DURHAM — When the Hard Hat Tavern opened the latest in its local chain of restaurants in February 2023, it never held a grand opening celebration, owner John Acanfora said.
So, as the local restaurant’s Feb. 27 anniversary date approaches in Durham, its managers are thinking about ways to celebrate.
“We’re on our way now that we feel comfortable having a grand opening,” said Joseph D’Errico, the director of the restaurant chain, which also includes Hard Hat Taverns in North Haven and Wallingford as well as Sam the Clam’s Pub and Grub in the Plantsville section of Southington.
The other restaurants in the chain were going concerns when Acanfora bought them.
Although there had been restaurants in the building at New Haven and Birch Mill roads that now houses Durham's Hard Hat Tavern, it was closed before the purchase, and Acanfora and his team had to build the local business from scratch.
Acanfora said it's more challenging to open when a restaurant has been closed for a few years.
"You have to create a staff,” he said.
The restaurant’s staff members also have to build friendships with local people, who become used to seeing the same bartenders and waitresses, he said.
With a population of about 3,500, Durham is much smaller than North Haven, with more than 23,000 residents, where the Hard Hat Tavern chain began, or Wallingford, a town of more than 45,000 that hosts the chain’s second restaurant.
Acanfora said his efforts to become part of the community have included sponsoring sports teams and simply hiring local young people — many of them students or recent graduates of Coginchaug Regional High School — who then often bring in their families. The walls are covered with photographs of local scenes provided by the historical society, he added.
The restaurant has also hosted community events, said Cheryl Salva, its guest services and marketing manager. It has substantial capacity for that, with some 200 seats including those on the patio, D’Errico said.
“That’s who we are,” said D’Errico, who owned a restaurant for 14 years. “We’re always going to be a neighborhood gathering place.”
The Durham restaurant hopes to start gathering people together on weekend mornings, as it plans to begin offering breakfast starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
“Breakfast is pretty popular,” D’Errico said. “It just might be something this community is lacking.”
One thing the community is no longer lacking is “Doob-style” chicken wings, a Hard Hat Tavern specialty that Acanfora says won a Cancer Society wings competition four years in a row based on the votes of those attending. Doob-style wings are grilled, Salva explained, and flavored with what Acanfora called “our own special seasonings.”
Other objectives in fine tuning the Durham menu, D’Errico said, included making the food “very approachable” and “very sharable,” yet “just interesting enough that you could come here often and not get bored.”
The Durham restaurant’s parking lot is a little smaller than the restaurant’s management would like to see. To alleviate the problem, they are offering customers free valet parking on Saturdays and Sundays.
Acanfora came to the restaurant business from the construction industry. His company is the North Haven-based Mount Carmel Construction LLC, which he said does demolition, with specialties in abatement of hazards caused by materials such as asbestos, mold and lead.
His son took over the construction business when he finished college two years ago, which Acanfora said “gave me more time to spend on the restaurant side.”
He said the plan has been to open another restaurant every couple of years but added that the process has been slowed a little by the need to do work on the older buildings that house some of the restaurants.
D’Errico stressed the economic contribution such businesses make.
The Durham restaurant alone employs 50 to 55 people, he said, describing the staff as “all good, hard-working people.”
Feb 8, 2024
Alex Wood has been with the Journal Inquirer since 1985 and joined Hearst Connecticut Media Group when it acquired the JI in 2023. He has covered courts for more than 30 years along with a number of other assignments. He is married with a grown daughter and son-in-law, teaches church school, and enjoys riding a bicycle, hiking, listening to music and watching a small part of the cornucopia of video entertainment now available through streaming.
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