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Shrouded in a long raincoat standing outside a cave at the base of Niagara Falls, John Graf was surrounded by his family while on vacation last June.
As he enjoyed the thunder of the falls and watched the Maid of the Mist float by, his cell phone rang. Mr. Graf, an attorney with the Downtown-based law firm of Tucker Arensberg P.C., had to put out a fire back at the office.
That call was the straw that fueled a fire under Mr. Graf that all the water at Niagara couldn't extinguish. On the drive back home, fie and his wife, Suzanne. began discussing a career chancre.
They decided to take over two North Side businesses run by Mr. Graf's parents, The Priory, a city inn, and the Grand Hall, a former church now used for receptions, concerts and business meetings.
"I'd been saying for a while that it was Lime for me to retire from the major burdens of the business," said Mary Ann Graf, John's mother. "It was John and Suzanne who approached us, so that was the perfect solution."
But she isn't sure it's the perfect destination for her son's pursuit of a calmer lifestyle. Since establishing the business in 1986, Mary Ann and her husband, Ed, have never been able to get away for more than a week.
"So that's yet to be seen," she said.
But she doesn't mind seeing him move away from the revered and lucrative field of law.
"It's his life," she said. "He's got the latent...