DON'S MALL, home to Don's Cafe and to Don Battles, one of Phuket's most original movers and shakers, is closing down.

The property on two rai in Rawai is destined to become high-end townhouses. Don, always a bit of a cowboy, will be riding into the sunset, yet with many plans afoot at the young-at-heart age of 76.

He told Phuketwan today: ''I am getting a little slow as a waiter. I am sorry to be leaving, but my old legs can't keep up.''

There will be a couple of months, though, to enjoy some more of Don's dry humor, and to say farewell more than once.

The Landlord's Last Supper is being planned for mid-March, probably on Saturday, March 13 or Sunday March 14, and everyone's invited.

Don's Cafe opened on Phuket in July 1997, around the bend from the present site of Don's Mall. The original cafe succeeded despite Don's lack of knowledge about cooking.

Always in quest of ingenious solutions, he asked customers to give him their favorite home-cooked recipes, and served those.

So while restaurants galore opened and closed around the island, Don's survived and prospered.

Other restaurateurs couldn't work it out, because the cafe was tiny, a bit remote for some, and the service could have been best described as imperfect.

Given his engineering background, Don eventually expanded to the present site about seven years ago, adding the wholesale business, but retaining the old cafe's tables and chairs and likeable imperfections.

These days, Don's is far from trendy yet retains a spot in the heart of most expat residents. Over the years, meetings have been held at Don's to seal all kinds of odd deals.

Sometimes, tables have been shifted to accommodate fallings-out and fallings-in.

As ever, the sale of the Phuket property is just a new beginning for Don, the former NASA aerospace engineer who fell to earth on Phuket.

''I'm going off to Kunming, studying Mandarin for a year,'' said the familiar face.

''I'm nowhere near ready to retire.''

While the mall will shut, Don will still be running the factory in Bangkok and the factory and restaurant in Chiang Rai, plus the national wholesale business.

As regulars know, Don has a liking for discovering new ideas and making use of the latest technology.

Will Phuket ever see a place like Don's Cafe again? Probably not. The closure of the mall is truly the end of an era.

Those of us who were around to eat at the original cafe mourned its passing, but moved on to the mall. The new replacement for Don's is probably just around the next bend in the road.

If they have meatloaf on the menu and Saturday bbqs, they could be around for a long, long time.

For bookings, telephone 076 289314

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