Lubach’s Restaurant, a Downtown Landmark for 35 Years, Will Close

Saying economic conditions became too much to bear, R.C.A. (Ray) Lubach closed his legendary restaurant, Lubach’s, Thursday after 35 years of business in San Diego.

“It just kept going down and down and down,” said Lubach, 80, whose exotic a la carte menu and Harbor Drive location drew dozens of dignitaries and entertainers, including Lubach’s personal favorite, Bob Hope.

But, in the end, he said sadly from his home in La Mesa Thursday night, it was work without hope that caused him to close the doors and send home 44 employees, one of whom had worked for him 28 years.

“If you don’t take enough money in to pay your expenses, eventually, you have to close,” Lubach said. “Everything went up--insurance rates, liquor prices, everything. If you don’t meet the costs, what else are you going to do?”

Lubach refused to say how much money he lost on the business but noted, “If the business had made me wealthy, I wouldn’t be closing.”

Rival restaurant owner Tommy Tomicich, who for 27 years has owned Old Trieste on Morena Boulevard, said he was saddened by Lubach’s decision. He said he empathized with a restaurateur stung by a slumping economy.

“Everything has slowed down,” Tomicich said. “I know of restaurants in Manhattan in New York City who have scaled back waiters from 30 to 40 to four or five. Times are tough.

“It used to be that businessmen could deduct 100% of what they spent entertaining clients at a restaurant. Now, it’s down to 80%, and they’re talking of trimming it to 50%. That hurts a lot. I’m lucky, I own my land, but a lot of places can’t pay the rent. People across America don’t go out as often as they used to, because they can’t. And it’s going to get worse.”

Lubach, whose full name is Rinse Cornelius Antonius Lubach, came to the United States from his boyhood home in Amsterdam in 1937. He moved to Los Angeles, then settled in San Diego in 1940. Long active in San Diego civic affairs, he once served as consul of the Netherlands in San Diego and Imperial counties.

His only child, Bob, 54, assisted him in the business, which opened on the city’s waterfront in 1956 in what had once been the cafeteria for Solar Turbines.

As to what his son will now do, Lubach said, “I have no idea.”

The elder Lubach said he doesn’t own the property at 2101 Harbor Drive but added that rent was never a problem--it was merely the cost of “everything else” that became prohibitive. (The land is owned by the San Diego Unified Port District, which leases it to Solar Turbines, which acted as Lubach’s landlord.)

Times restaurant critic David Nelson said Lubach’s demise may have been due in part to the loss of an older clientele, which was never really replaced by a younger crowd. Nelson said the menu “hadn’t really changed” in all the years Lubach’s was open.

Lubach said Thursday that he refused to compromise--”I have high standards and saw no need to alter them”--and that he considers the culinary habits of most Americans in the 1990s suspect, “to say the least.”

He said he enjoyed offering fresh lobster from Maine every day for 35 years, as well as Dover sole imported once a week from the Netherlands.

“We flourished up until five years ago,” he said. “In the end, the only problem was the people with the briefcases. Nowadays, a hamburger and a hot dog on a stick is good enough for them.”