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12/21/2016 07:30 AMFor 30 years at Main Street Lunch, you could stop in for a cup of coffee and find the CEO and president behind the counter or at the grill. That’s a big difference today’s app-friendly, grab-n-go locales, many of which feature large crews of workers, and clients bustling in and out. Main Street Lunch owner Lou Ditolla says it’s also part of the reason why he’s decided to close his Branford shop, for good, on Friday, Dec. 30.
The last cup of coffee will be served at noon.
Lou grew up in North Branford, where he still resides, and was 16 when he got his start in the restaurant biz, working at a Branford hamburger stand, Yum Yum’s. Torn down years ago, the North Main Street site will soon be home to a new Chipotle chain restaurant.
“That was my first restaurant job—picking up papers in the parking lot at Yum Yum’s,” says Lou.
Lou graduated to working the grill and later followed his interest in the restaurant business to a career that included cooking, and managing food and order supplies, for the former Chello’s Oyster House in Guilford as well as the Chowder Pot Restaurant in Branford, a Brown Derby Restaurant in Florida, and the former Little Stone House Restaurant in Guilford.
Always on the lookout to start his own business, Lou spotted a Branford “business for sale” ad in the paper in 1986. Lou arrived to check out the site, and liked what he saw.
“They didn’t really have any business here,” he says. “They had pinball machines, an ice cream case, this and that.”
But Lou took one look at the little window-front shop at 556 Main Street and knew he could make it into a great restaurant and a place where he could be his own boss.
“I liked the look of it,” he says. “I liked the brick exposed on the wall; it just looked like a good place. I’d always cooked lunch and dinner, but I said, ‘Let me try eggs.’ I wanted to be able to do breakfast and lunch and be done for the day. And it worked, for all these years.”
Even with several other local businesses in town offering a sit-down space for breakfast and lunch, Lou did a brisk business, right from the start.
“When I first started here, business was really good,” says Lou. “I had early morning crowds, I had town workers ...I knew it would work, for some reason. With hard work, everything happened.”
Lou’s sister, Dee Remmey, has long been a friendly face at Main Street Lunch, and a busy co-worker with Lou from the start. Lou also brought in his mom Evelyn (and his dad Alfred would come in to socialize and “help,” too). Lou says his other two siblings, as well as his aunts, uncles and other family members, would come in often, too.
“So it was a family thing,” says Lou. “My mom would waitress and I said to her, ‘Mom—I gotta pay you.’ She said ‘I don’t want any money.’ So I started giving her the tips. When she passed away, the tips were still in her closet. She never spent a dime.”
Dee adds that the family banter, especially between herself and Lou, is something that regulars have always seemed to enjoy.
“We bicker all the time and the customers actually feed into that,” says Dee. “They almost do things to get us going.”
To this day, Lou still gets in the door by 5 a.m. and is working on his own until 7 a.m., when the first waitress arrives. Thirty years ago, that was a pretty tall order year-round, as business was “booming,” says Lou.
“It was a booming place. All I needed was the businesses in Branford, and businesses were thriving. There was a lot of foot traffic through here,” he says.
While Main Street Lunch is still pulling in big crowds on weekends and during summer months, things have changed. Businesses that once existed have closed or moved on, and steadfast customers who made a point of stopping in daily have moved away or, sadly, passed away.
“The old timers, all the well-known retired [business] guys, they would wake up early in the morning and come here; they’d sit in that corner,” says Lou, pointing to a back wall by the kitchen door. “What happened was, the people grew old with me. Some moved out of the state and some passed away.”
Even regulars who had to get to work would make it a point to come to Main Street Lunch.
“They’d get up two hours early so they could come in here first,” says Lou.
As always, Lou’s policy is to serve unlimited coffee and never nudge anyone from a seat, no matter how long they linger. It’s part of what helped to create the connections that Lou says he’s going to miss the most.
“We heard their life’s story, they heard our life’s story,” adds Dee. “So we knew everything about each other.”
Checking out the menu, an item like the Main Street Special (two of everything—pancakes, eggs, etc.) might seem like something available at any breakfast spot, but it comes with something you won’t find in many places, Dee says.
“What you’re not going to get somewhere else is the family atmosphere,” says Dee. “Everybody who came in, whether you were a newbie or an ‘old-bie’, you could just get in on the conversation and feel very comfortable.”
The regulars started moving on about 10 years ago. The advent of drive-thru coffee shops, grab-n-go breakfasts (available even at some gas stations in town), and tech-supported services for customers carrying plastic have also been affecting his business for many years, Lou adds.
“The young generation, they go around with no money in their pocket whatsoever, and I’m a cash business. I didn’t want to be working for a credit card company,” he says.
The way things are changing, Lou says he’s not surprised that another shoreline coffee shop of many years, Madison Coffee Shop, is also closing.
“Some more of them want to close, too, but they’re holding back,” says Lou. “We’re all friends. As a matter of fact, a couple of businesses called me up and said ‘Lou, at the end, if you don’t have stock or run out of something, come and see me.’ I had good relationships with everybody.”
“Or, they’re calling in and saying ‘You’re making the right decision,’” adds Dee.
Dee believes what’s happening is a sea change in the local private, small businesses serving breakfast and lunch.
“The mom and pop places, they just can’t make it. It’s not like we have an expensive menu, but people aren’t just coming out for this kind of a breakfast anymore,” she says.
While he also had a couple of offers from people who wanted to buy his business, Lou doesn’t own the building. He said his landlord’s next tenant will not be a restaurant
“It would have been nice to get money for your business, but you’re at the landlord’s mercy,” says Lou. “But he has a big responsibility, because he has people living upstairs.”
Lou’s sold his equipment and other restaurant trappings, which will be cleared out before the New Year. It will be the last step in a process that began about four years ago, when Lou noticed business was good during summer months, but things slowed down into and through the winter. He says he started thinking about moving on at the point, but kept going.
“For the past four years or so, I was making everyone happy. I was making the customers happy, I was making the landlord happy, I was making the waitresses happy. Except, at the end, Lou wasn’t happy,” he says. “So I finally got up enough nerve to say, ‘That’s it.’ It seemed like 30 years was enough.”
Lou says he’s been lucky to have been healthy all these years and is looking forward to enjoying some time away from the daily grind. He might get back to playing tennis and definitely plans to spend more time with his dog, Lucky.
Lou told Dee of his plans about a year ago. This fall, after Dee spread the news to customers and friends, a big crowd turned up for a surprise party in Lou’s honor at Main Street Lunch on Oct. 1.
“It wasn’t really a retirement party, because I might just take some time off and then go back to work,” says Lou. “But she did this little party and we couldn’t handle the number of people that were coming in here.”
Lou said seeing those who took the time to stop in, even friends of his parents who had heard the news, was touching.
“It was exciting to see the people who took the time out to come and see me,” says Lou, adding, “I’ll miss the regular customers. But there’s over 100 places to get a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich in Branford. I’m sure they’ll find their niche somewhere.”