Michael Conlon's full plate

With 5 restaurants to juggle, he's a man on the move

By Alison Arnett, Globe Staff  |  March 16, 2005

(Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in yesterday's Food section listed an incorrect address for The Blarney Stone restaurant. It is at 1509 Dorchester Ave., Dorchester.)

The lunch crowd is humming at the Paramount, a diner-style restaurant on Beacon Hill packed with mothers chatting, babies chortling, businessmen gossiping, students comparing notes, and workmen eating. As a big sign on the wall explains, patrons must line up to give their orders and then find a place to sit, so everyone covetously eyes open spots as they wait for their food.

Michael Conlon swings through the door, greets his partner working in the kitchen, grabs a soft drink and a cup of coffee, and sits down to talk. The Paramount is one of the five restaurants he owns with various partners, and, like the others, this Charles Street institution has changed since he bought it, in 1995. ''The old Paramount was known as a greasy spoon," Conlon says of the restaurant, which originally opened in 1937 and was in need of renovation. But the place had history, and he and partners Michael Bissanti and Joe Greene thought that with a makeover and better food the Paramount could have promise. It's a model Conlon has followed since the early '90s: finding places that need TLC and injecting new verve, as he and his partners change the landscape of the neighborhood restaurant one place at a time.

The Paramount still serves hearty breakfasts of eggs and bacon and lunches of sandwiches, soups, and simple main dishes. But at dinnertime the diner disappears, and, Cinderella-like, the Paramount is transformed into a sit-down restaurant. The wait staff sets the tables with candles and readies the wine lists. Blue plate specials give way to monthly wine specials and dishes such as grilled swordfish with orzo and white bean ragout. The crowd arrives, encompassing suburban couples and visitors sent by concierges at nearby hotels as well as neighborhood residents. ''If you're into food," says Conlon, ''you want to know where the locals go."

Affable and talkative, with green eyes that light up when he discusses food and wine, Conlon has his finger on the pulse of how Americans eat today. As more and more meals are eaten out, Conlon, who grew up helping in his father's Dorchester bar, figures casual, comfortable restaurants with an upscale look and good food can fit into just about any area. And he and his partners find the neighborhoods that need them.

''Talking to people" is the way Conlon puts his work of knitting together all his restaurants, with their different personalities and many partners. It's a skill he traces to his father, an Irish immigrant who opened the Blarney Stone in the 1960s, bringing the camaraderie of his native land's pubs to Fields Corner. ''The people part is the most important," Conlon says, something he learned from his father, who emphasized building up regular clientele and communicating with his bartenders, wait staff, and customers.

Conlon and his partners have a knack for picking emerging residential areas for their restaurants. Last summer, Buck Mulligan's, the bar he and Greene bought when they both were in their early 20s, became West on Centre, West Roxbury's first big upscale dining destination. Four years ago, he and his partners bought the Blarney Stone from his father. Keeping only the Guinness taps, they gutted it and added an outside deck, making it into a restaurant with a bar. When Conlon and his partners bought the old Golden Dome on the other side of Beacon Hill, near the State House, he says, it was ''mostly like a private club." Now it's the 21st Amendment, and when the Legislature is in session, demonstrators on both sides of a debate, still carrying their signs, can sometimes be found in the restaurant's back room arguing their points as they have a bite to eat.

Peking Tom's Longtang Lounge, owned by Conlon and a laundry list of partners, is maybe his most concept-oriented. ''I always wanted to own a Chinese restaurant," he says with a smile of the trendy place, with its bright cocktails, stylized Asian dishes, and young, hip crowd.

By now diners holding their plates are hovering over his table at the packed Paramount, so Conlon stretches his long legs and heads out the door, greeting Ben Johnson, a partner in Peking Tom's who happens to be walking across the street. Conlon turns onto Beacon and strides toward the 21st Amendment. His office for the Eat Drink Laugh Restaurant Group is located above it, on Bowdoin Street. He's usually there only in the morning, he says; he lives nearby. His day ranges from paperwork in his office at 9 a.m. to popping into both Beacon Hill restaurants mid-morning to stopping by Peking Tom's for lunch -- ''I like the bento box," he says. He'll maybe go over to West on Centre in the afternoon; the newest of his restaurants still takes up extra time to work out the kinks. In the late afternoon, he might run 5 to 7 miles or go to the gym. Then, in the evening, after a few more stops by the restaurants to check on their progress, Conlon often goes to other restaurants -- maybe Pigalle, where chef and co-owner Marc Orfaly, who designed the original menu at Peking Tom's, is a friend, or to No. 9 Park -- to eat at the bar and talk to the staff and other diners. It's all part of the work, Conlon says.

His parents had other plans for him, Conlon admits. His father, Michael Conlon Sr., was born in Ireland and put his three children through college running the Blarney Stone. ''My father had been at it all his life," the younger Conlon says, and he hoped for a different life for his children. ''For him, wearing a suit and tie seemed like a pretty good thing."

Conlon Jr. started out in finance after graduating from Stonehill College in Easton in 1989, but he quickly decided he missed the people part of the bar/restaurant business and its flexibility. He wanted to buy the Blarney Stone, but ''I don't think my father thought I was ready," he says. So he and Greene, who later married Conlon's sister, Eleanor, bought Buck Mulligan's in '92, naming it for a character in James Joyce's ''Ulysses." (He also has a brother, Daniel, who is with the FBI in New York.)

Over the years, Conlon and his various partners have moved away from bars, departing from the ''beer and a shot" model, he says, and have concentrated more on the food. Restaurants play a huge part in revitalizing neighborhoods, he says, pointing to the way lines of people waiting to get into the first tiny Olives in Charlestown in the early '90s helped change a gritty area into a residential mecca. Now the Blarney Stone attracts summer crowds to its outdoor patio in a very urban part of the city.

Conlon, who is 37 and not married (''I have a girlfriend," he says, without offering more), loves to travel. For the restaurants, he concentrates a lot on the food and the menus, he says, leaving the day-to-day operations to his partners. Though he might be in New York or Las Vegas or even South Africa, it's all part of trying to find ideas, to ''get better."

''You have to constantly fight complacency," he says, and avoid ''just assuming that [because] people came through the door last year, they're going to come through this year." As his partner Greene says, Conlon is ''always thinking outside the box," and it's paid off. ''People told us we were crazy" for renovating the Blarney Stone, Greene says; the partners have proved them wrong.

The future might hold more restaurants, Conlon says, but the lease deals have to be good, the premises and the area have to be right. He relies on his ''gut feeling" and asks around, talking to the bartenders, the suppliers, the neighbors -- a way to gauge whether a place might be for sale, even if it's not yet on a broker's list. Last year was a good one for his restaurant group; it brought in about $10 million to $12 million in business, he says, and January and February of this year were very good, despite the winter doldrums that hit most restaurants. ''There's definitely business -- you just have to go out and get it."

So Conlon, wearing his characteristic uniform of blue jeans and a sports jacket, goes on his peripatetic way, checking in at his places, ''putting out fires," talking to people. Best of all, he says, he gets to wear what he wants. ''I have one suit I wear to weddings and funerals," Conlon says. The suit and tie his father hoped for don't match his lifestyle or his restaurants. ''None of our places are like that," he says, his wide smile as relaxed as his outfit.

West on Centre 1734 Centre St., West Roxbury. 617-323-4199

21st 1509 Dorchester St., Dorchester. 617-436-8223

The Paramount 44 Charles St. , Boston. 617-720-1152

Peking Tom's Longtang Lounge 25 Kingston St., Boston. 617-482-6282

21st Amendment 150 Bowdoin St., Boston.