When Tom Behr owned Court Sports on South Limestone 20 years ago, he knew his days as owner of a small sporting goods store were numbered. He couldn’t compete with larger chain stores on price or selection, shortfalls that led his customers to their doors.
“As a small business, we were always going to get small allocations of the things everyone wanted, so we were at a disadvantage almost all the time,” said Behr. “So when all you can get is a few pairs of Air Jordans, you piss customers off and they go elsewhere.”
Married and the father of two boys, Behr got busy making plans and found the answer right in his own building. For years he had rented half the structure to restaurant concepts, all of which opened and closed with disappointing regularity. But then in 1998 when Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches rented the space business boomed.
“The day they opened, there was a line of people out the building, and I said, ‘Hmm, it’s never been that busy in that space. Wonder how long it’ll last?’” Behr said. When that pace continued for months on end, he began to think he could do the same. “When I saw them succeed, it convinced me we also could do food here.”
Planning Pazzo’s
A pizza fan, Behr considered becoming a Mellow Mushroom franchisee, but he disliked the notion of sending royalties to the parent company “for something you only need to get started. Once you master the system, you’re on your own, but you’re still sending money forever. I told my wife, Carol, I can figure this out on my own.”
Behr returned to the Auburn, Georgia, Mellow Mushroom he’d visited and convinced a manager to come work for him in Lexington. The manager not only agreed, he convinced a handful of his peers join him and become Behr’s starting crew.
Meanwhile, Behr worked on what he believed would be the restaurant’s unique offering: craft beer. Other than the usual Heineken, Stella and St. Pauli Girl beers from Europe, craft beer pickings were slim in Lexington bars and restaurants. Almost three decades before, Behr had discovered Anchor Steam beer on a trip to California, and his desire for more beers of the same quality drove him to bring new offerings to what would become Pazzo’s in March 2000. Its opening draft beer lineup was 14 beers, most of which were craft beers.
“That was unheard of back then in this city,” Behr said. “Six months later we went to 20 taps, and by 2003 we had the downstairs open with 37 on tap.” It now boasts 47 taps and hosts weekly pint nights featuring new beers added to the lineup.
Behr told his opening team that while he didn’t have restaurant experience, he knew how to run a successful business, which meant, “I wasn’t going to be the guy closing the restaurant at midnight. I had kids in sports then and I wanted to be involved with them. My job was to train managers.”
According to Behr’s son, Brian Behr, this is an area in which his dad is uniquely skilled.
“He expects a lot out of people, and it can seem like a pain in the ass when he’s pushing them, but they like it because they reach their potential,” said Brian Behr. “He gets a lot out of people — more than they expect of themselves sometimes.”
As Pazzo’s sales grew steadily and profi tably, Behr committed more of the building to expanding the business: lower and upper levels and eventually, an outdoor patio.
“We constantly made the place better looking and gave customers a better experience, which attracted better customers,” Behr said. “I’ve always seen room for improvement.”
According to Brett Behr, that statement describes his father succinctly.
“One of the things he’s taught me is that the small things count,” he said. “It’s a combination of him being a perfectionist and also wanting customers to have the best experience possible.”
Travel and expansion
Tom Behr attributed much of his constant tweaking of Pazzo’s to his voracious appetite for travel. He’s visited Europe more than 30 times and traveled the U.S. extensively in search of ideas to bring home and employ in his restaurant. But by 2010, he was more eager to create than correct, and after trips to Belgium and England, he and son Brett opened The Beer Trappe at 811 Euclid Ave.
“We had no idea how it would do, so we only put eight taps in, some good bottles behind the bar and a big bottle selection to take away,” Behr recalled. “I told Brett it would never be as busy as Pazzo’s and that most of the business would be retail. I was wrong. From the start the place was ridiculously busy. After the first weekend we were open, we built a second cashier station.”
In 2013, Behr backed Brian in starting The Village Idiot on West Short Street in the old Metropol Building. Behr grouses about paying what he said was “too much for the building, but we own all our properties, and this one was perfect for the concept.”
It would be Lexington’s first gastropub and one modeled after similar concepts his family had visited while traveling.
“Everywhere he goes, he takes pictures of things that interest him, things that he thinks will benefit one the businesses,” said Brian Behr.
Tom Behr called the gastropub “at least twice as hard as the others” to operate because of its need for serious skill in the kitchen. Curating its unique beer selection also required additional care to manage its 30-plus taps, numerous bottles, wine and spirits selection.
“It had to have an identity all its own if it was going to stand out in Lexington,” Behr said. “The restaurant scene isn’t what it was when I started. It’s better.”
No rest for the busy
Behr’s sons say he’s not happy without something new to accomplish, that their hyper-creative mentor must have a project to occupy his mind.
“My mom works more hours than any of us, but when he has a project to do, it gives her kind of a mini-vacation from him,” said Brian Behr. (Their mother, Carol Behr, works with her family at Kennedy Bookstore.)
His latest creations may seem deservingly self-indulgent, but Tom Behr always fi nds a way to make them benefi cial to his business. For example, in the basement of Pazzo’s is every beer drinker’s dream: a nearly soundproof, all-wood bunker named The Behr Cellar, which was built last year. Lining its walls are some 2,000 bottles of hard-to-fi nd domestic and imported brews grouped by brewery or country or style, and every label faces forward for easy reading. (“My dad is the most detailed person I know,” said Brett Behr.) In this private space the Behr men meet with select brewers and distributors to do business sampling and beer-buying. Unfortunately for outsiders, it’s not a party room one can reserve for an event; it’s Tom Behr’s private boardroom.
“We honestly don’t drink much down here; most of the beer you see will make its way over to The Beer Trappe,” Behr said. “The fun room is upstairs. I’ll show you.”
Behr walks quickly through Pazzo’s labyrinth of hallways, dining spaces and kitchen and winds up outside a room on the building’s third floor. The all black door bears the inscription, “Der Mann Hohle,” which roughly means “man cave” in German. He opens the door to reveal an expansive room filled with leather couches, high chrome bar stools and tables and a bar equipped to serve at least 75 people. There are multiple flat screen TVs on the walls and a retractable ceiling over the bar to let in natural light. The room makes the pristine Behr Cellar seem low rent by comparison. Needless to say, it was heavily used by Behr, his friends and family during the recent NCAA tournament.
“A lot of people have asked why I didn’t do this to my basement at home,” said Behr, who fi nished the room this year. Der Mann Hole, like the cellar, is for his private use only. “And my answer was that I have full access to all the food and drink I need here, and the people to staff it. We’d have to clean up if we did this at home.”
And this isn’t the last of his projects. Though he and his sons won’t reveal the details, they have other restaurant concepts in the works. The trick to manifesting them, Behr said, is fi nding the right commercially zoned property.
“I’ve got no interest in strip mall properties; I want properties that have personality,” said Behr, whose three businesses generate $5 million in annual revenue. “I’m like my customers in that I want places that I’m interested in going.”
Typical Tom Behr, said son Brett.
“My dad is always looking for something that will make the Lexington scene that much cooler,” he said. “He knows exactly what he wants.”