After 16 years of cooking dinners and baking cakes, the owner of Sweet Laurette Cafe & Bistro is leaving Port Townsend with the intention of working in Turkey and France as a private chef.

Laurette Feit, who ran Sweet Laurette since 2001, said she hopes to work aboard a super yacht as a private chef for two or three years to save money to attend law school at Gonzaga University in Spokane. She also hopes to connect with her eldest daughter, Isabelle, who is studying in Turkey.

Feit sold the restaurant’s assets to Deborah Taylor and Scott Ross, who are to open a new restaurant, called Finistère, in late summer.

Feit said the new owners were just what she hoped for – a younger husband-and-wife team.

“And they showed up. It’s them … it couldn’t have been more perfect,” Feit said.

The sale of Feit’s beloved restaurant was a “win-win for both the new owners and myself,” Feit said. She closed down Sweet Laurette June 30, in part because she was ready for a change.

“I just worked so hard. I put in so many long days. It really doesn’t give a life outside of the restaurant,” Feit said. “It was like I was married to the restaurant.”

She said the work was physically demanding, even more so if an employee did not show up when scheduled.

An “empty nest” was also a factor, with Feit’s daughter Isabelle in Istanbul and her younger daughter, Pearl, studying psychology and family therapy at Western Washington University in Bellingham. She said her girls inspired her to go back to school.

Her daughters told her, “Mom, you can do it … you don’t have to stay in Port Townsend,” Feit said.

EMOTIONAL LAST DAY

Feit said the last day at Sweet Laurette was emotional. She worked 18 hours, cooked, waited tables and had a full house.

“I went out and hugged so many of my customers,” she said.

“It was very emotional. It’s hard for me to even go by the restaurant right now,” she said.

In her 16 years at Sweet Laurette, she said, she once took a month off in 2005 to visit France, where she worked at a cooking school for two weeks.

Now, she may find herself back in France. She said she’s taking a course to get a ship’s cook certificate and plans to work with chef placement companies.

“I really want to travel. I really want to see something of the world.”

PLANS TO STUDY LAW

Feit said she greatly enjoyed her relationship with her customers at Sweet Laurette, including two judges whom she said would take her under their wing when she goes to law school.

She wants to study law because she is passionate about helping women and children who are abused. Feit said that while working at Sweet Laurette, she did volunteer work at Dove House Advocacy Services to help women who have lived through domestic violence.

She said she herself was a victim of domestic violence.

Feit said that what does not kill you makes you stronger, but “it also makes you want to make a difference,” she said. Consequently, she wants to be an advocate for women and children who might be involved in similar situations. The idea of that kind of legal work has her “fired up.”

She said she tried working as a counselor or therapist, but found it was “too close.”

“It’s very emotional work,” she said.