An Interview with Owner of Lou’s and Retired Marine, Jarett Berke

Since 1947, Lou’s has served the sons and daughters of Dartmouth some of the finest diner food the Upper Valley has to offer. Last week, we had the opportunity to sit down with the diner’s owner Jarett Berke, Tuck ‘17, to learn more about his record of service and his history of community.

Growing up with a family in the restaurant industry, Jarett Berke didn’t find his passion for it until later in his life. He spent 11 years as a helicopter pilot in the Marine Corps upon graduating from the Naval Academy. Berke was deployed four times in six years, and when his contract expired he was looking for a change. Berke enjoyed the “boots on the ground, direct leadership” of the military but knew that there were some skills even the academy couldn’t teach. He left for business school at Tuck. After receiving his MBA, he searched for an opportunity where he could practice what he described as the three legs of the stool of purpose in his life: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Berke considered Lou’s to be exactly the kind of business he could come into and learn efficiently, and when the previous owners of 27 years wanted to retire he decided to take on the challenge.

Following Berke’s acquisition of Lou’s in 2018, he credits the staff, some of whom have been with the diner for longer than we have been alive, for helping the business stay strong through the transition.

He employed the skills he learned at Tuck, particularly operational management, to usher the business into a new era. Berke spoke of the anxiety felt by business owners across the country during COVID. His solution—“anything we could come up with to get money into the register, that’s what we were going to do.” With Lou’s status as a long cherished local institution, Berke experienced a bit of imposter syndrome as the owner until then. The pandemic forced him to make quick decisions to ensure the restaurant would stay afloat.

If Berke wasn’t careful, the bank could take control of the local favorite. This fear, however daunting, helped him fully step into his new role. “Many of our employees have been working here for decades, and it wasn’t really my business in that nothing drastically changed when I became owner, but during COVID I had to show people they could trust me and follow me. It’s the time I felt like it was my business, once things came back to normal we dropped a lot of the COVID-era practices, but it gave me a handle of this place,” said Berke.

Berke does well to preserve the institution while infusing it with his own entrepreneurial spirit. Most recently, this fervor is shown through the addition of Bloody Mary’s and Mimosas to the menu. Berke wanted to bring something competitive in the market and provide something the other breakfast stops on Main Street weren’t, aptly stating that “in a business this size we can try things and be entrepreneurial.” Jarett Berke seems to have taken this into a leadership philosophy for the old institution.

Earlier this year, Berke ran for the Hanover Select Board. He had been involved in town is- sues since he arrived, and since the purchase of Lou’s, Berke has been on the Hanover Planning Board. Ascribing most of the reason he ran for select board as a duty to represent the small business owners and the institution, he correlated the success of the town to the success of Lou’s.

From our conversation, he brings a sense of duty and re- sponsibility to his community, no matter where that may be. Berke mentioned a plan in the works to redo Main Street to make it more accessible to pedestrians, bikers, and walkers. He hopes it will bring back some of the walkable quaint essence of many classic New England towns.

As our conversation came to a close, we asked Berke the most important question—house syrup or Vermont real syrup? If you’ve ever been to Lou’s, you know that with the purchase of any pancake, waffle, or their famous cruller french toast, your waiter is certainly going to inquire if you want the house syrup or the real thing. “Is that even a question?” joked Berke.

Ultimately, Berke has clearly bought into the culture of the local institution, and the town of Hanover should be grateful for it. He is a man deeply fueled by a sense of duty and loyalty to his community and his restaurant.