Two Gals closes up shop

By Cassie Tomlin

Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008 | midnight

Two Gals, a longtime popular Nevada Highway breakfast and lunch joint, closed this month after its owner was served an eviction notice.

The shuttered cafe and adjoining Two Gals Too Lounge leave behind a loyal following of morning feasters and afternoon drinkers who say there was no place quite like it.

Elmer Marshall, the landlord, said he plans to rent the place to a new owner for a new restaurant later this year.

Marshall said the new Two Gals owner, Donald Douffrant, was four months behind on rent payments and owed $11,000 when a constable was sent earlier this month with a notice to vacate.

On Sept. 3, Douffrant didn't show up to work, canceled his business license, and the restaurant has been closed since, Marshall and city officials said.

Efforts to contact Douffrant were unsuccessful. He is not listed in the phone book and had no phone number on file with the city or the Chamber of Commerce.

Douffrant took over the business from John and Vicki Harr in May 2007, but the place opened in the 1970s as Two Gals from Cal.

Dib Campbell was a ringleader of a group of friends who met weekly at Two Gals for breakfast. For seven years, every Tuesday at 7 a.m., ROMEO — short for Real Old Men Eating Out — assembled in the lounge.

It was the kind of thing small town cafes are made of: same time, same place, no agenda and a full house of regulars.

"We had an outstanding lady that was our own waitress sort of, and it was a come and go thing," he said.

But Campbell said he was as shocked as anybody to learn the restaurant had closed, and now the ROMEOs are without a hub.

Two Gals was quiet and private and would accommodate the group of a dozen to 20 regulars, he said.

"We're treading water now. We don't have a place that meets our needs that we can find," he said.

Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or cassie.tomlin@hbcpub.com.