Sour milk: Pauli's Bakery & Restaurant to close in 2022

TILTON — After over 30 years of business, it looks like the sun is finally setting on the beloved Pauli’s Bakery & Restaurant. Owners say this is not by choice, but the result a “gotcha” clause in the leasing agreement spurred on by a soured tenant-landlord relationship.

Near the end of November, it was announced that Pauli’s lease would not be renewed, forcing the restaurant to close. The lease will expire at the end of February, and Pauli's will close its doors for good on Jan. 31.

Owners and patrons have attended the restaurant since its founding by Cheryl Garret in 1990. Not long after her passing in 2019, the diner was purchased by Melissa Dolpie and is co-managed by her husband Michael. “We’ve made it known that we want Pauli's to continue,'' Dolpie said, “it’s been our goal to keep Cheryl's legacy going.”

Since its founding, Pauli’s has been a staple of downtown Tilton life. It's a place where some regulars are so trusted, they have their own keys to the place so they can open up early on the weekends. Pauli’s is an increasingly rare beast in the American economic safari: a genuine diner where the food is affordable, the waitresses lovingly and openly trash talk with guests and one another, and there isn’t a single piece of sterile graphic design or chromed light fixtures. It is an establishment where tourists come to get a glimpse of genuine small town New England life while simultaneously standing as a refuge for local old timers to congregate and laugh over old memories.

“The old style local home thing is going away,” said patron Penny Barnum as she ate breakfast with her husband, Doug and their long time friend Roger Main. 

“If this diner closes, there’s really no other place in this area, so I think it’s going to hurt a lot,” said Main, who acknowledged that there still is the Tilt’n Diner, but it’s not downtown, and not quite the same.

“This is really more quiet, peaceful and unique,” said Barnum. 

“I think it's a very popular place,” said Doug Barnum, “people are going to want it to stay open.”

Barnum wasn’t far off in his sentiments. As of Dec. 15, more than 1,800 people have signed an online petition to keep the restaurant open. The petition was started by waitress Sarah Zurline, who began working at Pauli’s just five months ago.

“I actually left a job from the hospital,” said Zurline, “I worked in the operating room, and came here. I wanted to take a break from medicine and I fell in love with the environment of the place.”

Zurline emphasized the special niche Pauli’s occupies beyond being a place to eat.

“We have regulars that have been coming in for decades,” Zurline said. “It’s how they get together with each other, so it's sad.” 

Due to a contract clause, the owner of the building, Donna Muehlen, is within her rights to end the lease, but Zurline hopes that the petition will make her reconsider. 

“I was hoping once she saw how much it means to the community,” Zurline said, that she would change her mind. “It affects businesses nearby. On weekends when we have waitlists, everybody’s outside waiting to come in for a table, they’re walking the storefronts, they’re going into the stores, they’re coming in with bags from the stores in here.”

Muehlen couldn’t be reached for comment, so her stance on the petition remains unknown. According to a letter from Muehlen’s legal team, the Dolpies failed to properly notify Muehlen of their intent to renew the lease within 120 days prior to the end of the lease via certified mail. The letter also states that the Dolpies will no longer have direct communication with Muehlen’s company, and can only speak to her through her lawyer, James L. Soucy. 

“We did miss a deadline of sending a certified letter with our intent to stay so she has every right to do what she’s doing,” said Melissa Dolpie. “It was something that was overlooked. It wasn’t on our radar, we were working on our different businesses and getting focused on getting through the pandemic. It was a simple human error.” 

Melissa’s husband Michael stated that the previous owners of Pauli’s never had to use certified mail, and also claimed that other tenants in the building didn’t have to either. The other tenants did not wish to comment on this story.

“That’s a “gotcha” clause. That's what this is,” said Michael, who stated that this recent move was a result of many exchanges between the landlord, Pauli's, and construction workers. As a result, Pauli’s had to close operations at times. 

“On one occasion they were doing work in the apartment upstairs,” Michael said. "We asked multiple times if they could please do the work after business hours.” The answer was no, and work continued. “There was an incident where a piece of the ceiling fell down in the kitchen and hit a cook,” Michael said. “When we complained and confronted the contractor, the contractor was offended and became loud and physically threatening.”

There were other incidents and issues with the building especially related to construction, and according to Michael, the landlord’s response was always the same: “If you don’t like it, you can leave.”

Michael, who is a landlord himself, stated that disagreements between tenants and landlords are completely normal, but Muehlen’s "if you don’t like it you can leave" attitude was anything but standard practice. The Daily Sun reached out to Muehlen’s lawyer, to get the other side of the story, but Soucy offered no comment.

As for the Dolpies, they are ready to move on and put this all behind them, albeit with some sadness.

“We didn't want this,” Michael said. “Cheryl passed unexpectedly and the business survived, the business survived the pandemic. It's a shame that that bickering between the landlord and business is what pulled out the rug from under it.”

Despite a potentially and likely sad ending for such a beloved business, current owner Melissa Dolpie doesn’t want people bitter and focused on what went wrong.

“Pauli's has been a staple for 30 years,” Dolpie said, “that is what should be remembered. The legacy of Cheryl, and how much everyone loved that place. That's why we took it over and wanted to keep it. It was a good place, and that's what I want it to be remembered for.”