Food Dude breaks the news that the Lutz Tavern will be closing its doors on September 30th. This website confirms the news.

I feel a huge pang of sadness for Ray Davis. Go buy him a beer, wont you? Don't know him? I had the pleasure of speaking with him for our spring Food and Drink supplement:

There is a sign behind the bar at Lutz Tavern that reads “Stop and have a tall one with ray Davis” If you happen to be on the right stool, at the lovely sweeping curve of the bar, sometime before 4 pm, you may be able to take that sign up on its suggestion.

Yes, Ray Davis is a real person, with a real beer cozy for his Hamms with his name on it.

“They even put it in for me,” he says, as the bartender slips the beer into the red neoprene sleeve. “People like me here for some reason.”

He first came to the Lutz 25 years ago. It was the perfect place for him to have a drink and keep an eye on his Mercedes 250 SL through the windows. Also, it’s close to home.

The 78 year old Davis has watched as the second generation has taken over operations of the Tavern, and breathed a sigh of relief when the smoking ban came through—now he doesn’t have to change his clothes when he returns home to his wife of 39 years.

Retired when he was 51, Davis leads a life most of us may never get to have: A beer or two with friends at the Tavern, waving at girls through the windows in the summer, and home to the wife for a few games of cribbage.

“It’s a good life,” he says. It’s more than likely anyone who stopped and had a tall one with Ray Davis would agree. PAC

Farewell, Lutz tavern.