Former Le Bear restaurant owners migrate south to Narrows

By Jacob R. Wheeler
Sun Editor
Nancy Wright and Janet Niewold are not finished. In fact, they have just begun another project that will keep their names embedded in the local Who’s Who list.
The jovial ladies who ran Le Bear Restaurant on beautiful Sleeping Bear Bay for 12 years decided not to slip off quietly into the night after selling the enterprise to downstate developer Dominic Moceri, who is in the process of building an enormous, multi-million dollar resort where the restaurant once sat at the end of Lake Street. In fact, Wright has taken the first steps toward fulfilling a dream that she has carried since she vacationed on the Glen Lakes as a little girl.

Wright and Niewold are renovating the grandiose old manor on Little Glen Lake, one quarter of a mile west of the Narrows Bridge on M-22. The building, approximated at 100 years old by the ladies, is in rough enough shape that it will demand extensive work done to the foundation, new floors and new windows – expenses that will cost between a half- to one million dollars when all is said and done. “Some people told us just to tear it down, but I wanted to preserve the old building,” says Wright, whose parents and grandparents purchased the manor, then known as Ockers Inn, in 1954 and renamed it Glen Lake Manor. They envision the renovated manor seating 96 guests when it opens for business again next spring.
Meanwhile, Wright and Niewold have also taken the nearby deli/ice cream parlor/lunch counter located directly on the Narrows under their wings. They have not decided what to do with the establishment, now called “Little Bear”, once the manor opens.
“By selling Le Bear, I’ve preserved two historic landmarks in the area,” Wright says. “Some people thought I’d just take the money and run, but we will continue to invest in the community. When I learned that the (Le Bear) sale would go through and realized that the manor would take a long time to renovate, I decided to take on this project too.”
That deli’s dizzying history in recent years has prompted the Glen Arbor Sun to write a story on its new owners nearly every other summer of our existence. (We kick off our eighth year with this issue, according to the masthead). Wright and Niewold initially leased the establishment from Bayberry Properties, which owns The Homestead resort, when they sold Le Bear restaurant to Moceri on November 12 of last year, before purchasing it for approximately $300,000 and completely redressing its outside.
Last summer, Maple City residents Dave and Shirley Miller leased what they called the “Narrows Deli”, serving Pleva Lean hot dogs and ice cream over the counter. Bayberry had purchased the Narrows Deli from award-winning Greek chef Greg Nicolaou to lure him over to run food and beverage affairs at The Homestead before it sat empty through the summer of 2001. Before Nicolaou, Dottie and Bill Thompson ran the “Dairy Bar” from 1993-1998, decorating it with Chicago sports and Elvis memorabilia.
Once again, in chronological order: Dairy Bar-Narrows Deli-Little Bear, and possibly a new proprietor next summer. In keeping Little Bear open, the ladies are able to keep their prized chef, Kerry, busy in the kitchen. He was the zest behind the meals, the weddings and the Sunday brunches at Le Bear restaurant for years, and this summer he will serve up the same chicken salad as he did on the shores of Sleeping Bear Bay, along with some specialty recipes Nancy brought back recently from San Francisco. Furthermore, Wright and Niewold can keep their clientele happy for a year until they move into the manor, for which a name has not yet been decided.
“Our customers from Le Bear have been fussing me because they have nowhere to hold their luncheons now,” says Wright. “They started a petition with 200 signatures, asking me to do this.”
And why not? The ladies remember how as many as six inns once dotted the area around the Glen Lakes. At the moment, the only other non bar-restaurants in Empire Township are LaBecasse and Funistrada, and both of those are located in an area known more commonly as Burdickville.
“It will be a mini-Grand Hotel when it’s all finished,” marvels Niewold, referring to the mother of all establishments on Mackinac Island. “Ladies can go there to have fancy luncheons and drink tea while they look out at the lake and the sand dunes through a 10-foot picture window. This will be one of the fanciest restaurants in the area.”