With a moth-like determination, we’re drawn to bright, shiny things. Why else do we endure hour-long waits or longer at new restaurants when the ones we’ve dined at for years continue to be open, with chefs in the kitchen ready to transform fresh ingredients into tasty dishes and servers and bartenders ready to serve them?
It’s the buzz that gets us, and maybe fear that we’ll miss out on the next big thing. But good people and quality food are always buzz-worthy.
Backstreet Restaurant, located at 22 Center St. in Darien, has been providing both for over 25 years. The Darien institution celebrated its silver anniversary on Dec. 17, 2011. At Backstreet’s helm since it opened is Westport native Dave Johnson. Hired as the restaurant’s Executive Chef when it was still a construction site, he and his wife Cheryl bought the eatery in 2001.
Johnson knows quite a bit about the mercurial nature of the restaurant business. After graduating from Staples High School in 1974, he started out as a dishwasher at the Emporium Restaurant, then located at The New Englander, which we now know as The Westport Inn.
“I wanted to be a meterologist,” Johnson recalled. “But I had always cooked a little at home, and when I graduated, I figured I’d give it a shot in a restaurant for a while.” He took a second job at La Chambord, a French restaurant across the street from The Emporium on the Post Rd. Both are now defunct.
“I did everything at the Emporium kitchen,” Johnson said, from washing dishes to working the salad and sautee stations. That’s also where he met his future wife, Cheryl.
Two years in, he decided to attend culinary school, enrolling in Hyde Park, New York’s Culinary Institute in 1976. He continued working at the Emporium to stay close to Cheryl, and when he graduated in 1978, the two decided to spend a year in London. The school arranged a one-year contract for Johnson at the Swiss Center, a large restaurant in London’s Leicester Square. When the contracted ended in May of 1980, the two returned to the U.S. with $500 and a car.
A cook he’d worked with at La Chambord put him in touch up with a French restaurant in Old Greenwich owned by Harvey Edwards, Café du bec Fin, which was looking for a chef. Johnson credits his experiences there with refining his cooking and baking techniques, recounting, “I was taking notes every day.” He continued to build on them to craft dishes that have delighted his patrons for years, including his deserts and especially his Confit of Duck, which one Backstreet customer declared is the best he’s eaten outside of Paris.
But Café du bec Fin was a small restaurant and didn’t do much business during the week. “I wanted to be busier,” Johnson explained of his decision to move on. So he responded to a newspaper advertisement for a chef position at Darien’s Henkel’s restaurant (now closed), managed by Doug Moody. The Henkel’s job would ultimately provide an enduring relationship not only with Moody but with the not-yet opened Backstreet as well.
In the winter of 1986, Moody and his then-wife Carrie were searching for a space to open a new eatery in Darien. A deal to buy Henkel’s fell through, and the restaurant closed. Johnson moved on to an Executive Chef position at Greenstreet Restaurant in Greenwich while the Moodys waited for the right location to become available.
Searching for a chef for their new venture, they turned to Johnson. Moody invited him to look at the space, which was then little more than a cement slab. But Johnson could see the potential, and he and Moody were ‘on the same page.’ He accepted the Executive Chef position, and the two began planning the menu, with Johnson’s 13-month old son David, now 26 and married himself, in tow.
Backstreet opened on Dec. 17, 1986 to a crowd of 32 patrons, though Johnson recalled that “it felt like 100.” Business picked up slowly throughout the winter but then took off in the spring with the patio’s unveiling, eventually developing a loyal following. The Johnsons and their staff, many of whom have been with the restaurant for over a decade, have served generations of the same family.
“You don’t find people like the Johnsons around,” Ellen Arcamone of Norwalk, who worked as a server at Backstreet on and off for six years, said of the family’s ability to retain their staff in a volatile industry. “Dave is just a solid, stand up guy.”
When Moody, ready to move on after 15 years in the business, decided to sell Backstreet, Johnson and his wife Cheryl bought the restaurant from him in Feb. 2001. With their sons David and Michael, they continue to serve the menu favorites customers have enjoyed over the years along with daily specials and new items.
The restaurants longevity, in a difficult business during challenging economic times, can be credited to Johnson’s consistent delivery of quality dishes customers have grown to love (you can cut through the beef tournedos with a fork), fresh desserts baked on site daily (the banana cream pie is the best I’ve ever had), and personal touches unique to their tight-knit family restaurant. They personally notify customers when a favorite seasonal dish returns to the menu and meet customers’ preferences with menu modifications at which other restaurants balk.
“Cheryl and I have seen our customers’ kid grow up, get married, and come in with their kids. And they’ve seen our children grow up too,” explained Johnson. “We provide extras for our customers because they’ve become our friends.”
“On behalf of my family,” Johnson said, “We want to thank all our customers for Backstreet’s success over the many years.”
Backstreet is open for lunch and dinner seven days a week and brunch on Saturday and Sunday. Their hours are 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11:00 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Complimentary happy hour appetizers are provided at the bar Monday through Friday at 5 p.m.