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After 45 years, Johnson's restaurant was 'just like home' for many
Emotions ran high among Johnson's Charcoal Beef House restaurant regulars, who visited their hangout every day as its final day -- May 14 -- neared.
Johnson's, a dimly lit sanctuary for smokers and longtime Loudouners, opened at the corner of Market Street and Catoctin Circle in 1963. It will be demolished to make way for a Chevy Chase Bank branch. The property and building is assessed by the county at $1.32 million.
Johnson's co-owner Buddy Sadak, 53, announced May 2 that the restaurant would close May 14. He cited slow business and the heavy workload of running a restaurant as reasons why he put the property up for sale about a year ago.
No timetable has been set for the demolition of the restaurant, Sadak said.
Mayor Kristen Umstattd said, “It's sad that they're closing. They had wonderful cheeseburgers and I'll miss those, but I think Chevy Chase Bank will be a very fine addition to that site.”
'Guess I'll have to go home'
Regulars said they found out when the closing was when they saw a sign posted outside the restaurant.
“I don't know what I'm going to do every afternoon,” said Nancy Gibson, of Leesburg, who has been visiting Johnson's for seven years.
“I used to just come for coffee every afternoon,” she said. “It's kind of like my last stop of the day. I sit here and read my book and drink coffee. [Now] I guess I'll have to go home. I'll just have to be home more.”
She isn't alone. Other regulars said the closing is like losing a family member.
It's the end of an era, said Lovettsville resident Jean Karmen, who said she's been a patron of Johnson's off and on all her life. She and her mother, Connie McKimmey, are regulars who drink coffee and mingle at Johnson's almost daily.
“It's just like home," Karmen said. "We'll miss seeing all the people and friends.”
Some patrons and restaurant staff exchanged phone numbers to keep in touch, while others have been out scouting for a new hangout.
“It seems like no matter what time I come in here, certain people are here,” Karmen said. “I think, 'What, do they stay here all day or what?' I can make it OK just going home, but I wonder sometimes what certain people will do because [the restaurant's] been a part of their lives.
“There's really no place in Leesburg ... that has that hangout feeling where you can go ... and sit for two hours and drink six cups of coffee.”
'I go home ... and cry'
Regulars said they will mostly miss the restaurant staff, who waited on them daily.
Server Violet Jewell, 76, has worked at the restaurant since the Johnson family opened it in 1963. (They sold it to the Sadak family about 25 years ago.)
She said she vividly remembers her first day because it was the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated -- Nov. 22, 1963.
“I go home every evening, and I sit down and I cry about it," she said. "I'm not looking for a job yet. I've got to get [the tears] out of my system.”
Jewell has been serving up food and hot coffee in Leesburg for 55 years. Before working at Johnson's, she had been a server at the Leesburg Restaurant on King Street.
Jewell has commuted to work every day from her home in West Virginia. She said she is looking for work at family-owned restaurants closer to home.
Jewell said, however, she will miss her regulars, whom she refers to as her “babies.”
“They get on my nerves sometimes, but I just ignore it,” she said jokingly, adding that she has seen some of the regulars grow up.
“Some of them had to crawl up on the stools at the Leesburg Restaurant when we were there. They don't have to tell me what they want to eat,” she said. “Sometimes, when I get here at 5:30 [a.m.], I write half the orders down to stick in the window when they walk in the door.”
She said coffee was almost always on the table before the customers were through the door.
“They expect it too,” Jewell said.
Sadak said he is not planning on starting another restaurant yet, but he will probably always be in the restaurant business.
Some of the restaurant's patrons said they dreaded May 15 when their hangout would be closed.
Regular Tom Lee, of Leesburg, said, “This has definitely been the gathering place for news, gossip and whatever you want to get from around town.”
He said he has been coming to Johnson's since it opened when he was a teenager, and the restaurant was a place for friends to meet and share their tragedies and to celebrate successes.
“It's going to be a big adjustment not having this place,” Lee said.
Photo editor Lisa Johnson contributed to this article. Contact the reporter at hhobbs@timespapers.com
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