Thomas Guerra, owner and manager of the Dirt Cowboy Cafe on Main Street, mysteriously left Hanover on Sunday, leaving his newly-opened coffee house indefinitely closed and employees and relatives puzzled and concerned.
Employees said they arrived Sunday morning for work to find that their boss had left. None of the workers has heard from him since then.
Guerra, who opened the cafe April 27, apparently decided to close the cafe Sunday for unknown reasons, according to Guerra's father, Arturo, a restaurant owner in South Windsor, Conn.
"My son is irrational," Guerra's father said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Arturo Guerra said he did not know his son's whereabouts and has not talked to him since their last conversation Sunday, when Thomas said he was leaving but did not give a reason for his departure.
Claudio Guerra, Thomas' brother, declined to comment on his brother's location and the motives for his sudden departure from Hanover during a telephone interview yesterday.
"All I can tell you is that we are addressing the issue," he said, adding that he and his father will come to Hanover sometime next week to decide the cafe's future.
Present and former employees of the Dirt Cowboy, who asked that their names be withheld, said Guerra had told them he suffered from manic depression and had been hospitalized for the condition.
Employees gave examples of what they said were Guerra's erratic nature andalledgedly dubious business practices. They said he fired people for making a cup of coffee the wrong way, broke basic restaurant sanitary rules and financially mismanaged the cafe.
Donna Robinson '92, a former employee, said she was "disgusted" when Guerra lifted his shirt in front of her and asked her if she wanted to smell him, and admitted he had not showered or brushed his teeth.
Robinson soon quit her job after she refused to smell Guerra. She said there were many previous upsetting events.
"He made some really crude remarks," Robinson said. She said Guerra made inappropriate and distasteful remarks when women came into the cafe.
Robinson said she also saw hair next to a slicing machine used to cut ham and cheese in the basement of the cafe. She said she thinks Guerra had given himself a haircut right next to the slicing machine in the basement, which he used as an apartment and storage area.
Robinson said Guerra's personal shaving and bathroom items were located next to some of the restaurant's food supplies.
Chip Coleman '92, also a former employee, said he sometimes showed up to work in the mornings and found Guerra still asleep downstairs. Apparently, Guerra left the front door of the cafe unlocked when he went to sleep in the basement, Coleman said.
Both Coleman and Robinson said Guerra did not require them to fill out any W-2 or other tax forms when they were first hired. Both said they were paid in cash.
According to Robinson, Guerra kept no financial records or logs, and raised prices at least twice during her employment at the cafe.
"He told us he was making $1,000 a day, but I never believed it," Robinson said. "Many people would come in and ask him for money. I had gathered he was having financial problems."
The day Robinson received her first cash payment, Guerra did not have enough money to pay the rest of his employees and asked Robinson if he could give her only three-fourths of the money then and the rest later.
Other employees who asked to remain anonymous, said Guerra left Hanover without paying them. Some said he owes them almost $200.
"He was so shady," Robinson said. She said she thinks Guerra opened the cafe before schedule in order to make money he desperately needed.
In an earlier interview, Guerra said he dropped out of the University of Michigan Law School before coming to Hanover this winter and single-handedly remodeled the cafe. Guerra said he had a silent partner in the venture who is a school teacher in Queens, N.Y.
According to Coleman, Guerra admitted he never acquired the legal permits to remodel the interior of the cafe.
Passersby often saw Guerra through the cafe windows in the early mornings before the cafe's opening.
