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After 25 years in business, the Bargas family has closed their Concord Avenue restaurant, Ruby's.
The end came quietly on Friday, Aug. 13, when the Bargas family with little fanfare, closed its doors for the last time. Many Ruby's customers were caught completely off-guard. "Where am I going to get a fast, well-priced veggie plate now?" fretted one regular.
Owners Gordon and Mimi Bargas and son Trey are getting out of the restaurant business and looking forward to doing something different, because as Gordon said, "The bottom line is, 25 years is enough."
"We're going out on a good note," Mr. Bargas continued. "We're making a profit and doing well. It's best to quit while you're winning."
The restaurant passed into new hands Aug. 16 when longtime Bargas friends Ralph and Kacoo Olinde took possession of the Ruby's property. According to Mr. Bargas, the Olindes will reopen this fall as a European-Italian establishment, with a popular, well-known chef.
Gordon Bargas opened his first restaurant in 1969 at 2943 Perkins Road, under the overpass. He rented the property, which had once housed a restaurant named Ruby's, namesake of the dark, intimate New Orleans establishment, Ruby Red's, on Esplanade Street near the French Quarter. The owners of the Baton Rouge eatery had once worked at the New Orleans original, Mr. Bargas said. When he opened his own place, Mr. Bargas retained the name "Ruby's."
His wife, Mimi, soon left her teaching and computer programming career, and joined her husband in the restaurant business. Son Trey, 22, joined his parents in the family concern, having worked at Ruby's since his teens. Daughter Dorothy, 20, is an engineering student at Texas Tech in Lubbock, while younger son Charles, 16, is a sophomore at Lee High.
The couple wanted their own building and a larger space; after 10 years under the overpass, the Concord Drive restaurant was built and Ruby's moved in 1979. Mr. Bargas said the move doubled the size of his restaurant and...