Tyler

By GREG JUNEK
Business Editor

Jake's in downtown Tyler is about to change hands, but not names.

Purchasers Alan and Kamla Utz confirmed they would purchase the building, at 111 E. Erwin St., from Rick Eltife, with the transaction of an undisclosed amount taking place April 8. They plan to open the new restaurant and club, renamed Jake's Tyler, in about a month.

Eltife said he would bring the Jake's recipes to his other restaurant and club, Rick's on the Square, and the Utz family said it plans to continue drawing diners to Jake's Tyler.

Mrs. Utz said she and her husband, who also owns the construction firm Alan Utz & Associates Inc., will bill the new restaurant, at 111 E. Erwin St., as "Dallas dining without the drive."

She said Tyler has many chain restaurants, but only a few locally owned upscale eateries. She said Jake's Tyler will be in the same league with Tyler's finest restaurants.

"We're trying to model ourselves after Del Frisco's, Ruth's Criss, Bob's Chop House," Mrs. Utz said. "We just know lots of people who drive to Dallas on the weekends to eat."

The menu will include many appetizers, seafood and steaks. Everything will be homemade, and the desserts will be very good, Mrs. Utz said.

The new restaurant will also cater, she said.

She and her husband have hired chef Callie Owens of Gilmer to run the kitchen. Ms. Owens has worked at several restaurants, including a Colorado dude ranch.

Both said they are looking forward to making new friends and giving patrons an experience to recommend to others.

"I don't think (success of) restaurants are location, location, location," Utz said. "It's food and service."

The Utzes said they are excited about putting a restaurant in an old building downtown.

"After being in Jake's, we just really liked the personality of downtown," Mrs. Utz said, adding they had heard of the city of Tyler's plans for downtown in its Tyler 21 plan, and they wanted to be a part of downtown transformation.

Her husband, who grew up in Tyler, said he remembers when downtown was an active and safe place for parents to drop their children off to see a movie, and he wants to help the area recapture some of that activity.

The Utzes are not foreign to restaurant and bar work; Mrs. Utz said she managed bar and food establishments in the Bryan-College Station area for about 15 years.

Utz's construction firm will perform renovation work on the interior of the restaurant. He said it will refinish the bar to have the appearance of granite. Refurbishing plans also call for new paint and rock accent walls.

He also said a dumb waiter would be installed from the second floor to the kitchen, making it easier on the wait staff to get orders to the kitchen and food back to the tables.

Inside, the Utzes plan to have a grand player piano; outside they plan to install an awning and put gaslights on the doors.

Although the menu will change some, Mrs. Utz said, Jake's regulars should not be concerned.

"A lot of the regulars, downtown people, this is kind of their home away from home," she said. "They were concerned that we would totally change it, and we're not."

Just about everything associated with the old Jake's is going to Rick's on the Square, Eltife said.

That includes Jake's catering business, artwork, menus, kitchen staff, front-of-the-house staff and Jack Lewis, who is executive chef over both locations, Eltife said.

"Pretty much what I'm doing is I'm bringing my Jake's business down here, and my catering business and Jack Lewis," he said, adding Rick's has the larger kitchen, so even if Jake's catered a meal, a lot of the cooking would be done at Rick's.

And, he added, the Jake's menu and faces are not the only thing that will be added to Rick's. Eltife said he wants to bring live music back to the Tyler square.

For years, Rick's drew carloads of people to downtown for its live music scene, but the music stopped after another live music venue opened in south Tyler. Eltife said he wants to take the nightlife scene more to the way it was when Rick's opened - a safe atmosphere without so much of the "in-your-face" music that has been featured elsewhere.

"It will be more jazz, more upscale, more appeal to a mature audience, ... much like Jake's was," he said.

Even without Jake's, Eltife will still have an eatery containing about 20,000 square feet, which includes the patio and private party rooms.

Jake's first opened in 1997 with six original owners, but closed after less than a year. After nearly a year, Eltife bought it, remodeled it slightly and reopened it July 31, 1999.