The Delta Queen Port of Call restaurant in Kimmswick has closed, but the owners say the closure should not be taken as an omen that they are giving up on bringing the Delta Queen steamboat to Jefferson County.
Leah Ann Ingram, chief operating officer of the Delta Queen Steamboat Co., said the two-year-old restaurant closed July 29 following a break-in that afternoon in which food, liquor and other items were stolen and the building, the former Old House restaurant, 6035 Second St., was vandalized.
“The Delta Queen Port of Call Restaurant is closed, and the incident in which it was broken into was the last straw,” Ingram said. “There are a lot of costly repairs that would need to be done.”
However, Ingram said, the break-in wasn’t the only reason the restaurant went out of business.
“There were several factors,” she said. “The break-in was just the icing on the cake. There were financial considerations. The traffic in the area was not what we had hoped, particularly for a sit-down evening dining establishment.”
The Kimmswick Police Department reported that a neighbor watched as an employee of the restaurant tried unsuccessfully to open a door, then went around the back and returned carrying a large box of meat, which he placed in his car. In subsequent trips, he was seen loading other items, including a large fan and a plastic bag with rattling bottles, according to the report.
The neighbor, the report said, took photos of the car, including the license plate, and it traced to a 29-year-old man from the Jefferson County part of Fenton.
Deputies with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office responded to the home and saw him taking items from his car into his house, then arrested him.
The man confessed, the report said, and said he broke a window in the back of the restaurant to gain entry.
Neal Breitweiser, executive director of the Jefferson County Port Authority, which owns the building and is leasing it to the Delta Queen, said he had no estimate on the damage to the window.
“This is a period restoration. You just can’t call in a window company and have them put in a new vinyl window,” he said. “We want the building to be authentic. We believe we have found someone to replace the window.”
The man was turned over to the Kimmswick Police Department. He will not be named unless he is charged with a crime.
The stolen items were recovered, the report said, including a large-screen television that had disappeared from the restaurant a few days earlier but had not been reported to the police.
According to the report, the value of the liquor and meat stolen was $1,830 and a partial estimate of the damaged items, including three computers and another television, was $3,250.
According to the report, the man told police that he had stolen the items because he had not been paid, but he denied damaging the computers.
Ingram said when employees reported for work on July 29 – she said the restaurant had a staff of fewer than 20 people – they were told that the Port of Call was closing for good.
She said reports that employees were not paid are wrong.
“That is not correct,” she said. “We had a meeting with them (the day of the break-in) to announce that we would be closing. There was a union representative there. Had there been grievances such as nonpayment of employees, there would be actions taken against us by the union and the labor board. That is not the case.”
Plans continue to bring steamboat here
In addition to the Port of Call restaurant, the building, owned by the Jefferson County Port Authority, is intended to serve as the headquarters of the Delta Queen Steamboat Co., which announced plans to move from Houma, La., after the steamboat is cleared to carry passengers on overnight excursions.
Port officials said the Delta Queen has been using the building for free for two years and would pay $5,000 a month after that, with hopes that the steamboat company would buy it.
The first lease payment is due in October, Port Authority board president Derrick Good said.
“I don’t know what the future brings, but I was told that they still intend to keep their lease and they still intend to continue to use it as the Delta Queen headquarters office,” Breitweiser said. “I can tell you with certainty that they do not plan (to abandon plans concerning Kimmswick). Leah Ann spoke at a recent Port Authority meeting to bring us all up to speed and she said the Delta Queen is definitely not pulling out.”
Ingram backed up that statement.
“There are absolutely no plans to abandon Kimmswick,” she said. “The Port of Call Restaurant and the Delta Queen steamboat are two separate entities. We’re very excited about what the Port Authority, Jefferson County and the city of Kimmswick have done. We will, in some form, be in Kimmswick.
“I feel certain enough that my husband and I are selling our home in Tennessee and have bought a home in Jefferson County,” she said. “We would not have done that if the Delta Queen Steamboat Co. had any thoughts of abandoning Kimmswick.
“It was supposed to be the headquarters for the Delta Queen Steamboat Co., and it still is,” Ingram said. “We feel that the best use of our efforts and resources for the rest of the Congressional session is to focus 110 percent on getting the exemption to allow the Delta Queen to cruise.”
The owners of the 90-year-old riverboat have been trying for six years to convince Congress to grant them an exemption to the 1966 Safety of Life at Sea Act, a federal law that prohibits overnight excursions on wooden vessels.
If the exemption is granted, the Delta Queen will be allowed to book cruises that would last from three to 10 days to up and down the Mississippi River and other inland rivers.
In the past, the Senate has been the sticking point, but last year, that chamber voted for the exemption. In the House of Representatives, however, it remains bottled up in a subcommitee.
Ingram said backers in the nation’s capital are trying an end-around.
“We’re in the Coast Guard reauthorization bill, that now is in the commerce committee of the Senate, and they’re working on some portions of the bill unrelated to the Delta Queen. And we still have the stand-alone bill that we’re working on.
“I can tell you that senators (Claire) McCaskill and (Roy) Blunt were very instrumental in getting our exemption through the Senate. It’s stalled out on the House side, and we’re hoping that Congressman (Blaine) Leutkemeyer, Congressman (Jason) Smith and Congresswoman (Ann) Wagner will help us get it to the finish line.
“Hopefully, we can get one of them passed and signed by the president. If that happens in the next month or two, we might be cruising by late in 2019,” Ingram said. “If it takes until Christmas or so to get the exemption, we’re probably looking at 2020.”
Plan B still up in air
And if it doesn’t pass before the end of the legislative session at the end of the year?
“If it doesn’t go through, there are a couple of other alternatives available to us that are being explored at this point, so one way or the other, the Delta Queen will come to Kimmswick,” Ingram said. “I’m not at liberty to discuss what those alternatives are at this point.”
In the past, Delta Queen officials have discussed possibly converting the boat to a hotel that would be permanently moored at Kimmswick.
“That is certainly one option, and it’s still being considered,” she said. “There are other possibilities as well.”
She said rumors that the Delta Queen has had problems paying creditors of the restaurant are unfounded.
“We do owe some creditors money,” she said. “One of the computers that was damaged in the break-in was an accounting computer, and we’re trying to see if we can recover information from it. In the meantime, we have reached out to our creditors to try to determine what we owe them. We will absolutely pay our bills.”
She addressed a rumor that the Delta Queen has not been paying its mooring rental fees for the riverboat in Louisiana.
“That is not correct,” she said. “I’m not sure who would be in a position to know that or to say that. Has it taken a lot longer to get the exemption than we expected and has it put a financial burden on our company because of it? That’s true.
“We’re dealing with a huge lobbying firm that has spent a half-million dollars or more to keep the Delta Queen from cruising because another company is afraid of competition. That was not something we were prepared for.”
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Groupon can issue refunds
Ingram said customers who have purchased offers to the Port of Call through Groupon, a website that offers discounts on products and services, should be able to get their money back.
.While Ingram held out the possibility that a restaurant may someday reopen in the building, she said that’s not the emphasis of the company now.
“While we’re playing it day by day, if you’re asking whether the Delta Queen Port of Call Restaurant would reopen, at this point I would say probably not,” she said. “The space for the restaurant could be used for something else, and we’re weighing our options, but we’re not ready to divulge at this time what we may do in the future. I can assure you, though, that the building will not be sitting vacant.”