By Greg Paeth
NKyTribune reporter
New owners of what had been one of Covington’s best-known watering holes and restaurants plan to open with a new theme, a new look and a new menu late in August.
Chez Nora at the corner of Sixth and Main in the MainStrasse neighborhood will jettison the French name for Lisse, which is the name of a city in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands.
Tim Weiss said the new name reflects the hometown of Hans Philippo, who owns the property with business partner Jeff Wolnitzek, of Ft. Wright.
“We’re going to redo the entire building from the basement to the top floor,” said Weiss, who will become general manager of Lisse. He said a “soft opening” is scheduled tentatively for Aug. 28.
“We will also do a complete remediation of the brick (exterior) and plan to change the color,” Weiss said. The three-story building has an open-air rooftop bar that provides an impressive view of the Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati skylines as well as an enclosed room where Chez Nora attracted customers with live jazz.
Although Weiss provided some details about what the owners plan to do with the building, he declined to reveal any details about the menu other than to say, “It’s going to be real good.”
The owners plan to hold a press event late next week to fill in some of the blanks in the information that was released – reluctantly – this week.
Buildings permits for the interior and exterior work as well as a rebuild of the kitchen are “in the works,” Weiss said. The Covington employee who handles building permits was not available for comment Tuesday afternoon.
At this point, he said he did not know what the renovation work would cost. “The check book is open,” he said.
Philippo will own the restaurant and the bar and Wolnitzek will retain an ownership stake in the property, said Weiss, who added that he has 30 years of experience in the restaurant business. He declined to provide any detail about where he has worked recently.
Philippo is the founder and the CEO of Holland Roofing, which specializes in large commercial buildings, and is headquartered in Florence.
The company website says that Philippo founded the business in 1986 and that in that first year the company had 10 employees and revenues of $1.8 million. Today, the website says, the company is listed by the Engineering News Record as the sixth largest roofing company in the country.
Philippo could not be reached for comment.
Chez Nora closed early in January of 2014 after some 20 years under the ownership of Jim and Pati Gilliece, who had made an effort to sell the business while the restaurant was still operating.
Over the years, the bar had become kind of an unofficial City Hall, a favorite stop for city officials, city employees, other elected officials as well as prominent business people who made the wheels turn in the region. The Gillieces also played a significant role in city-wide and neighborhood events and could be counted on to donate Chez Nora favorites for special events in Covington.
Covington City Commissioner Steve Frank was quoted as saying that Chez Nora had been Covington’s “living room” and that he had to find other places to talk politics once Chez Nora closed its doors.
After more than 11 months as a prominent yet unoccupied building on MainStrasse’s commercial strip of bars, restaurants and small shops, the property was sold at auction last Dec. 10 to Wolnitzek, who had the high bid of $385,000.
At the time of the sale, Wolnitzek described himself as a long-time patron of Chez Nora. He said last December that he didn’t know if it was possible to continue to operate a restaurant and a bar that encompassed three floors of a building that has a substantial footprint on MainStrasse’s most prominent intersection.
Since buying the property, Wolnitzek opted not to release any information about plans for the property.
But Wolnitzek and Philippo apparently are convinced now that they can make the entire building work.
When the Gillieces’ owned the property, the first floor was divided into two dining areas, one of which included the bar. The second floor was typically reserved for meetings, special events and private parties while the third floor included the open-air bar and the jazz performance space.