Ohio Restaurant Closes One Week After Obama Mentions it in Speech

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio restaurant mentioned last week by President Barack Obama as an indirect beneficiary of the government's Chrysler bailout will go out of business Sunday after a more than 70-year history.

Co-owner Richard Lawrence of New Chet's Restaurant in Toledo says business has fallen victim to the economy and the workplace smoking ban approved by Ohio voters in 2006. He told The Blade newspaper of Toledo on Wednesday that auto industry cutbacks also hurt.

Lawrence says he used to deliver up to $300 in food per week to Chrysler Group LLC's Jeep plant in Toledo, but now that's down to about $100 worth.

Obama visited the plant on Friday and told workers that without them, who would eat at Chet's or patronize other local businesses?

"And this plant indirectly supports hundreds of other jobs right here in Toledo," President Obama said to hundreds of workers in Chrysler's Wrangler plant. "After all, without you, who'd eat at Chet's or Inky's or Rudy's?"

___

Information from: The Blade, https://www.toledoblade.com/