Lost Tables: Chez Louis / Bernard's

Chez Louis / Bernard's

Morton Louis Meyer was born in St. Louis on January 25, 1931. After graduating from Princeton University in 1952, he served in the army during the Korean War.

Because of his fluency in several languages, Meyer was sent to the U.S. Army language school in California, where he scored the highest mark ever on the school's exam. He was shipped to Germany for training and then to eastern France as a counter-intelligence agent. While in France, Meyer developed a love for travel, art and French food.

On June 14, 1954, while still in the service, Meyer married Roxanne Harris of Highland Park, Illinois. They would have three children ― Nancy, Danny and Tommy.

Danny Meyer went on to become a renown New York restaurateur. In his autobiographical book, Setting the Table, Danny looked back at his father's life from an adult perspective.

My parents, Roxanne and Morton Louis Meyer, had spent the first two years of their youthful marriage in the early 1950s living in the city of Nancy, capital of the French province of Lorraine, where my dad was posted as an army intelligence officer.
In 1955, at the conclusion of my dad’s overseas military service, my parents were still very much in love with each other and with Europe. Their knowledge of and fondness for France in particular was a powerful bond between them.
In St. Louis my father parlayed his love of all things French into a career as an innovative and successful travel agent.

Meyer joined the William H. Goldman Travel Agency, which was started by Goldman in 1919. In 1956, the agency was incorporated as the Goldman-Meyer Travel Agency, with Meyer as secretary-treasurer. When Goldman retired in 1958, Meyer became president of the firm. Meyer's brother, Richard, would become vice president.


Morton & Roxanne Meyer St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec 9, 1958	Morton Meyer St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb 27, 1959

In 1960, as large commercial jets began transporting Americans overseas, Morton Meyer developed Open Road Tours.

His agency, Open Road Tours, packaged customized driving trips, often in conjunction with Relais de Campagne, a network of lovely family-operated inns around France. This was long before such excursions off the beaten path became common in the travel industry. Dad exulted in planning these driving tours of the countryside; he’d note exactly where travelers would stumble upon a certain vineyard, a worthwhile museum or a particularly good bistro. His clients loved his attention to detail; his business thrived.

Meyer's love for Europe extended into his home, enveloping Danny and his siblings.

At home, too, he and my mom were Eurocentric. They often hosted cocktail parties and dinner parties for friends and business colleagues from France, Italy and Denmark, who either were in town on business or had made a detour to St. Louis just to see us. For several years our house was home to the grown children of French innkeepers. By day these young people would help out in Dad’s office with translations and administrative tasks, and by night they would act as au pairs for my sister, Nancy, my brother, Tommy, and me.
French was always being spoken around the house, either by our guests or by my parents (who used it at the dinner table especially when they wanted to discuss something not meant for our ears). Our neurotic, inbred French poodle, Ratatouille, was named after my dad’s favorite Provencal dish.

Meyer lived life to the fullest, with a propensity for risk taking.

My father was unquestionably my childhood hero: a hedonist, a gastronome and a man who cherished and passionately savored life. He loved the excitement and risk of the racetrack and gave me a taste for it, even when I was too young to place bets legally.
Dad also took risks as a businessman. He was always coming up with exciting new ideas based on his love of travel and food, and on his constant drive to share his finds with others. At one point Open Road Tours had offices and staffs in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Paris. Later, it opened offices all over Europe.

But disagreements between Open Road's inside and outside investors, and suits filed by the Hertz Corporation seeking to collect money they were owed, forced Open Road to file for bankruptcy.

I never fully understood how or why, but sometime in the late 1960s, when I was still a young boy, Open Road Tours went bankrupt. I remember abundant tears and shame, but few details. I heard comments like, "We expanded too quickly."
My paternal grandparents were torn apart too. Their only two sons had been in business together ― my father as president and his younger brother as vice president. Whatever events had led to the bankruptcy had also driven a sharp wedge between the two brothers.
My mother was anguished, and her disappointment and disapproval were apparent. Business details were not openly discussed, but the family’s bruises were deeply felt.

Undeterred, Meyer switched from the travel business to managing hotels in Italy.

In 1970, when I was twelve, my father leaped into the hotel business in Italy. Despite the pleas of my mother, and with her father's begrudging help in the form of a $1 million loan, he committed himself to long leases on one hotel in Rome and another in Milan. He was certain that becoming a hotelier would be his ticket to fortune.
My mom maintained that it promised nothing more than protracted absences from home. There was always some reason my dad had to go to Italy. Each time the hotel workers went on strike, he flew to Rome or Milan to help make beds. Business flagged and lagged, and although he was spending half a month at a time away from his family to address problems, it inevitably proved impossible for him to operate a hotel business across two continents. At an enormous financial cost and an even greater emotional cost, my father finally found a buyer for his two leases. He then went on to his next idea.

While in Italy, Meyer noticed that most Italian hotels operated at an 80-percent occupancy rate between Easter and November 1st, and at a 20-percent occupancy rate the rest of the year. The discrepancy disturbed him and he became determined to find a way to lure travelers in the off-season.

In 1972, still irrepressibly optimistic, my father created another new business, called Caesar Associates. This new company would sell packaged group tours at a deep discount for a very narrow niche of travelers known as interliners ― airline employees and their families. Interliners could fly standby at unbelievably low rates. Dad’s business model was simple but original. He aggregated all the discounts to which interliners were entitled and packaged trips lasting up to two weeks.
In addition to low airfares, he negotiated rock-bottom rates for hotels, ground transport, sightseeing, shopping and dining. The value he added was to offer highly imaginative itineraries and use the underlying buying power of group travel to create an extraordinary rapport between price and quality. He hired sparkling young tour guides at each destination, and he kept his clients informed of travel opportunities by writing an endless stream of marketing collaterals.
Caesar Associates actually thrived for many years, with outposts in London, Paris, Copenhagen, Madrid, and Rome. But this success wasn’t enough for my father. Having failed to learn some critical lessons from his earlier business failures in the 1960s and 1970s, he gambled the fortunes of his entire business on another new one, involving risky and questionable real estate and hotel deals back in St. Louis.


Danny Meyer

Morton Meyer entered the Clayton real estate market in 1977 when a banker friend suggested he needed to shelter earnings from his travel business. His initial purchase was the Mortgage Building at 7730 Forsyth.

In October of 1979, Meyer plunged into the restaurant business. He opened Chez Louis at 26 North Meramec in Clayton. The storefront space in the 53-year-old Seven Gables Apartment Building had previously housed the Clayton Coffee Company.

Meyer owned Chez Louis with Bernard Douteau, who served as the restaurant's chef and general manager. Douteau, born in a small town south of the Loire Valley, had worked as a hotelier in France, as will as in Ethiopia and Italy. In Italy he managed two hotels for Meyer, whom he had met five years earlier in Paris.

Chez Louis featured white tablecloths with pastel napkins, heavy service plates and handwritten menus. Colorful prints and posters punctuated white plaster walls.

Morton Meyer (left) and Bernard Douteau at Chez Louis
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov 22, 1984

Chez Louis' menu was small and changed frequently. Restaurant critic Joe Pollack provided an overview of the cuisine in his March 25, 1982 St. Louis Post-Dispatch review.

The Chez Louis cuisine style is French, kind of a happy compromise between the truly haute cuisine, which can be overwhelmingly rich, and the truly nouvelle, in which a food processor grinds everything into the texture and taste of baby food. Sauces are light, with a beautifully modulated touch of herbs and spices and a base that involves the reduced stock of the meat or fish. Vegetables are cooked quickly to retain color and flavor.
And then there's the presentation, which is glorious. Each morsel is perfectly arranged on the plate, colors are right and the feeling can be that the dish is too pretty to eat – until the first whiff of savory herbs tingles the palate and stimulates the salivary glands.


1984 Chez Louis Menu (click image to enlarge)	Chez Louis Interior

In November of 1982, Meyer and Douteau opened a second restaurant which they named Bernard's. It was located adjacent to Chez Louis, in the 18 North Meramec space of the Seven Gables Apartment Building.

Chez Louis and Bernard's, Seven Gables Apartment Building, circa 1983

Bernard's was an informal 50-seat French bistro. Its understated decor was much the same as Chez Louis, with cream-colored walls adorned with colorful framed posters from Paris art galleries. The ceiling was beamed and windows were trimmed with little cafe curtains. Seating was on plain bentwood chairs at bistro-style marble-top tables, with a few dark blue banquettes.

Bernard's Interior

Douteau wanted Bernard's menu to be simpler than the more formal Chez Louis.

At Chez Louis we had a menu that takes a lot of preparation. I always felt we should offer the simpler foods that are most common in France. They may sound pedestrian to some, but these are the dishes many French people still eat every day.

The one-page menu included onion soup, crepes, quiches, croque monsieur, salade Nicoise, terrines and charcuterie. There were at least two specials a day, which could include a hearty cassoulet of meat, lentils and flageolets, or a spicy veal stew simmered in white wine.

Douteau introduced the southern French specialty pan bania on Bernard's menu.

Knowing the appeal of salads for Americans and, of course, sandwiches, I thought it would be fun to present a salad sandwich.

The inside of a hard round roll or bun was scooped out and filled with Boston lettuce, olives, tomatoes, potatoes, hard-cooked egg, capers and a vinaigrette dressing, with an anchovy option.

Bernard's Bar

In December of 1983, Meyers and Douteau opened Bernard’s Food Boutique at 10 North Meramec. According to Douteau, the gourmet marked started out as a charcuterie.

The concept of a charcuterie is still strange to St. Louis. The way people live here is more leisurely than, say, New York or Chicago. They don't feel the necessity to come to a specific shop to buy specific types of prepared foods.
Bad habits are easier than good ones, you know. It is easier to get all your food items at one place. Americans are not like Europeans who go to each little store and specify the exact items they want.

The boutique featured an assortment of salamis, hams, smoked duck, smoked chicken, Canadian bacon and cheeses. The pastry counter offered a selection of cookies, tarts, pastries and other sweets. There were croissants, baguettes and assorted breads. Olive oil, teas, flavored vinegars and mustards were also available.

Bernard’s Food Boutique was short lived. It closed early in 1985.

* * * * *

In April of 1985, Meyer purchased the Seven Gables Apartment Building. Along with Douteau and Garrett Balke, a St. Louis developer, he turned the 60-year-old Tudor-style building into a 32 room hotel. They named their hotel the Seven Gables Inn.

When the Inn opened at the start of 1986, the concrete-paved alleyway which ran between the two halves of the H-shaped building had been removed. In its place, dark brown ceramic tiles were laid and glass walls constructed on the ground level at the front and rear to form an enclosed lobby. The lobby provided access to Chez Louis and Bernard's on either side, and the streetside entrances were closed. A 50-by-30-foot outside area in the back of the lobby was landscaped and opened as the Garden Court for outdoor dining.

Douteau explained the reason for incorporating the two restaurants as part of the Inn.

It's a natural extension to marry the restaurants with a small hotel. In Europe, food is the main reason for the success or failure of a hotel, while in this country it's often neglected with the rooms becoming the focal point.

Seven Gables Inn, circa 1990

In August of 1987, Meyer acquired the Daniele Hotel at 216 North Meramec in Clayton. The price was $4.6 million. As part of a $1 million renovation program, the hotel's dining room was renamed the London Grill.

By September of 1987, in addition to his two hotels and their associated restaurants, Meyer owned seven office buildings in Clayton's central business district.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sep 7, 1987

Meyer also planed to open a 300-room "world-class" hotel in the heart of Clayton.

I like doing new things. We've got a parcel of land. We've also got serious interest on the part of several chains to manage it. I can't yet tell you where it will be.

Chez Louis and Bernard's continued to thrive into the late 1980s. Bernard Douteau was particularly proud of his namesake restaurant.

I like to think of it as a classy, little neighborhood joint. It has a life of its own apart from its neighbor, Chez Louis. While Chez Louis has tablecloths, fine service and is a creative, fairly sophisticated restaurant, Bernard's is a bistro serving a simple tradition of casual food.
We have a good breakfast and lunch trade ― especially lunch. And to do a good lunch business in Clayton, you have to have a product that tastes good, is a good value, is fresh and fast. In the evening, we have a good crowd, as well, and we're also attracting the late night crowd after they attend a movie or the theater.


1988 Chez Louis Menu (click image to enlarge)	1988 Bernard's Menu (click image to enlarge)

In September of 1988, Bernard Douteau left the Seven Gables Inn and its restaurants to "pursue other interests, including serving as consultant to Whitey's" ― Whitey Herzog's restaurant at Union Station. Douteau was replaced as executive chef by his assistant, David Zimmerman.

Zimmerman, a Clayton native, received an associate's degree in the culinary sciences in 1986 from the Culinary Institute of American, after which he joined the Seven Gables Inn as first sous chef. He was responsible for developing menus for both Chez Louis and Bernard's.


David Zimmerman, 1989	1989 Chez Louis Menu (click image to enlarge)

In 1988, Meyer announced he would build a 336 room hotel, the Clayton Hilton and Towers, on the southwest corner of Maryland and Central. But the project faced opposition from nearby property owners. The hotel was never built.

Morton Meyer died of cancer on July 21, 1990 at the age of 59. By then, he was once again bankrupt.

Danny Meyer lamented his father's repeated business failures.

He owned two hotels in St. Louis, one of which ― the Seven Gables Inn, with its French restaurant, Chez Louis ― met with critical acclaim. But the other hotel ― the Daniele Hilton, with its mediocre London Grill ― was a failure on every count.
My father had leveraged his entire company to purchase these hotels, and also to purchase a medical building in Clayton which he planned to reimagine and redevelop into something big. However, by the time he had emptied the building of its existing rent-paying tenants, the bottom had fallen out of the economy. His funders dropped out, but not before suing him.
Although Dad may have been an inventive entrepreneur, he did not have the necessary emotional skills or discipline, and he failed to surround himself with enough competent, loyal, trustworthy colleagues whose skills and strengths would have compensated for his own weaknesses. By 1990, shortly before he died of lung cancer at the age of fifty-nine, he was once again bankrupt. Once again, he had to inform his family ― his second wife, Vivian, and his three children and their spouses ― about a failure. We all had a painful sense of deja vu.

Morton Meyer
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sep 7, 1987

In 1991, David Zimmerman left Chez Louis and Bernard's to enter his family's flour business. Michael Holmes replaced Zimmerman as executive chef.

In January of 1993, it was announced that Chez Louis had been shuttered and would reopen as an extension of Bernard's.

In February of 1995, Tim Weaver was named executive chef of the Seven Gables Inn's dining spaces, including Bernard's and the Garden Court.

In March of 1998, the owners of Harvest took over management of the Seven Gables Inn's restaurants, operating them all under the name Beaux Coo.