is that Novak and Fritzler are "committed to maintain as many of the staff as want to stay." Whether one of those staying will be chef Marlo Hix has yet to be determined.