Tim McNitt
Rehoboth’s status as a culinary destination can be traced back to a handful of brave entrepreneurs. These people risked it all to bring a fine dining sensibility to a beach town that up to then seemed perfectly happy with big breakfasts, hamburgers and pizza (not that there’s anything wrong with that!).
Many of Rehoboth’s top restaurants lead back to one source. Forty years ago when the Marvel Guest House on Rehoboth Avenue became the Back Porch Café, the original partners and chefs shared a common goal, best summed up a few years ago when co-owner and executive chef Leo Medisch told me, “You’ve got to be willing to spend the money for the very best ingredients. You can’t shop pennies when it comes to specialty meats, fresh fish, local produce, spices, and quality olive oil.”
Leo also made a point of crediting Chef Tim McNitt as “the guiding force for dinner.” A lot has happened since then, and Tim is now the kitchen boss; keeping Leo’s legacy alive with an almost obsessive regard for the quality of every dish. And that regard is evidenced by the accolades bestowed upon the restaurant, most recently the Delaware Restaurant Association’s coveted Cornerstone Award. McNitt had some big shoes to fill, and he doesn’t take that lightly.
Tim was born in Louistown, Pa. He shared a tiny one-bedroom home in the mountains with his parents and four brothers. Three sets of bunk beds accommodated the boys, with either mom or dad alternately filling the sixth bunk. The family eventually moved into a three-bedroom home in Elizabethtown where Tim attended high school. In fact, he progressed so quickly through school that he attended his senior year in high school and his first year of college at the same time. He laughs as he tells me that he had a part-time job as a busboy, but was fired on his first night because he used the word “ain’t” when conversing with a customer. “That was my first, and what I was sure would be my last restaurant job.”
His course of study was in theater arts, specifically set design, but he got bored and left after the first year. By now it was the mid-‘80s, and he landed a job working with the FDA collecting information about a deadly outbreak of chicken flu. His job was to collect the afflicted chickens from the farms to facilitate research into the disease. During that time he also ended up back in the food business as a waiter in a Victorian hotel. The facility operated a theme restaurant in a warren of catacombs beneath the building. Servers dressed in costumes and the décor was a work in progress. Tim’s love for theatrics and set design came to the fore as he helped them create their upscale décor; even designing and stenciling their own wallpaper.
After a job as a prep cook, he worked in the kitchen at Molly’s Pub in Lancaster, Pa. Perhaps restaurants were his calling after all. But he was dissatisfied with the places where he worked. Cooking in a kitchen—well, a successful kitchen—is the essence of teamwork and cooperation. Tim had no patience for drugs, alcohol, or self-serving shenanigans on the job. “When you’re working in a kitchen, you are basically choosing your family,” he says.
Tim had been to Rehoboth Beach before, and set up what he thought was a job and a room at one of our fine-dining establishments, but three days later, when he showed up with his luggage and knives, the kitchen personnel had changed and they had no idea who he was. Nothing if not resourceful, he got a room by the Boardwalk, grabbed a dining guide out of a store, and was hired to cook at Iguana Grill by then-owner Beale Thomas. When Beale sold the operation, Tim went through a difficult time—even sleeping in his car—but landed on his feet in the kitchen at Sydney’s in 1997.
It wasn’t long before a Back Porch kitchen employee suggested that Tim apply to work at the seasonal, notably upscale restaurant. And he did just that. He and Executive Chef Leo hit it off, even to the point of Leo allowing him to stay at his Lewes home until he got settled. In those days, being a guest in Leo’s dining room was considered the Holy Grail of gastronomic delight, and in Tim’s words, “I learned as much watching Leo cook at home as I did at the restaurant.” That was over 16 years ago.
He has stepped up to the plate when it comes to taking over the responsibilities left behind by his old friend and mentor. Thanks to Leo’s careful hiring practices, the Back Porch Café kitchen welcomes pretty much the same crew every spring, so everybody works together smoothly to maintain the standards set over the last forty years.
After his lifetime litany of unsatisfying kitchen jobs, Executive Chef Tim McNitt loves the Back Porch Café and he loves the beach. “I’m home,” he says softly. “This is where I want to be.”