When an established and well-liked restaurant is getting ready to shut down, the reaction tends to follow a pretty standard formula, including reminiscences of good times, and a flood of people showing up for the grand finale. Such seems to be the case with Duff's Restaurant in the Central West End neighborhood here, which will be serving its final meals tomorrow, as noted by Ian Froeb of the Post-Dispatch here. Being a loser, self won't be there for the big dining finale tomorrow (or the big literary finale Monday night), and to be honest, I never was a regular there (but then I don't eat out locally much in general). But when I did go there, it was generally a good experience, and I even managed to get in one literary event besides the odd dining experience. More below the flip....
By way of back story, with which 3CM was generally not familiar (natch), Duff's has a certain pedigree in the history of St. Louis restaurants, in Froeb's description in his article as:
"....one of the four 'Class of '72' restaurants including Jefferson Avenue Boarding House, Anthony's (now Tony's) and Balaban's that the late Post-Dispatch critic Joe Pollack lauded for improving the St. Louis dining scene so dramatically....."
Just so you know, Tony's is now in downtown STL, well out of the CWE. Balaban's is still in the same CWE location just up the street from Duff's, albeit under the newer name of
Herbie's Vintage 72.
Getting back to history, back in December 2011, P-D columnist Bill McClellan had written here that Duff's was up for sale, and in the process provided a good potted history of the restaurant. Given the difficulties of the recent economy, one might wonder if that was a factor in putting the venue up for sale, although McClellan also provides this tidbit in passing:
"When [co-owner] Karen [Duffy] began thinking about retirement a year or so ago...."
Since McClellan's article noted that Karen Duffy (born Mary Karen Theresa Moran) graduated high school in 1963, you can do the math, regarding retirement. It's also evident from McClellan's article that Duffy had tried to "keep the business in the family", by hoping to sell to someone in the family of her business partner, Tim Kirby:
"Tim's son, Brendan, is the restaurant's general manager. All six of Karen's kids have worked at Duff's. Perhaps one of them might want to become partners with Brendan. One liked the idea, but finances could not be arranged. Money is tight and the restaurant business is very competitive, especially in a down economy. It is not easy to get a loan."
However, more recently, obviously they found a buyer, going back to Froeb's article:
"The terms of the restaurant sale to the owners of the Tavern Kitchen & Bar in Valley Park and the Shack Pubgrub in midtown, who plan to convert it into an Italian restaurant, were reached two weeks ago."
It's obviously good news that Duffy and Kirby found a buyer, although at least one commenter on the article, Gwen Behrens, rather tartly (but accurately), said:
"We are getting ANOTHER Italian place? We already have enough of those."
Interestingly, just up the street at the SE corner of McPherson and Euclid, the old Rothschild's Antiques store got converted into a Tex-Mex style (I think) restaurant whose name escapes me.
Froeb also notes how Duff's was ahead of its time in some ways (OK, granted that this is STL and not NYC or SF):
" The qualities that sophisticated diners now demand from new restaurants — good food without a stuffy atmosphere, a reliance on locally raised meat and produce — Duff's embraced from the beginning.
Longtime chef Jim Voss, who left Duff's only last December, was a locavore decades before anyone had coined the term."
Just to fill in back story on Jim Voss, I refer you back to McClellan's 2011 article:
"Jim started as a dishwasher and is now the chef. In 1986, a customer who worked as a road manager for the Grateful Dead called Jim and told him the band's chef had just quit midtour. Could Jim fly to Ohio the next day?
He could, and did. For 10 years, he was the band's traveling chef."
The implication is that Voss went back to Duff's around 1996 or so. You can tell from the two articles how loyal staff have been to them over the years.
In my few and scattershot excursions to Duff's, it was usually after a symphony concert for dessert, which obviously meant well after 10 PM. At that time of night, the kitchen was pretty much down to desserts, as well as a drink from the bar. The place also tended not to be too crowded at that late-ish hour. But given also the unpretentious decor of the place, someplace quiet like that after a symphony concert makes for the perfect nightcap. I also once took some out-of-town friends there for Sunday brunch. My one literary memory of an evening at Duff's was quite a few years back, when T.C. Boyle was in town and had an appearance there.
So overall, 41 years for a quality restaurant is a pretty good run. Karen Duffy is evidently heading off into the sunset in the form of retirement, although it's not clear what Brendan Kirby and his family will do, as Froeb evidently didn't have the low-down on that. Whatever that turns out to be, best wishes to all of them.
With that, time for the usual SNLC protocol, which the regulars know about. If there are any newbies stopping by, you can figure it out fast :) .