 
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
Sunday, April 29, 2001
What brought my friend Gene and me to Johnstown was the opening of the Back Door Cafe. The owners are our friends Denise Thompson and Thomas Chulick, Mr. and Mrs. We knew the food would be good because we'd been to parties that the couple had catered, and we'd been to their home for meals that were always memorable. Oh, for another spoonful of that wild oyster mushroom soup or a slice of that grape pie.
But for us, living in Point Breeze, Johnstown can be -- depending on traffic and construction -- a round-trip drive of three or four hours. In that case, why not go for the day? We did, having discovered that there were plenty of options for the rubbernecking tourists we've become.
We started our visit at the Johnstown Flood Museum, watching an Oscar-winning documentary by Charles Guggenheim. In scenes real and re-created, the film chronicles the horrific flood of 1889. Once you've witnessed the 35-foot wall of water burst from the South Fork Dam and then travel toward Johnstown like a tidal wave, you will never forget its savagery. Ten minutes after it hit, the center city had been swept away.
Reinforcing the impact of the film is a 3-D slide presentation with commentary by survivors. Their stories are poignant, and sometimes viewers must close their eyes against the pain. "My husband, all my dear children and my home are gone!" cried Anna Fenn. "If God had only spared me one, I could have been resigned. But all, all! Father in Heaven, is not my cross heavier than I can bear?" More than 2,000 people were killed and tens of thousands left homeless on this one afternoon on May 31.
Down Broad Street at the new Heritage Discovery Center, visitors are invited to experience the discrimination that immigrants endured between 1870 and 1914. Not a pretty story either, the drama has been made memorable by a museum full of cleverly conceived moving dioramas. One manages to convey the dangers, dirt and heat of working in a steel mill as you stand beside what appears to be an open hearth furnace, watching molten metal being poured.
At the Bottle Works Ethnic Arts Center, working hard to establish itself, public exhibits and coordinated activities preserve and celebrate the area's cultural diversity. The current exhibition, running through May 19, focuses on India.
As we moved from one to the other of these sites, the afternoon disappeared, and we waited for the restaurant to open at 5.
If you like to cook and have ever fantasized about opening a place of your own, you will immediately appreciate that the Back Door Cafe is the realization of a dream. Denise and Tom have taken a typical Pennsylvania corner bar with its brick facade and neon beer sign in the window and, without getting uppity, turned it into a charming retreat. Inside, the bar still dominates the original space under a pressed-tin ceiling, which Denise and Leigh Black, her partner in their business The Painting Ladies, spent hours scraping down to its original surface.
In the dining room beyond are booths that are comfortably upholstered and curtained for privacy. Beside them are additional tables. The restaurant seats 54 in a space that is, I have to say, clean as a whistle, neat as a pin and pretty as a picture. So pleasant an environment improves the appetite.
There is no printed menu because what's served changes every day to accommodate the freshest ingredients. In the manner of a French bistro, guests select dinner from a blackboard hung just inside the entrance and purchased, as it happens, from St. Michael, Tom's old Johnstown grade school.
Denise, who acts as maitre d', talks you through the choices. When Tom, in the kitchen, hears voices, he sometimes comes out to give his opinion. Gene was considering the basil and arugula salad when Tom arrived with plans to drop it from the menu. Having rejected the delivery of not-fresh-enough arugula, he had just returned from foraging for wild watercress. He was serving it in a salad with asparagus spears, paper-thin rounds of red onions, a classic vinaigrette and one of Denise's Parmesan crisps ($5.95). It was smashing. Because I've hunted for mushrooms with Tom, I wanted his wild mushroom and barley soup ($4.95). He mentioned that his secret stand of morels is ready to pop. The menu will soon reflect it.
From the six entrees offered, I chose a Basque Seafood Stew (swordfish, clams, mussels, shrimp and lobster tail) for $24.95. The seafood and the broth were exactly to my taste. Gene chose the lamb scaloppine ($14.95). From a nicely chosen selection of wines, we had a Turning Leaf Cabernet Sauvignon. Four desserts were offered. We have a fondness for creme brulee ($3.95) and Tom's is as good as the best.
It had been a lovely evening. But just as we were leaving, I made an observation that I immediately regretted. I commented to Denise that while I thought Johnstown was not a pretty city, I did consider it an interesting one.
"But it is a pretty city," she said looking at me in surprise. "In Westmont, up on the ridge, where many people moved after the flood, we have the longest stand of municipally maintained Dutch elms in America. They're beautiful. All the streets are tree-lined."
I take it back. Johnstown is a pretty city and an interesting one.
All sites listed are located in Johnstown's Cambria City Historic District.
The Back Door Cafe, 402 Chestnut St. at Fourth Avenue. Open Tuesdays through Saturdays, for reservations, call 814-539-5084.
Johnstown Flood Museum, 304 Washington St. Film shown hourly. Admission fee. 814-539-1889.
Johnstown Heritage Discovery Center, Route 56 (Broad Street) and Seventh Avenue. Admission fee. 814-539-1889.
The Ethnic Arts Center, 411 Third Ave. 814-536-5399.
