Warren's The Restaurant loses its lease, must close

Jeff and Michele Zeller ran restaurant for 19 years and did not want to close

By Ted Hayes
Posted 2/28/19

It will be hard for Michele and Jeff Zeller to walk away from The Restaurant and Cafe, the cozy Main Street restaurant they have owned and run for 19 years this coming April. Still, they must be out …

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Warren's The Restaurant loses its lease, must close

Jeff and Michele Zeller ran restaurant for 19 years and did not want to close

Posted

It will be hard for Michele and Jeff Zeller to walk away from The Restaurant and Cafe, the cozy Main Street restaurant they have owned and run for 19 years this coming April. Still, they must be out by the end of March as their lease is expiring and won't be renewed at the end of the month.

"It's sad," Michele said over coffee Monday morning. "We would like our customers to know that it was not our choice. We wanted to stay."

The Zellers, who have been married 33 years and have worked side by side at the restaurant since founding it in 2000, found out earlier this year that their landlord Angela Tsimikas, will not renew their year-to-year lease as there are other plans for the space. The news came as a shock and over the past few weeks they've told their employees and their customers that they'll soon close their doors..

"It's hard because it's really like family here," Mr. Zeller said.

The Zellers have the restaurant business in their blood. They're both from California and met in a Santa Rosa Restaurant when Michele, who was waiting tables, brought Jeff a steak that he said was the wrong size.

"He had me take it away," she said, laughing.

Shortly thereafter, they bumped into each other and all was forgiven — "I told her that was just business, and it was over as far as I was concerned," he said. From there, they were off.

Though they never had ties to Rhode Island, they ended up here after Jeff's sister moved to the Ocean State to get married. After traveling here for the wedding, they fell in love and decided to switch coasts. They've loved it ever since and have no plans to leave.

Before getting the news about the lease, they also never expected to have to close The Restaurant, which they opened after Jeff left a previous job as manager of several local Newport Creamery restaurants.

They both consider themselves social people and over their years in Warren, have come to get to know and love their customers and the many employees who have worked with them. Cooking is in their blood but their employees and customers are the best part of the job, they said.

Their fondness for regulars is such that some of them have nicknames: There's Joe, John and Frank, The Counter Boys as they call them, who each have special mugs given to them this past Christmas by Michele. The mugs read "Three Wise Men."

There's The Breakfast Club, a small group that meets every morning for coffee, The Oatmeal Guys, who come in every Monday for oatmeal, and many others.

Meeting many of these people, and seeing them come through the door year after year, has been one of the joys of Jeff's life. He loves to chitchat and remembers faces well.

"It's very social," he said. "You meet a lot of people. It was nice coming here after I left Newport Creamery, because all of the people that were going there came here for us. We've been here for a long time now, and now people that I saw growing up are bringing their children in."

"That was the hardest part" about hearing the news, he said. "I was thinking last night, we may never see any of these people ever again. When you're used to seeing them all the time and you get to know them and their families, that's devastating to me."

The same goes for their many employees over the years, to whom they credit most of their success. They're all hard-working and they often come back to visit. From Timmy Thorpe, who waited tables all through high school and college and is now a teacher at Mt. Hope, to Crystal Dabir, their longest-serving employee at 15 years, they both said they're thankful to have had such dedicated help over the years.

"They're all like family and we're very appreciative of all of them," Michele said.

Though they're sad to have to close, both Michele and Jeff hope to stay busy. Jeff will probably cook a few days a week at a breakfast and lunch place in southeastern Massachusetts, and Michele has lined up a part time job here in Warren. In addition, they said they'll try to do things that their many years of working nearly every day never allowed them:

"I haven't had two days off in a row in years," Jeff said. "I don't know, we'll see. There are pros and cons to everything. We'll figure it out."

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