10/15/2026
News & menus!
You know how every family has its own shorthand? A phrase or word that doesn’t mean anything to anyone else without the context? Something that elicits a big response from anyone who is aware of the family lore because they lived through it? In our family, the statement is some iteration of, “Behave yourself or you’re going to be locked in the w**e closet.”
It’s hard to say now just how often the Coulon sisters were in time-outs in the w**e closet at the Belgian Lion, because they also used it as their playhouse. They spent a lot of time in there. And because I was still at my day job, I didn’t witness what they might have done that would have warranted a lock up while Jim and his family were working to get the restaurant open for the evening. By the time I got there after work, they would have already been released from custody. In fact, because I never actually saw them in there, all these years later, I’ve had a hard time believing they were ever actually sent to the w**e closet hoosegow.
But oh boy, all three of them still talk about it to this day. In fact, Anne-Marie told me a story just this week that I’d never heard before—a story that only kids who grew up in a restaurant under the flight path could relate to. (Which may explain the deep and longtime friendship between the Coulon sisters and the Baumann brothers of Bali Hai and Tom Ham’s Lighthouse. They all have their own OB/Point Loma/Restaurant Kid shorthand.)
Here’s what she told me: “One day, Jacqueline and I were in the w**e closet playing Airport.” (Being older, Dominique had already outgrown this game so she wasn’t in there with them.)
“Wait,” I interrupted. “Why did Dad put you in the closet? What did you do?”
“I don’t remember, “ she said. “Misbehaving somehow. Anyway we were playing Airport. We thought we could control the airplanes by pulling a w**e bottle slowly off of the shelf, and then pushing it back in. When we’d hear an airplane, we’d say, ‘now taking off is United Flight 163, or something like that,’ and then when we couldn’t hear it anymore, we’d push the bottle back in.”
She continued, “One of us dropped a bottle and it broke and w**e splashed everywhere. Since we were already in trouble, we couldn’t tell Dad so we went and got Uncle Don Joseph and Aunt Dona and they cleaned it all up.”
“Did they tell Dad?”
“They must have, because he’d need to know for the inventory.” (Spoken like the restauranteur that she grew up to be.)
There’s no w**e closet at Little Lion, so, good news, we have no place to put you if you misbehave. But there is a W**e Club. This is Deirdre’s project and she does a fabulous job choosing the w**es. Before coming to Little Lion, she had a long career as a w**e buyer and as such is quite knowledgeable. We include a link to the W**e Club at the bottom of each of these newsletters (yes, there is occasionally actual information you can use in these missives and not just embarrassing childhood stories!) I encourage you to click on that link to learn more about the club, or email Deirdre and she will get back to you with more information. The next volume will be coming out in the next week or so. Get in on that action!
And that’s our news for this week. We hope to see you all soon!
Gratefully yours,
The Little Lions
(and Mom)
*You can see the infamous W**e Closet Jail for yourself at The Third Corner. (If you are new here, The Belgian Lion was where The Third Corner is now.) Look to your right just as you enter. They’ve made it much nicer. It has a pretty door and shelving now. It was literally just a closet, and apparently a remote Air Traffic Control Center, in our time there. I often wonder though what people think when we’re at The Third Corner and one of the girls will point at the closet and say, “oh look, that’s where we got locked up when we were bad.”
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