WORCESTER – Weintraub’s Jewish Delicatessen, the 99-year-old Water Street landmark and the city’s last remaining Jewish deli, will close next month, with plans to be succeeded by a French crepe café.

“We were a little reluctant to go away from the Jewish deli, but we’ve exhausted all efforts (to save it),” Edward Murphy, the building’s owner, said Monday.

Mr. Murphy bought the 126 Water St. property last summer and made it known he was looking for a serious candidate to take over the deli, which had fallen on hard times.

The once-thriving eatery – part of a string of Jewish businesses that populated Water Street in the mid-20th century - lost customers over the years as the neighborhood diversified, and had struggled with health code violations in recent years.

Proprietor Dariush “David” Mizrahi – who last year said he believed a T&G story detailing some of the health struggles hurt his business – stayed on after his family sold the building, saying he hoped a successor would sign a lease to run the deli.

But despite many people kicking the tires, no serious suitor was identified, Mr. Murphy said, and he began looking at other offers in January.

Over the telephone Monday, Mr. Mizrahi said he expected customers to be disappointed.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said when asked how he felt about the closing. “It’s a tough business, you know.

“It’s not easy, and the next person who comes, I wish them good luck.”

That person is Jean Luc Wittner, a waiter at Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in Wellesley who hails from France and has dreamed of opening his own crepes business for years.

“We’re going to create a new ambiance,” Mr. Wittner, of Boston, said in a telephone interview Monday, adding that he plans to honor the building’s heritage with a pastrami crepe.

Not all traces of the historic deli – founded by Sam Weintraub at 113 Water St. in 1920, and moved to 126 Water St. 20 years later – will vanish.

The trademark Weintraub’s sign will stay put, Mr. Murphy said, by virtue of agreement in the lease between himself and Mr. Wittner.

“We do think it’s important to preserve the storefront,” Mr. Murphy said, adding that changes will be designed to be minimal and will be submitted to the city’s Historical Commission.

The inside of the building will be overhauled, Mr. Murphy said, but will partly revert to form, as an original tin ceiling will be refurbished when a drop ceiling installed a few decades ago is removed.

“It will look different, but we’re trying to leave a piece of it there,” said Mr. Murphy, a local developer who has overseen storefront renovations of other historic properties in the area.

Mr. Wittner, 52, said he plans to call the business Suzette Creperie & Café, and hopes to open it by this fall. The main focus will be crepes – the thin, filled French pancakes that Mr. Wittner said are gaining favor in Boston.

“It’s a concept that works here in America,” he said. “It’s like a burrito or a pizza – you can put whatever you want in it.”

The enthusiastic, accented Frenchman sees his business becoming the go-to spot for crepes in Worcester, and plans on doing a weekend brunch. He said he’s wanted to open a creperie for more than five years, and has conducted a market study in Boston that shows crepes selling at a brisk clip.

“What people really love is to watch people making the crepes,” he said, vowing to make that part of the experience at Suzette.

Mr. Wittner said opening up in Boston was going to be too expensive. He said he started looking at Worcester after learning the Pawtucket Red Sox were moving here.

“I was surprised at how many foodies there are here,” said Mr. Wittner, who plans to move to Worcester and said he appreciates the city administration.

“It’s small-business-friendly. I really feel that,” he said.

Mr. Wittner said he believes the city is booming, and is hopeful to get a boost from the PawSox. But he said the location would likely have been a big enough draw as it is, and the product is one he’s confident will attract customers.

“It’s an entire meal – one crepe. It’s not a snack,” he said. “We’re going to have savory crepes; we’re going to have sweet crepes.

“We’re going to be vegan friendly, and gluten-free friendly. And kid friendly – kids love crepes.”

Although Mr. Wittner is no deep-pocketed restaurateur, he said he’s confident he and his wife have enough cash to get going, and also plans to open crepe carts in the area next spring.

“They have a business plan,” Mr. Murphy said. “It’s not just someone who is opening a restaurant.

“They are going to invest capital into the space to modernize it.”

Mr. Murphy said the parties signed a five-year lease, with options to extend it to 15 years.

He said he expects nearby Polar Park – scheduled to open in 2021 – to bring numerous potential customers to the creperie.

David Weintraub of Hudson, whose father, Manny Weintraub, was described as the “last of the Weintraub Deli Dynasty” by the Massachusetts Jewish Ledger upon his death in 2017, said Monday that news of the closing was not unexpected.

“It’s sad to see it go,” he said, noting that his mother had been hoping to see it get to 100 years. “(But) life goes on, and we’ll see what (Mr. Wittner) can do with it.”

Mr. Mizrahi said he anticipates the deli’s last day will come in the middle of April – perhaps the 16th or 17th.

Mark A. Borenstein, a 29-year-old Worcester attorney who had tried to build support for a museum for Jewish history at the site, said Monday he was disappointed, but not angry.

Mr. Borenstein said he had enough discussions with Mr. Murphy to know that the developer was genuinely trying to get another qualified person to run it as Weintraub’s.

“I appreciate his efforts,” Mr. Borenstein said. “It’s really unfortunate, because it’s really one of the last vestiges of the neighborhood.”

However, Mr. Borenstein noted that in a way it is fitting that Mr. Wittner, an immigrant with a dream, would take the helm of a business where Jewish immigrants flourished decades ago.

“At the very least, I think that’s a positive thing,” he said. “That neighborhood was historically a neighborhood of immigrants.”