I Used To Be ... And Now I'm ...: Teacher-turned Restaurateur To Lawyer

After owning a restaurant, law school was a piece of cake.

by Mary Welch

March 2, 2008

L ou Allen's mother says her daughter has a "checkered past." Allen prefers to look at it as "diverse." Whatever you want to call it, Allen was not on the fast track to becoming a lawyer. However, the music teacher turned restaurateur is now one of the area's best creditors' rights and bankruptcy lawyers as a partner with Stites & Harbison.

Born in Moultrie, Allen moved to Atlanta (a "little big town back then") in 1962 and enrolled in the third grade at Ben Hill Elementary School. "I scanned the horizon for what I wanted to be and do in my life," she says. "My mother taught piano, and I was in the band and I thought that it was what I wanted to do."

She followed her dream as a performance major, playing trumpet and piano at the University of South Carolina, and then studying at Georgia State for a master's in music. Her eye was squarely set on the symphony.

Then reality set in. "It was somewhere while I was at Georgia State that I determined that I wasn't going to be a symphony player, so I quickly changed my major and got a master's and teacher's certificate." Armed with her degrees, she headed out to Siler City, N.C., where she taught in a progressive school that melded its arts, music and dance programs. "It was really cool because we would put on really big productions, and the kids got a real appreciation for the arts."

After two years of teaching, her father died and left her enough inheritance to tap into her secret fantasy. "I had always dreamed of being a chef. I loved cooking shows, and it was my fantasy to have a restaurant."

She decided to follow the rainbow slowly. She opened an espresso bar, Coffees, Confection & Cream at North Highland and Virginia avenues that served desserts and hand-dipped ice cream. Then the opportunity came and she decided to build ("and I mean build") and open a restaurant.

Theda's, named after her mother, was the first white-tablecloth restaurant in Virginia-Highland. "It was totally magical," she recalls. "We did creative American, maybe a little ahead of our time. We had a chef who was a Culinary Institute of Cooking graduate and another came from Joe Dale's Cajun House, so there was a Cajun influence."

Allen was a woman of all trades. "I enjoy cooking, but I don't want to be the chef. I love working the line. Even now, if I'm having a bad day, I dream of being a short-order cook. Waffle House, here I come! I was very hands on." Owning a restaurant is very much a lifestyle, she says. "Well, first off, it's very hard work, and it gives you a peculiar life. Your day ends around 2 a.m., and you have an adult beverage and then go to sleep. You wake up at 10 a.m., order food at some place, and then start the day."

Allen, however, loved it. "You bring joy in people's lives, you serve them, and then you see that they're happy. It really gave me great pleasure to go out and talk to the guests and see how much they enjoyed the food and the whole experience."

Working the floor, in fact, was like visiting family, she says. "It really became an extended family," she says. "Your employees are all interesting people because most of the wait staff is working at a restaurant while they're pursuing other interests. We had repeat clientele who would sit down and stay three hours."

Most popular was brunch, when Theda's would serve up to 300 customers. "It was crazy getting up at 5 a.m. to crack dozens and dozens of eggs. You could almost hear them coming. It was wild."  Allen paid close attention to the business side of the business as well. "I started getting interested in the law and liked the analytical side of it. I guess I also had a fantasy to be a law student." She enrolled at Georgia State and was in the fledgling law school's third graduating class. "I think they liked the fact that I had a restaurant and other things on my resume than just school."

She would spend her days in law school and nights at the restaurant. "It was a very busy first year," she says. "I felt like I was working eight days a week. But after I started attending classes, I would walk onto the floor of the restaurant on Sundays and see a couple of my law professors. They were regular brunch customers! So it was an intersection of my two lives." After a year of juggling both careers, Allen cut back on her involvement in the restaurant during her second year of law school and sold it during her third. "People asked me if all the hours in law school, attending class and studying took a lot of time. And I tell them that after running a restaurant, law school was a piece of cake. It didn't bother me at all."

After graduation, she joined Wilson Strickland & Benson in 1993 and focused on creditors' rights and bankruptcy law. In 2000 she opened up her own boutique firm. Among her career achievements were serving as the Chapter 7 trustee for the investigation and liquidation of a major local bigbox retailer and as a Chapter 11 trustee in the reorganization of a multistate, multimillion-dollar minority cleaning contractor specializing in military hospitals. She also investigated and liquidated a major artist's recording studio in Atlanta whose secured creditor was the company of his entertainer wife. "After seven years with my own boutique firm, my business was growing, and I needed a bigger platform for my clients. Stites & Harbison, which is one of the preeminent firms in the Southeast, had one part of one of my client's business and I had another, so by joining them, it afforded me a definite opportunity. The synergy was there."

She joined Stites & Harbison in January 2007. "It is a great firm," she says. "I enjoy everything about my job. I love the people I work with, my clients. I enjoy cooking when I can do it right – taking a few days to shop, plan a menu. Cooking to eat is not as much fun."

Allen believes her previous careers help make her a better attorney. "The restaurant was a wonderful experience, and it has helped me, as a lawyer, understand my clients' businesses because I've been in business. And my teaching experience helps when I have to educate my clients about the law and their case.

"It was an easy transition going from the restaurant business to the law. And I'm loving every minute of it."