By Carol Coultas,Business Writer

LEWISTON – Marc Lemay noticed the correlation right away.

As soon as gas prices started to spike in the early fall, business at the Bill Davis Luncheonette started to slide.

The now-closed restaurant used to deliver lunches to TD Banknorth employees at Bates Mill every day.

“Then it was every other day, then every third day and then it became once a week,” said Lemay, who started running the Lisbon street eatery in August. He asked if there was a problem with the food or the service.

“They told me people just don’t have the money,” said Lemay.

It’s a trend noticed by other Lewiston restaurateurs, one, who like Lemay, closed and others who are riding out the fuel storm.

“We saw a real drop when the price of gas went up,” said Joe Loubier, partner in his wife’s Cafe Bon-Bon. “People didn’t get raises, but had to spend $20-$30 more a week for gas. There goes the lunch money.”

The Loubiers closed the cafe at Christmas but are in negotiations with a buyer for it. Loubier said two local businesspeople are interested in purchasing the cafe and perhaps adding wine, beer and a deli.

“It would be more of an Austin’s-type place,” said Loubier, referring to a longtime Auburn food and wine shop that closed last March.

The Loubiers had been looking for a partner to bring in some capital but couldn’t line anyone up. They also own Zimmie’s, a gaming and comic shop, a few doors down from the cafe. Rather than borrow more money to keep the cafe afloat, they decided to close and sell it outright.

“I wish we’d been able to keep it going, but I’m glad it will still be there,” he said, optimistic that the sale with new buyers would close.

Conventional wisdom holds that 90 percent of restaurants fail in the first year, but an Ohio State University study published in 2003 disputes that fact. That study, which followed new, independent restaurants for a period of three years, found the first-year failure rate closer to 26 percent, with a 60 percent failure rate over three years.

Other downtown lunch spots such as Antonio’s Deli, Subway and Simones’ Hot Dog Stand noticed a dip once gas and fuel prices started to climb, but report business is back to normal.

“When gas prices go up and down, we go up and down,” said Carol Keith, manager of the Lisbon Street Subway. “Right now we’re about even.”

For Lemay, the decision to close Bill Davis Luncheonette was painful. He watched his ex-wife, Carmen, build the business from nothing. He tacked a note on the door around Thanksgiving saying it was closed for renovations, but said he knew it was the end.

Lemay knew the original Bill Davis, the local businessman who opened the cigar shop/luncheonette at its Lisbon Street location in 1967. Davis opened his original store in 1932 on Ash Street, across from the post office. But urban renewal called for a parking lot in that spot and he relocated the business in 1967. Lemay and his wife bought the business in 1996.

“I remember as a kid going to the cigar shop to pick up my uncle’s cigars and have a bite to eat,” said Lemay. “I wish I could have found a buyer for it.”