BRATTLEBORO — Venture down Elliot Street, past the boutiques and bars, and you'll find what looks like one of those classic boxcar diners nestled next to a decrepit laundromat, across the street from a vacant convenience store.
Examine the exterior, and you'll notice the absence of chrome. Step inside, and you'll notice something else missing: a diner.
As you look around the interior of T.J. Buckley's Uptown Dining, you won't see Buffalo china plates filled with greasy eggs and home fries. You'll see warm, polished wood; matte black paint; a slate-tiled floor; cozy tables covered with white linen tablecloths. You get the feeling you're in the speakeasy of fine dining.
Chef Michael Fuller has owned T.J. Buckley's for 25 years, creating fine food with a hint of a French influence. When asked to classify the kind of food he cooks, his response: “To order.”
The restaurant's menu offers four main courses; Fuller changes them seasonally - and sometimes daily, if necessary - to take advantage of what is available and often what simply looks good at the market that day.
A recent evening's menu included hangar steak with German butterball potatoes mashed with roasted garlic, Muscovy duck breast with duck leg confit (Fuller confit-ed the duck legs himself), French white beans and poached bosc pear, diver scallops with seared pork belly, sautéed lobster tail, roasted beets, and a cake of coarse-ground grits, as well as pan-seared halibut with mennomen (a wild rice, which a northern Minnesota Native American tribe harvests by smoking out of its husks).
Unlike some other fine-dining establishments, Fuller offers generous portions. Like the best high-end restaurants, his dishes arrive to the table artfully plated and beautifully prepared.
The respected Frommer's travel guide gives T.J. Buckley's its highest rating, awarding it three stars, and naming it “Brattleboro's best restaurant, and one of the better choices in all of Vermont.”
Fine dining in 'no-man's land'
T.J. Buckley's Uptown Dining has thrived in what was once one of the seediest sections of one of the seediest streets in Brattleboro: the stretch of Elliot Street extending from what is currently the upper entrance to the Transportation Center to the bottom of School Street.
In the early 1980s, Fuller says, his location was “a no-man's land.”
“People didn't walk this far down Main Street; they'd stop at [what currently is] Watercourse Way. It's like the planet Pluto, being out here,” Fuller says.
“There were fights right in my doorway,” Fuller says. People from two nearby bars would “come falling in [to the restaurant] right off the street.”
During the 1990s, almost daily, police cruisers were on this block, responding to some complaint. But, as Fuller explains, his location is an asset: “People love to bring new people here; it's the novelty of the neighborhood.”
A new business model
Keeping a restaurant solvent is no small feat. According to a 2003 report issued by the United States Small Business Administration, of all types of businesses employing fewer than 20 employees, restaurants had the highest failure rate, with only 20 percent surviving past the first two years.
Mike Fuller attributes part of his success to the “specialness” of his restaurant. “It's a special-occasion place, and there are enough people with special occasions. Birthdays, anniversaries - we even had a divorce celebration.”
Local corporations also help; businesspeople like to show the place off to clients and colleagues, Fuller says.
The restaurant's small size contributes to its business success, with lower overhead and the need for fewer employees, and Fuller owns the property.
Although he can keep his margins smaller, “still,” Fuller says, “the price of my food doesn't really reflect the cost of goods.”
The cost of T.J. Buckley's ingredients is partly due to Fuller's insistence on the best and freshest ingredients, as many local and organic as possible.
Twenty-five years ago, most big city chefs preferred imported ingredients and produce grown all over the country, regardless of the season.
In the early 1980s, Fuller was a “localvore” before the concept of eating foods grown close to home became trendy. His insistence on the best and freshest led him to local farmers and producers. When he found what he liked, “I bought everything they had!” exclaimed Fuller; he was then able to influence what these farmers grew, and he recommended they grow more of what he needed.
Coming to Brattleboro
Michael Fuller did not attend culinary school. He did not grow up on a farm in the South of France. He's from Cleveland, Ohio. He studied anthropology and ethnobotany in college.
When asked about early influences on his career choice, Fuller answered: “My mom. I come from a big family so the cooking wasn't so great. Lots of fish sticks."
"I think I started cooking so I'd finally have some control over the food,” he said with a laugh.
Michael Fuller first learned about Brattleboro from an article in National Geographic. “The pictures looked really nice,” he said. When he was 19, he met someone in a Canadian yoga ashram who was from Brattleboro, and he decided he would go check it out.
He hitchhiked from British Columbia to Brattleboro with $15 in his pocket, arriving in Brattleboro with $5 remaining.
“I needed a job,” Fuller explained. He began apprenticing under Chef René Chardain at The Four Columns Inn in Newfane. It was his first kitchen job.
During Fuller's first few years in Brattleboro, the restaurant that is now T.J. Buckley's was a genuine diner, The Night Owl.
"It was a real greasy spoon ... a cab stand,” Fuller reminisced. Across the street, Ray's Café, a bar, was where the Elliot Street senior citizen apartment building now sits. The proximity of the two made for a complete night out for Fuller and his friends.
After four years with Chef Chardain, Mike Fuller was hired by two former co-workers to open Autumn Winds, a brand-new fine-dining restaurant in what is now the Mocha Joe's Roasting Shop on Main Street.
Fuller created the menu, set up the kitchen, and “I taught [the restaurant owners] what to do. They had no kitchen experience.”
Taking over T.J. Buckley's
Six months later, Michael Fuller needed a new job. He knew the couple who had bought the by-then abandoned Night Owl and had already started renovating it, turning it into its current incarnation, T.J. Buckley's Uptown Dining.
“The old owners would actually serve hot dogs and chili dogs from about 4:30 to 6, and then [serve] dinner after,” Fuller said.
When the owners told him they were interested in selling the restaurant, Michael Fuller got a job there, with the intention of taking over the business. He was barely out of his mid-20s when he became the owner and chef of T.J. Buckley's.
Mike Fuller identifies Brattleboro as a “creative and cultural center” of the surrounding areas.
When asked how he sees himself and his restaurant fitting into the greater community and the local economy, Fuller laughed and said, “I see the community actually fitting into the restaurant.”
“[T.J. Buckley's is] successful because we can draw people from Massachusetts and New Hampshire. When people from those places want a change they go here, just like when we [who live in Brattleboro] want a change we go to Northampton or Keene.”
To show his appreciation for the people they bring to town, and to his restaurant, Fuller gives freely to various arts and education nonprofits.
“I give gift certificates to pretty much any organization that asks” including Morningside Shelter, the former Radio Free Brattleboro, “even schools in New Hampshire I've never heard of.” It's all part of being in a community, he says.
Surviving the local economy
Living for as long as he has in Brattleboro, and owning a high-end restaurant in a low-end section of town, Michael Fuller has had ample opportunity to develop educated opinions on the nuances of southern Vermont's economy.
“The economy here is hard. It's hard to make a living here. Lots of people come here who don't have to work and are self-employed as sort of a hobby. They don't have to earn a living.”
He tells of some of his waitresses who decided to “give up the trust fund and see what it's like to actually have to make ends meet.”
“I'm lucky!” Fuller says. "When I was younger I carved this niche [for myself]. You have to make your own way.”