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Home > Blogs > Taste: Dayton food and restaurants > Archives > 2011 > August > 25 > Entry
L’Auberge to remain open after reaching agreement with bank
KETTERING — Eleventh-hour negotiations between attorneys for L’Auberge restaurant and the Lebanon-based bank that foreclosed on l’Auberge’s property produced an agreement that will cancel Friday’s scheduled sheriff’s sale and will allow the restaurant to remain open, attorneys for both sides said late this afternoon.
“L’Auberge is open for business as usual, serving lunch and dinner,” said John P. Rieser, attorney for the restaurant.
William Kaufman, attorney for Lebanon Citizens National Bank, confirmed the agreement and said documents will be filed to cancel the sheriff’s sale scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Montgomery County Administration Building.
Neither of the attorneys nor l’Auberge owner Josef Reif would comment on the details of the settlement, but Kaufman said the agreement “does not resolve all of the legal issues” that exist between the restaurant and the bank, which foreclosed after claiming the l’Auberge defaulted on three mortgage notes and owed the bank more than $1.6 million.
Kaufman said the agreement is designed to allow Reif to stay in possession of the restaurant and to bring in investment partners in the coming months.
Rieser, the restaurant’s attorney, said the agreement “will give Mr. Reif the opportunity to recapitalize without a foreclosure hanging over his head, and without him having to declare bankruptcy.”
The Lebanon bank filed the mortgage foreclosure lawsuit in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court in June 2010, about four months after it received its last mortgage payment on three loans it had made to The Inn Inc., the corporate parent of l’Auberge. Reif is president of the corporation.
In May 2011, Judge Michael Tucker ruled in favor of the bank and ordered the property and building that houses l’Auberge at 4120 Far Hills Ave. in Kettering to be sold at sheriff’s sale, with the proceeds awarded to the bank to apply to the accrued debt of $1.6 million. The sale had been scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday, Aug. 26.
Reif and the late Dieter Krug founded l’Auberge in 1979, transforming a restaurant known as The Inn, best known for its fried chicken, into a fine-dining establishmen. L’Auberge earned a coveted and rare four-star rating from the Mobil Travel Guide the first year it was eligible for rating, and held the rating for 19 years through 2002. The restaurant has survived even as other highly credentialed fine-dining restaurants such as King Cole in downtown Dayton and the Maisonette in Cincinnati, once Ohio’s only five-star restaurant, have been forced to close.
L’Auberge has remained open during the foreclosure proceedings, serving lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday, and is running several heirloom tomato specials through Aug. 31. For more information, go to the l’Auberge web site or call (937) 299-5536.
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