51¶ÌÊÓƵ

However, as news of the restaurant's financial problems trickled out, it became clear it had served its last plate of pasta.

A tax lien against the property showed the restaurant owed more than $177,000 in unpaid sales taxes going back to 2012.

Then in December, Ameritas Life Insurance, owner of the building at 6820 O St. that has housed Grisanti's for the past 27 years, filed a lawsuit to force it to vacate the property, saying it owed more than $26,000 in unpaid rent.

Now, a chapter in the city's dining history is coming to an end. The contents of both the Lincoln and Omaha Grisanti's will be auctioned toward the end of the month, and just about everything will be sold to help pay creditors.

The Lincoln auction will be Jan. 27. According to auction house Jack Nitz & Associates, sale items include commercial refrigerators and freezers, deep-fat fryers, ice makers, tables and chairs, 42-inch and 27-inch flat-screen TVs, plastic garbage cans and even nonperishable food including salt, mayonnaise, ranch dressing, ketchup and olives.

The auction for the Omaha restaurant at 10875 West Dodge Road is scheduled for Jan. 28 and will feature similar items.

Grisanti's opened in Lincoln in October 1987, the sixth restaurant in a chain based in Louisville, Kentucky, and one of the first chain restaurants in Lincoln.

A year later, the restaurant count had tripled under the ownership of Imasco, a large Canadian company.

The chain went through a series of ownership changes and over the past few years the only Grisanti's left were the ones in Lincoln and Omaha, which Kotsalis owned.

"I thank the people of Lincoln for supporting us all these years," he said.

Kotsalis also thanked Ameritas, saying the company has been "very accommodating during the transition process."