CT restaurant works to make new name for itself. It comes amid ‘huge’ push for new national park

There is so much potential.

The owner of the former J Restaurant Bar, a landmark in Hartford’s Washington Street hospital district for a half century, hasn’t shied away from pushing into new territory: in the pandemic, the restaurant erected gazebos in its parking lot for socially-distant dining.

Now, the Italian-style restaurant is gone — replaced by a massive parking garage for a soon-to-open expansion of Connecticut Children’s — and owner Jordan Dikegoros has traded the vibe of Washington Street and its traffic for the Colt Gateway redevelopment just south of downtown, more of a destination with apartments and offices.

Four months ago, Dikegoros opened J Bar and J Under the Dome , tapping into what he describes as a calm, safe atmosphere with great views of downtown, spectacular sunsets — all with plenty of free parking. And it’s close to the location of the original J Restaurant Bar, Dikegoros said.

“It’s a three-minute drive to come down here, but when people are working at the hospital, there’s a family there and they’ve got someone in the hospital, they’re not going to leave that vicinity,” Dikegoros said, during a recent tour at Colt. “So that’s the part that is missing for us.”

But he also sees the potential of Colt with its location just off the highway for visitors and its base of apartment dwellers and office workers.

Dikegoros — the “J” in J Bar —  said, “It’s an easy landmark to tell people where you are: ‘Have you ever driven down 91 and seen this blue dome off the highway? Well, we’re right there.’ ”

And then there’s future visitors to the planned Coltsville National Historical Park.

“That would be huge,” Dikegoros said.

The opening of the national park — backed by federal lawmakers more than a decade ago and first envisioned a decade before that — could finally come early next year. Key to those efforts is the donation of two, one-story, brownstone sheds in the complex for a visitor center, built in 1855 and the oldest surviving structures.

Not J Restaurant Bar

Dikegoros, 60, said he always expected to start a new venture when J Restaurant Bar closed in July 2024, its roots in a pizza shop opened by his late father, Nicholas, in 1970. Earlier this year, Dikegoros purchased the tap room and separate event space at Colt from Bloomfield-based Thomas Hooker Brewing Co., which was moving in a different direction with its business.

So far, Dikegoros said he has invested about $500,000 in the purchase and the new businesses.

Key in Dikegoros’ decision was the event space, J Under the Dome, the new hub of his well-known catering business and expansion into the event business. So far, the space has hosted more than two dozen events and, at the same time,  is introducing some visitors to Colt for the first time, Dikegoros said.

He also is working to carve out a new personality for J Bar in the old brewery tap room in the South Armory on Huyshope Avenue that features a more limited menu.

“I know the biggest disappointment out there is is everybody’s expecting it to be a J Restaurant Bar, which we’re not,” Dikegoros said. “We’re J Bar. And the reason why we call it that is we’re not trying to be J Restaurant Bar. We don’t have a fryolater. We don’t have a grill, but we are trying to put out some nice meals.”

For customers craving J Restaurant Bar’s signature chicken riggies or spicy fried calamari, Dikegoros said he is considering “pop-up” events at J Under the Dome. The event space that is located about a two-minute walk away in the North Armory. J Under the Dome does have the cooking equipment to prepare menu items sought after at the original J Restaurant Bar.

“We’ll announce it and say, ‘Hey come down after work,’ ” Dikegoros said. “‘There’s no event there.’ We’ll put out a menu of some of our favorites that people enjoyed getting. But it’s not going to be something they can always count on — for the event space to be available.”

The new businesses do trade on the good name of J Restaurant Bar — and even some of its furnishings.

When the restaurant on Washington Street was demolished to make way for the parking garage, Dikegoros salvaged everything from furniture and artwork to decorative wainscoting and booths, and he placed it all in storage. They’ve now been incorporated into the new spaces. Even the hood and grills from the old restaurant now have been installed in the event space’s kitchen.

“We put out our patio furniture,” Dikegoros said, on the patio outside J Bar. “Our whole outside looked like my restaurant. So you walked up, and it was like, ‘I recognize all this stuff.’ It’s just a different  space.”

There was even talk about bringing the gazebos back, which are still being stored.

“And I’m like, ‘Well, where would we put them?’ ” Dikegoros said. “We could put them on the patio, but we’ll see what the future holds.”

That future also could include a new, full-service restaurant back at the hospital district, possibly as a tenant in the storefront space planned for Hartford Hospital’s new parking garage, Dikegoros said.

‘Odds are very favorable’

The launch of J Bar and the event space comes as the establishment of the national park is closer than it has been in more than a decade.

In the last year, the National Park Service and the office of U.S. Rep. John Larson — a longtime proponent of the national park — have been working with the complex’s developer to seal up the final details for the donation of the brownstone sheds to the NPS, a move seen as the last step in officially opening the park, officials said.

Kelly Fellner, NPS superintendent of the Coltsville National Historical Park, said, in an email, that the NPS has “prepared everything in advance so we can continue to move forward when [the developer] is ready. We are all still dedicated to following congressional directions and law as outlined in the authorizing legislation for Coltsville National Historical Park and I am hopeful that park establishment could be early in the new year.”

Colt Gateway developer Larry Dooley, owner of Hartford-based CG Management Co., said he shares a similar outlook.

“I would say the odds are very favorable that it will happen next year,” Dooley said.

If that takes place, it still could be at least several years before the visitor center is open to the public because the brownstone sheds will require extensive renovations, Concerns have been raised about the stability of the brownstone structures in the past, but they are holding together, Dooley said. Shoring up the sheds alone could cost at least $1 million, by one estimate.

Larson’s office did not respond with a comment for this story.

Dooley and his investor partner, the tax-credit arm of energy giant Chevron Corp., took over stewardship of the complex in 2014. Of the 250 apartments in the complex — spread across five buildings — half have been created since 2020, with current occupancy of all the residential rentals at 98%. Rents range from $1,325 for a studio to $3,400 for a two-bedroom apartment.

Commercial leases historically were a significant piece of the leasing puzzle at Colt. But in the aftermath of the pandemic, businesses downsizing their space needs as more of their employees spend at least part of the week working at home, demand has weakened at Colt as it has in the heart of downtown Hartford.

Already, Colt has converted some former office space, including a floor in the East Armory — topped with the blue, onion-shaped dome — into apartments and more may be on the way, Dooley said.

“At one point, we were probably about two-thirds commercial, one-third residential,” Dooley said. “Now, we’re two thirds residential and one-third commercial. What we’ll continue to see — we know there is going to be a reduction in commercial and an increase in residential.

Dooley said one example is the commercial lease downsizing by longtime tenant Insurity, a software company, from 75,000 square feet to 12,000 square feet, leaving a huge vacancy.

‘This was our space’

Dikegoros said it was his decision to sell J Restaurant Bar, something he had considered at various times, as far back as the early 1990s. That was before Connecticut Children’s was even built and the neighborhood, from his perspective, was in decline. But with the opening in 1996 of the children’s hospital, Dikegoros saw a surge in business. He began acquiring surrounding properties to add parking and build his investment in the area.

After three years of negotiations, Dikegoros sold the properties for $7 million to LAZ Parking, which built the garage with over 900 parking spaces. Some days, Dikegoros said he looks back on the decision with a bit of regret, but he said it was the right thing to do, not standing in the way of the hospital expansion.

Dikegoros said he would consider opening up another full-service restaurant in the Washington Street hospital district, but not in a storefront in the new parking garage. The space is too small and wouldn’t make financial sense.

However, Dikegoros said he has had some early discussions with Hartford Hospital about the possibility of opening a restaurant in one of the storefronts in its new garage, now under construction. The garage was designed more as an “arrival center” with services such as restaurants. A potential lease could combine the right amount of space and financial incentives, Dikegoros said.

Such a restaurant could easily pair with the businesses at Colt, particularly the event space, Dikegoros said.

Dikegoros said he still has a strong connection to the corner of Washington and Lincoln streets where his restaurant once stood. He remembers relationships with employees at both Connecticut Children’s and Hartford Hospital — and the families of patients, especially longer-term stays.

“It’s still emotional when I go by there and I look at that space and go, ‘This was our corner,’ ” Dikegoros said. “We took a tour of the garage a couple of weeks ago. We stood exactly in, like, where the restaurant space is supposed to go into. We looked out the window, and this was our space.”

Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at [email protected].