Rob Dalzell’s estate sale: What we saw

I only heard that Rob Dalzell — who recently saw his high-profile restaurant empire crumble — was having an estate sale when I ran into the wife of another local

chef who had been to the sale on opening day. “I bought a lot of cute

clothes,” she said. “Good stuff, expensive labels. It was all $2.”

​My friends and I got to the sale on the last day, and by then there wasn’t much left in the  rambling, Edwardian-era house in the Coleman-Highlands neighborhood. We felt like voyeurs poking among the unwanted belongings — a lot of baby clothes and toys and some really unattractive gee-gaws. There was nothing in that third-floor clothing display that was ever going to fit me. It was a nice house, although the kitchen — painted a vibrant green and with a corrugated steel ceiling — wasn’t nearly as snazzy as I thought it would be. “You don’t think he cooked at home?” asked one friend.

I bought a pair of vintage salt-and-pepper shakers as a memento. Good luck Rob, wherever you are.