Originally scheduled for a pre-Thanksgiving opening, Spats - a sports bar and restaurant to be located at 184 Angell St., next to Roba! Dolce - will now open its doors "a couple of weeks before Christmas," according to owner and local restaurateur Andy Mitrelis.
The delay is due to complications involving the transfer of the liquor license held by the owners of Sura, a Korean restaurant that previously occupied Spats' location.
Mitrelis, who also owns Paragon and Andreas, said he hopes Spats' all-American menu and lively atmosphere will fill a gap created when Max's Upstairs - a bar previously located at 272 Thayer St. - closed its doors in late 2004.
Though the details of Spats' admittance and carding policies are still in the works, the kitchen is ready to go, Mitrelis said. As contrasted with Andreas' Greek-American cuisine, Spats will serve American-style food that Mitrelis describes as "a little different than the others in the area." Featured items include burgers, chili, steak dishes, a variety of dips and fried foods such as calamari.
During the day, Spats will cater to both families and Brown students. At about 10 p.m. every night, however, Spats' trio of flat-screen TVs will switch from general fare to sports stations.
Many current students might be unaware that a different incarnation of Spats was located on Thayer Street from 1973 to 1995. Mitrelis and his brother, Solon, who co-owned and operated the original bar, phased out Spats beginning in 1994 to make way for Paragon, which Mitrelis' daughter, Tammy Maatouk, co-owns.
Mitrelis maintains that the switch was a business decision: "We wanted to change the concept (of the restaurant) - get away from the pub concept. ... But now, the pub concept is starting to come back."
Shortly before Spats' original closing, a barroom brawl involving several Brown students resulted in four hospitalizations. The Sept. 23, 1995 fight sent football players Joe Karcutskie '98 and Jon Bourbeau '99 before the Undergraduate Disciplinary Committee, which acquitted the pair of offenses of the Standards of Student Conduct. Karcutskie and Bourbeau later pleaded no contest to charges of assault in a Providence District Court hearing.
Claiming that the UDC's use of witness testimony in its decision was unclear, Brown's chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union later used the Spats case, among others, as evidence that the UDC's disciplinary code needed modifications to clarify its policies.
For his part, Mitrelis asserted that the brawl had "absolutely nothing" to do with Spats' closing. He added: "No one ever contacted us for damages, suing, nothing. We never went to court. I never got a call from a lawyer."
Nowadays, Mitrelis said, student customers in his establishments "do behave. Once in a while you get someone loud, but that's the extent of it." The new Spats, he said, will employ an appropriately sized security staff.
Mitrelis hopes to employ local students, many of whom relate well to other students, he said.
Mitrelis will co-own Spats with his granddaughter, Natalia Foussekis, for whom he said he wanted to build the business.
