Toledo staple Eddie Lee’s restaurant will close after more than 4 decades

Eddie Lee’s, a beloved fixture on the Toledo dining scene, will be serving its last meal on June 21.

“It’s time to retire,” said Willie Lee, the owner and manager of the restaurant and the son of its namesake founder. “But we’re going to maintain the high standards we’ve always had right up until the end.”

The building, located at 4700 Nantucket Dr., will be sold to George Simon, the proprietor of the nearby Bar 145 restaurant and one of the owners of the nearby shopping center.

“We bought the restaurant because we wanted to control the whole corner,” said Mr. Simon. “We won’t know what we’re going to do with the premises until we take possession and can get in there with our team and see what’s possible.”

The restaurant’s namesake, Eddie Lee, owned the Colony Restaurant at Monroe and Central in Toledo. Together with his sons Howard and Melvin Lee, Eddie Lee opened the restaurant that bears his name in 1980.

“I came here after they opened a year later,” Willie Lee remembers. “We were busy from the start. A lot of the customers from the Colony came here. I was in my 20s, and I worked in the kitchen all through college. I grew up with the staff here.”

Mr. Lee attributes the restaurant’s success, longevity, and loyal customer base to the way it treats its customers and the philosophy of simple food prepared very well.

“We’re successful because of our customers,” he said. “We owe our customers everything. And there’s a mutual respect there. Some of our customers come three times a week. My prices are fair but not cheap. I serve quality. I personally clean every piece of fish that comes into the restaurant. We remember your name and what you drink. We’re old school. We show a lot of respect to people.”

The closure will leave a tight-knit group of regular customers without a restaurant to call home.

Pam and Royal Barber have been dining at Eddie Lee’s since 2000 and currently eat there three times a week.

“Willie has a thing for introducing people to each other,” said Mrs. Barber. “Many times we’d be sitting with strangers and became friends with them by the end of the meal. A lot of them were empty nesters. We’d get together every Wednesday, Friday, and sometimes on Sundays. In the winter, we’d usually have six to eight people eating with us.”

“At other restaurants,” Mrs. Barber added, “there’s no human interaction unless you’re with friends. But at Eddie Lee’s, you interact with the other customers and the staff. There’s always a lot of laughter there. It’s the kind of place where people invite you to sit with them — and they become friends.”

Jeff Jaffe is another regular of Eddie Lee’s.

“I’ve been going there since the place opened,” he said. “I’ve dined there hundreds of times. The nice thing is that unlike a lot of restaurants, Eddie Lee’s is very consistent. The food is always good, and I can walk in there and almost before I sit at my table my drink is there.”

As to Willie Lee, Mr. Jaffee calls him “a consummate restaurateur and a consummate human being. He remembers everybody’s name, whether they’re a regular or not. He’s a sweet guy, always interested in everyone and what they do and their families.”

Charlie Nyitray estimates that he’s eaten at Willie Lee’s about 2,000 times since his first visit in the 1980s. He was so well known there that when he went in with his children, the waitresses would mark their names and height in pencil lines on the wall by the serving station.

“I liked the atmosphere,” he said. “It was relaxing and quiet, but also like Cheers, a place where everyone knew your name.”

Like other patrons of the restaurant, Mr. Nyitray appreciated the friendliness of his fellow customers — whether he knew them or not.

“One time, I went in there with my wife. She’d had breast cancer and was wearing a wig. By the end of the night, there were eight other ladies who had gone through the same thing sitting with her and talking to her.”

In addition to attracting loyal customers, Eddie Lee’s employs a number of very loyal employees. At least four of them have been with the restaurant for over 40 years.

“We’ve never had a waitress here leave and become a waitress somewhere else,” said Mr. Lee. “They’ve gone into other professions, but not waitressing at another restaurant. My approach to my crew is always to support them. They are our running backs, and my job is to supply the secondary resources they need to do their job. If they fail, it’s because I put them in the position to fail.”

The cuisine at Eddie Lee’s is best described as classic American.

“We’re not trendy,” said Mr. Lee with a smile. “We serve simple food cooked very well. Our regulars love it — and as long as they kept coming back, I was not going to change the menu.”

Other Toledo restaurateurs offered their thoughts on the closing of such a beloved institution.

“I know Toledo will miss Eddie Lee’s,” said Nasri Hajjar, the general manager of the Beirut and the son of veteran restaurateur Labib Hajjar. “It’s sad to see a staple of such class, respect, and community shut its doors. I know Toledo will miss Eddie Lee’s. I’m excited to see what comes next and only wish the best for all involved.”

Moussa Saloukh, the proprietor of Souk Mediterranean Kitchen and Bar in Toledo’s warehouse district, says that Eddie Lee’s “has been a staple of the Toledo restaurant scene for a long time. When you see a restaurant close after that many years, you feel sad and disappointed, but it’s a brutal business, so it’s not surprising.”

Mr. Lee was adamant that the building would not be used to operate a restaurant called Eddie Lee’s.

“When we close that door, that’s the end of Eddie Lee’s,” he said. “We haven’t sold the name or the recipes. We want to leave everyone with good memories of this place.”

Contact James Trumm at jtrumm@theblade.com.