Domus Café closes its doors
John Taylor says resources ran out before he could expand and rebrand
One of Ottawa’s oldest and most respected restaurants, John Taylor’s Domus Cafe in the ByWard Market, has closed after 18 years.
Taylor told his staff on Friday, served his last meal on Saturday and posted a note on the Murray Street door on Tuesday saying, “We are closed forever”.
“I’m tired, tired, tired,” Taylor said Tuesday, but he acknowledges that a big part of his fatigue is financial. “It’s been a rough couple of years and the finance end of it sucks,” he said.
“My resources ran out. This is a cash flow business. The stress of finances really affects your health. I could see it in my wife and I didn’t want that.”
Taylor says he has debts to pay, but he struck a favourable deal with his landlord and will be able to walk away from the 55-seat restaurant “while the damage is still minimal and can I hold my head high and have some dignity.”
The staff of 18 is out of work, but Taylor said the cooks, at least, will have no trouble finding other work.
With his wife, Sylvia Taylor, he also owns the 30-seat Taylor’s Genuine Food and Wine Bar in Old Ottawa South, which will continue.
“Taylor’s is alive and well,” he said. “Ryan Edwards is the chef and he’s doing a great job. I’ll work there part of the time, too. I still have mortgage to pay.”
Taylor, who moved to Ottawa from St. Marys, near Stratford, Ont., 18 years ago, has been credited with bringing the local food movement to Ottawa restaurants, training dozens of chefs along the way.
“He was such a trailblazer in farm-to-table cooking — I was devastated when I heard the news,” said Stephen Beckta, owner of three Ottawa restaurants. “He’s added so much to our culinary landscape in Ottawa. I had some of my greatest meals and have some of best memories of eating at Domus.”
Former Ottawa Citizen food critic Anne DesBrisay said the Taylors’ commitment to local producers “set a standard for Ottawa long before it became de rigueur to dangle the local carrot as marketing ploy.
“At John Taylor’s Domus Café, the cooking was innovative, but it honoured intrinsic flavours and left a very strong sense of where you were. Domus tasted like Ottawa. It will be enormously missed.”
Taylor was modest about his accomplishments on Tuesday.
“I didn’t do it alone, that’s for sure,” Taylor said. “We were lucky enough to attract good people. I’ve always been trying to use local producers, but I told my staff to create what they want.”
Domus Housewares, an adjoining but separate business that sold kitchenware, closed April 30. Taylor had planned to expand into part of that space, adding another 75 seats and rebranding his restaurant.
“I would have gone downscale a bit, made it a little bit funkier to attract that new generation. But I decided last week to close instead.
It really came down to money I’m out of it. I also don’t think it’s fair to keep going if the passion has gone out of it.
It really came down to money. I’m out of it. I also don’t think it’s fair to keep going if the passion has gone out of it. I need to recharge.”
Taylor agreed with other local restaurateurs that Ottawa now has too many restaurants for the population. ZenKitchen, a wellregarded vegan restaurant on Somerset Street West, also closed on Saturday after falling behind on tax payments.
“The last couple of years were hard, but last winter was brutal,” said Taylor.