New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
CHANGING THE MENU
Iconic Connecticut restaurants evolve as a generation of restaurateurs retires
The city of Middletown may soon lose an iconic Main Street restaurant, as the owner of O’Rourke’s Diner is contemplating retirement. After more than four decades cooking banana bread French toast, steamed cheeseburgers and Dubliner omelets with corned beef hash, Brian O’Rourke is considering his next steps.
O’Rourke is just one of several Connecticut restaurateurs who have faced the same question in the past year. Several have cited struggles related to the negative impacts of the pandemic, a shortage of available workers and rising food and labor costs. But others say they just want to make most of their remaining years, leaving behind the grueling hours to travel, spend more time with family and friends and enjoy new pursuits.
O’Rourke told Hearst Connecticut Media last month that he has been contemplating a possible closure for the past few years, after running the diner for 46 years. The physical work has taken a toll on his 72-year-old body, he said, and the effects of the pandemic complicated the restaurant’s operations.
“COVID threw a real monkey wrench into it,” he said. “It got to the point where my advisors said to me, ‘Brian, we don’t want to be going to a funeral. Let’s make this next chapter special.’ ”
Just over 40 miles south, Salerno’s, a decades-old institution for pizza and Italian food in Stratford, announced its closing in mid-June. Owner Carlo Salerno said in a Facebook post that he “had planned to close Salerno’s by my 80th birthday this coming July.”
“I felt 80 is a good age for me to retire. We have owned and operated Salerno’s for over 75 years and at this time, it’s become increasingly difficult for me to keep our doors open,” Salerno said in the statement.
Despite being a staple in Stratford for almost eight decades, Salerno said that COVID, recent economic downturns and the workforce shortage had an effect on the business. He thanked his patrons one last time with a Customer Appreciation Day on July 8, serving free scamorza pizzas to anyone who stopped by in the evening to say goodbye.
Other owners have said they wanted to move on while they were still healthy and active enough to appreciate the freedom of retirement.
In Darien, former Sugar Bowl Luncheonette owner Bobby Mazza retired in June 2022 at age 72. He took over managing the restaurant in 1975 when his mother Edna fell ill. He thought it was a temporary measure, but he ended up staying for 46 more years.
“I need to cut the umbilical cord,” Mazza told Hearst Connecticut Media last year. “It’s been so much a part of my life ... I need to open a new chapter in my life while I’m still active. I’m ready now.”
Regular customers were part of the reason he stayed so long, Mazza said, reflecting on his decades at the helm of the luncheonette. Many
have become friends. But he said he was looking forward to the freedom of retirement, with time to travel and sleep in.
The former JK’s Restaurant in Danbury closed last year after 98 years in business, and at the time, owner Peter Koukos, whose grandfather and greatuncle opened the it in 1924, said he and his brother, George, were looking to “enjoy life a little.”
“We are not retiring because we are burned out — the business is going strong,” Koukos said. He said the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t affect the restaurant at all, but “we just changed the way we did business.”
The Koukos brothers said they hoped the new owners, who later opened Grandpa’s Restaurant in the South Street building, would pick up where the family tradition left off. But though a general manager at Grandpa’s initially said the new owner would continue serving JK’s signature Texas hot weiners, the hot dogs ultimately did not make the menu at the diner-style restaurant.
Scott Dolch, president and CEO of the Connecticut Restaurant Association, said the restaurant industry is “always challenging,” even in the best of times, with long hours of physically demanding work and not a lot of profit.
“It’s a 4 to 6 percent average profit margin type of business,” he said. “Some do a little better, and some struggle.”
Dolch said restaurateurs’ exit strategies aren’t the same as would-be retirees in other industries, who may be working until 65 and have 401(k) plans with an employer match. They’re hoping to sell their businesses or pass them along to the next generation — if that generation is even interested in continuing.
“I’m still working with our owners about what [their] investment and exit strategy is, when they’re in their late 40s and 50s, so they’re not 70, going ‘Oh, I didn’t really think about this, I’ve got to figure this out’,” he said.
Though COVID-19 had an immediate demonstrable effect on the entire restaurant industry, owners are still feeling the ripples three years later, Dolch said, as a “new normal” sets in. As staffing shortages continue, he said he’s heard from owners who are working 12- to 14-hour days for several-day stretches, without any significant breaks.
“If you’re (part of) an older demo
graphic, it can make you think long and hard if it’s time to hang it up,” he said. “Those are honest calls I have with a lot of them.”
O’Rourke also said he believes restaurant owners such as him are sometimes forced to close due to rising expenses. “If you don’t have a ton of money and a money tree in the kitchen, it’s next to impossible to keep it running,” he said.
He cited the high cost of food, taxes and insurance, as well as keeping his menu affordable.
“You don’t get the same bang for your buck anymore. How much can you charge for breakfast?” said O’Rourke, who made a pizza by cutting his own herbs, making dough from scratch and taking the time to roll it out and bake it.
“How much do you charge for something like this to survive [financially]?” he added. “I don’t want to be doing 50 or 100 of them.”
At Formosa Asian Fusion Bistro in North Haven, which closed at the end of 2022, the effects of COVID-19 contributed to the owners’ decision to retire. Shanyu Chang and Meilin Chang Wu told Hearst Connecticut Media in December that the restaurant “never really recovered” from the pandemic, from a decrease in traffic to the health risk.
Chang Wu said it became more difficult to find workers, so the crew had to wear multiple hats to offset the workload. Formosa used to have about 15 employees, but it was operated by only three people during the pandemic.
“Continuing to run a restaurant was almost impossible,” Chang Wu said. “You have no help. You couldn’t hire any workers. You feel like you’re coming to work but you’re really risking your life.”
Chang Wu added that she lost some of her friends to the pandemic, as well, so that gave her a different perspective in wanting to enjoy the remaining time she and her husband have. The couple said they will spend their retirement enjoying time with family and traveling.
Some restaurateurs don’t fully retire, but take their business in a new direction. Bernard and Sarah Bouissou, who sold their Ridgefield eatery Bernard’s in late 2022, said in 2021 that the decision to sell was “right on track.” When they purchased the property and opened the restaurant in March 2000, they’d always planned to run it for 20 to 25 years, Sarah Boissou told Hearst Connecticut Media .
“This is our plan. We’ve always wanted to go out on top. If we wait too long, it’ll be too late for us to start something new,” she said at the time.
Norwalk-based restaurateurs Dave Studwell and Rob Moss of Washington Prime and B.J. Lawless of BJ Ryan’s Restaurant Group took over the Ridgefield property, opening French-American eatery The Benjamin in early June. The Bouissous quickly redeployed their culinary experience in a new venture: their new À Table gourmet prepared food shop, which opened in June in Ridgefield’s Copps Hill Marketplace.
Though they’re still working in the industry, the shop’s shorter hours will allow them more down time than the restaurant did, Sarah Boissou said in April.
“We bought the restaurant when (our children) were 3, 4, 7 and 8,” Bouissou said. “We worked six days a week.”
She said she and her husband want to have “a little bit more of life” with Sundays off and by closing earlier. “In the restaurant business, you’re often not done before 11 or 12 o’clock at night,” she said.
Similarly, O’Rourke said when he eventually does retire, one thing’s for certain: it will involve the heart and soul that he puts into his cooking and baking. “I’m not giving up food,” he said. “I love food.”