The Legend of Tim

        A little history on the place would be a good starting point. Leo was a daily regular in backstreet, he was definitely my favourite of the bunch of old cooks who linger around the counter every day – dude loves to gossip. He'd evidently spent a lot of time sitting at the end of the bar with his dog Wallis tied up at his feet, talking to whoever stood in front of him. I loved to prod him for stories.

        The place was initially owned by a guy who I never met, his name was Tim. Backstreet was his second venture after a wildly successful cafe called Birdman, which, as Leo grandly proclaimed, was one of the first places that kicked off “that” Gertrude St hipster-revival a few hundred metres back towards the city. When you start delving into local history, the locals, revelling in their role as historical gatekeepers, tend to over-contextualise.
        Tim was, “the best waiter you've ever seen!”, declared Leo. He was graceful, dancing through tables with plates up his arm, seemingly stuck there like a beautiful porcelain skin-growth – oh Tim! Half man, half crockery. He opened Backstreet as the logical next step after building his first place from nothing, and Backstreet, Leo said, was, “Tim's Baby.”
        Tim was an architect, and “frightfully intelligent”, but, Leo added, “with absolutely no moral compass.” He designed the whole interior to be reminiscent of Japanese paper walls, but with the furniture retaining an old-world European homeliness. The concept for the place was big, hearty meals. Lots of meat – steak, sausages. Leo claimed to be among those who warned Tim that these kinds of dishes weren't what people in trendy Fitzroy were looking for. “We'll see.” said Tim.
        “...and yes, we did see.” Leo shook his head with a chuckle. Told ya.

        When Backstreet opened, Tim had taken his head chef and floor manager out of Birdman and put them into the new venue, taking them out of the place they were comfortable and succeeding, and dropping them into something new against their will. Backstreet wasn't an instant success, and Birdman started to suffer without the people who had initially made it great. Money became tight. Tim decided to cash out and sell after his head chef quit in a rage – he later admitted to Leo that moving his staff into the new business was the worst decision of his professional life.
        Failure made Tim desperate; he needed a successful sale to make it out comfortably so he started fixing the books, doing things like running up the tills with his personal credit card to make it look like the place was making more money than it was. Rhys had told me that when Tim was in charge the wine list was always exciting and new, because Tim would burn bridges with every wine supplier, leaving bills unpaid for months. When the suppliers came in to collect, Tim would cheerfully write them a cheque on the spot, which would reliably bounce, leading the suppliers to return angrier, to more empty promises.

        This was the mess that, almost two years ago, Stuart walked into. From the rough timeline I've pieced together from various conversations with him, he spent the major part of his 20s managing rough scum-bars in shitty parts of Melbourne, then driving garbage trucks, and finally something to do with mortgages. He bought Backstreet off of Tim, who not only made the business look more profitable than it was, but fudged over a few of integral details like how the rent was set to double as soon as the business changed hands due to a bit of fine-print in the contract with the building's owners. Tim trusted Stu to not look too carefully into those details and, whether through Stu's carelessness or Tim's meticulous deceit, the sale went through.
        I remember laughing with Rhys until we were both red in the face about how Tim had raised everyone's hourly wages when he sold the place to Stuart, saying that's how much they'd always been paid. I guess Tim liked the people who worked for him, and wanted them to be paid well, as long as it wasn't ever coming out of his own pocket. “Oh it was awesome!”, Rhys struggled to hold back laughter, as he always did when telling a story, “I loved Tim for it until three weeks after he left and I still hadn't been paid for the last weeks he was here... he owed me $1800!”

        I don't know whether that ruthless scumbaggery is just what it takes to make it in the business of hospitality, but by the sounds of it that's how Tim managed. He now runs a restaurant in his hometown of Albury on the Victoria/NSW border – it's the restaurant inside the new multi-million dollar cultural centre. He beat out almost fifty other potential operators for the contract to run it, apparently pulling some hometown strings including having the committee in charge of awarding the contract in to Backstreet for multiple lunches and dinners while he was dressing the place up to be sold. He was a charismatic man, so the legend goes.
        No one from Backstreet has ever seen this new restaurant. Rhys almost went up with a group of guys to fetch his $1800, but was saved the trip when Tim finally came through with the money. Stu has claimed he's set on having some people head up there to “teach that man a lesson”, but I think that's just the vodka talking. If I ever find myself up that way I hope to make it in, ask for Tim, and tell him this story. From what I've been told I bet he'd find it hilarious.

PS: My Mum (oh god I'm pathetic) reckons I should change the names in this to keep Stu and the venue anonymous. I like how the names ring, and I can't think of a good replacement for Stuart that shortens to a nice single-syllable in the same way. I think I'm being a princess and I'll be able to think of plenty when I'm being sued, but on the other hand everything I've said here is true. What do you guys think? Comment on facebook.com/ajtaco with any thoughts.

Click here to read the next part - The Incident: As Told By Leo