Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Felt Absence: Jeff Michel, 47, owner of Willow Glen's now-closed White Dove Cafe, is battling cancer in his jaw and is hospitalized at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. Last month, he was forced to close his cafe at 1167 Lincoln Ave. after seven years in business.
White Dove Cafe owner battles cancer, closes after seven years
Restaurant's rent was expensive, making a profit became hard
By Kate Carter
The owner of Willow Glen's now-closed White Dove Cafe has changed battle plans from fighting to keep his restaurant dream alive to fighting to keep himself alive.
Last month, Jeff Michel closed the establishment at 1167 Lincoln Ave., which had been open for seven years. Days later, he was diagnosed with cancer in his jaw.
"It was a lot all at once," Michel says from his hospital bed at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. "Everything in my life all at once turned upside down."
Michel, 47, says he was sorry to have to close the restaurant but is grateful now to have one challenge to concentrate on, a struggle he intends to win.
"I plan on kicking its ass," he says of the cancer that has saddled him with an I.V. machine and week-long hospital stays for radiation and chemotherapy treatments, but has not broken his spirit.
Michel and his business and life partner, David Laing, started the White Dove Cafe at what is now Sharky's Grille, 1151 Lincoln Ave., about seven years ago. The two made a successful team, Laing handling the financial aspects of the business and Michel working full-time in the kitchen.
Michel is a self-trained chef who spent 10 years in the corporate world before managing and then cooking for restaurants and catering businesses throughout the Bay Area. He is adept at taking basic ingredients and combining them in unique ways, resulting in original fish and meat dishes that had people waiting two hours to sit down to dinner at the White Dove, he says.
The two decided to satisfy the masses by moving to a larger location in the Garden Theater in early 1999.
But the dream quickly became a curse, Michel says. The new location was more expensive, and they were finding it difficult to fill enough tables to turn a profit.
"We could pay our bills and the employees, but not much else," he says. "I think we took too big of a place to move into. We were maybe a little too cocky."
Still, they had loyal fans who came to depend on Michel's hospitality and friendship, as well as his food, like Willow Glen residents Tom and Milli Abraham.
"Tom and Milli had been coming in for years," Michel says. "And then Tom was hit with a stroke."
The Abrahams started coming to the White Dove at its first location and became regulars, making the trip about once a month, Milli Abraham says.
"The food was excellent, and the presentation was beautiful," Abraham says. "It was a great place, always so clean and the decor was beautiful. It's fun to go to a place where you know somebody and they treat you special."
The Abrahams had established such a familiar relationship with Michel that Milli called him to tell him about Tom's stroke, so Michel wouldn't be surprised when they went back to the restaurant. Milli says Michel told her he couldn't concentrate for an hour after hearing the news, and he was always amazed by the progress he saw in Tom every month.
Milli says she and Tom will miss the restaurant but are staying in touch with Michel, which is what the White Dove was really all about, according to Michel.
Michel says that eating out at a restaurant is really all about the social experience--"The food is just the excuse," he says--and he deliberately sought to make his patrons feel comfortable and welcome.
"I have a knack with names, and I set out seven years ago to try to remember people's names," Michel says. "People would get excited when they walked in the door and I would say, 'Ruth, how are you?'"
The White Dove was also the venue for charitable functions that benefited the Vanished Children's Alliance and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, among others.
Michel and Laing kept sacrificing for the restaurant, even selling their Willow Glen home and moving into a recreational vehicle, but business wasn't improving. Then Laing decided to leave the restaurant and pursue his network engineering career and graduate school. Michel took over the financial work, which left him less time to oversee the kitchen or to visit with patrons.
Michel says he was already working 14-hour days when the economy began to slow down earlier this year, and fewer people started coming to the white-tablecloth restaurant. He was still working those days when he decided this summer that it just wasn't worth it anymore.
Michel had to let his 12-person staff go and declare personal and business bankruptcy. He had to move out of his friends' house. His relationship with Laing had ended. And then, he noticed a lump in his neck.
A week later he was diagnosed with a rapid-growing cancer around his jaw. He doesn't have medical insurance but friends helped pull some strings, and he soon underwent outpatient biopsy surgery. Complications during surgery left him with a tracheotomy that he will keep until he has finished his seven-week regimen of radiation and chemotherapy.
"I have seven weeks of hell," he says. But doctors have told him that most patients who treat this cancer as aggressively as Michel live longer than the length of time statistics are maintained for them.
Michel says his doctors aren't sure why he ended up with cancer. Michel was 17 years old when his father died of cancer, he says, and he is reminded of that when he sees himself now. Michel also smoked a pack of cigarettes each day.
"I would encourage anyone who's smoking to stop," he says.
Michel, though, says he's inspired by his friends and customers, like the Abrahams, and is positive about the future.
Michel invites anyone to contact him by email at jeffnzeke@aol.com or phone, 408.737.9701. Donations may be sent to the Jeff Michel Cancer Fund, 448 Costa Mesa Terrace, Unit B, Sunnyvale, 94085.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
