Sold! Even the 'Rat Room' sign

Alliance of bidders may preserve essence of restaurant

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CORRECTION

A story Sunday in the City & State section about an auction at Chapel Hill's Ramshead Rathskeller incorrectly described the items purchased by three businessmen acting as bidder No. 22. The items were tables and booths that cost more than $4,000 altogether.

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CHAPEL HILL -- The silly-looking, mop-headed wooden "keg-heads" perched on booths all around the Ramshead Rathskeller's main room had some dour expressions painted on them, and they pretty well captured the mood at the old joint Saturday.

Those keg-heads, eight in all, went for $200 apiece, near the beginning of a daylong auction where humor and boisterous laughter belied the sadness many of the old regulars must have felt.

Bidders packed the place shoulder-to-shoulder from morning until afternoon to grab memorabilia and kitchenware from the grubby, beloved downstairs hangout in Franklin Street's Amber Alley. After about 60 years in business, the restaurant shut down in December due to unpaid taxes.

Tim Hemphill, 55, of Granite Falls said he started coming to "The Rat" as a UNC student in 1970. Hemphill said he came to the auction hoping to buy a sign of some sort.

"Something with the 'Rat' name on it," he said. "I started coming here when I was single, and I've been coming on football days, bringing my family here. My oldest is 27, and I have a lot of memories with family and friends."

Speed-talking, Southern-style auctioneer Tony Furr of Classic Auctions quickly dispensed with mundane, low-dollar kitchen items at first, selling off stock pots, a colander and a pizza paddle.

Then the real fun began, as Furr started hawking the stuff everybody really came for.

To a round of applause, the prized "Rat Room" sign went for $400 after a hot session of competitive bidding. The "Men's Room" sign went for $120.

Furr's attempt to sell all the booze and tables in the place at one price met with groans and shouts of "No!"

"I'm gonna make it a little easier on you, 'cause I don't want to get lynched and dragged out of here," he told the crowd, dividing the goods into three lots.

Then, mysterious bidder No. 22 bought all the booze and tables in the Rat Room for more than $4,000, drawing gasps from the crowd.

Bidder 22 had already purchased other big items, including an antique wall unit for $240, and a big double wooden sign, which extolled the joys of wine, women and song, for $1,200.

A bid to save the place

As it turned out, bidder No. 22 was an alliance of three Chapel Hill businessmen who decided they were going to buy up some of the more irreplaceable items, in hopes of getting them back to owner Francis Henry for a possible reopening.

One of the three men, John Morris III, president of Morris Commercial, manages the Rathskeller's building. Morris told The News & Observer he wasn't representing his company at the auction.

The other two men were Jim Lilley, of Jim Lilley Properties, and Bob Britt, co-owner of Merritt's Store & Grill in Chapel Hill.

"We know we can't save everything, because we don't have that kind of money," Britt said. "But we want to keep the essence of the place, which is the main room, intact."

By the end of the day, the gang of three had spent more then $10,000. They didn't get away with all of the major goodies, though.

Frank Brantley of Chapel Hill bought a ram's head wall hanging for $500. Brantley, 61, said he started eating at The Rat in 1965 as a UNC freshman.

"I remember you could come in and get a decent meal -- at least I thought it was decent at the time -- for five bucks," he said. "Of course, everybody who was anybody wanted to go to The Rat."

Brantley, who now teaches at The UNC School of Dentistry, said his alumni pals would always eat with him at The Rat when they visited on football weekends.

A market for memories

Michael and Emily Martine paid $150 for a pencil caricature of Chapel Hill favorite son James Taylor that hung in the restaurant.

"We've dated since high school, and we'd go on dates here in college, a lot," said Emily Martine, 38. "The two of us could eat here for 15 bucks."

She said she and her husband hadn't eaten at The Rat much since they got married and had children.

"The food wasn't very good," she said. "The lasagna was the only safe thing to get."

Stephen Rich, 66, of Chapel Hill said he started eating at the Rat in 1959 when he was a UNC student. Rich spent $270 for an oil painting of people sitting in a booth, drinking beer at The Rat.

The oil on the painting wasn't just on the canvas. To run your finger along the frame was like inspecting the grease trap of a deep fryer.

Rich said he'll probably hang the painting in his sports den, if that's OK with his wife.

"We'll have to see how it cleans up," he said.

As for the now-dormant space at 157 1/2 East Franklin St., at least one longtime customer said he can't imagine a different, renovated eatery opening there.

"There'll never be another restaurant in here," Hemphill said fondly. "There's no way they could bring this thing up to code."