Chris and Molly Todd at their newly renovated Wayne restaurant and bar. In 25 years, Christopher’s has weathered recessions, snowstorms, a global pandemic, staffing crunches and rising costs. “We have good, consistent food,” says Todd. “We’re not a Michelin-Star restaurant.”
From the moment Christopher’s opened on North Wayne Avenue 25 years ago this week, it was love at first bite.
Finally, a local spot for familiar fare, solidly-executed, well-priced and family-friendly.
Mom could unwind with a Chardonnay, Dad with a Yuengling.
Even with kids in tow, Christopher’s felt like a night out – a respite from the chaos of a Chuck E. Cheese, the corporate uniformity of a Chili’s, the harsh lights of a Minella’s.
As often as not, you’d spot a familiar face.
A parent you’d met on the sidelines.
The kid down the street somehow old enough to wait tables.
A workout buddy from the gym.
And anchoring it all, a low-key couple: Molly Todd at the door with a welcoming word; Chris Todd, in his white chef’s coat, popping in from the kitchen for a quick hello.
It felt comfortable. Easy. Like home but without dishes to wash.
Christopher’s: A Neighborhood Place was the new restaurant’s full name and it lived up to it.
It still does.
But success – in the early going – was far from assured.
The Todds were already still knee-deep in the restaurant next door. They had partnered with a friend to take over the La Fourchette space (now Blue Elephant) three years earlier but neither the upscale French bistro, Fourchette 110, nor its successor, the tapas-focused Vivo Enoteca, had taken off. (Each lasted three years. Vivo would close in 2004.)
This photo from 1975 shows Christopher’s as a gift shop. The circa-1928 brick building housed Venice Café, the first restaurant on the block. Decades later it would become La Fourchette, Fourchette 110, Vivo Enoteca, The Freehouse, Mims Food + Drink, Matador and most recently, Blue Elephant. (Radnor Historical Society photo)
When the Todds took over the lease of what was then Studio B, a toy store, they would be solo owner-operators of their own restaurant at last. Their vision was simple: Give North Wayne Ave. what it lacked: a friendly bar and tasty food for all ages – that wasn’t pizza.
They poured heart, soul, sweat equity and a pile of cash into the multi-month buildout.
Christopher’s debut on Monday, Feb. 5, 2001 – in a snowstorm, no less – was hardly auspicious.
On his way to work that day, Chris’ Ford pickup slid and crashed into a guardrail at a Blue Route onramp.
Six months pregnant with their first child, Molly rushed out to rescue Todd. She didn’t even have time to wash her hair before that crucial first shift.
“We were really short-staffed because of the snow but we opened the doors and the people came,” Molly recalls. “It was what we wanted but a little bit crazy during the moment.”
Filled with mom-and-pop retailers, North Wayne Avenue was hardly Restaurant Row in those days.
The old Wayne was a little “stodgy,” Chris recalls. Food options were limited.
Paola was already pumping out pizza at what was then Bravo.
Across the way, The Cheese Alley would continue to sell sandwiches and savories for five more years.
Wayne Tavern was serving basic bar food at what is now the Great American Pub.
Around the corner, Gryphon Café had opened five years earlier, an instant hit.
It was bustling Teresa’s Café, with its polished Italian kitchen and then-BYOB policy, that signaled better dining days ahead. (It would take decades for Teresa’s Bar Next Door, Alessandro’s, Cornerstone, Elegance, Spread Bagelry, 118 North, The Goat’s Beard, Blue Elephant, The Pub et. al. to take root and flourish.)
Named for owner Chris Todd because Molly’s sounded like an Irish pub, Christopher’s opened in 2011, well before North Wayne Avenue’s restaurant explosion. Adjacent Blue Elephant – the street’s most recent culinary addition – opened in 2023. Chris Todd appreciates that the street, whose buildings date back to the late 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, doesn’t look homogenized. “It still has a small-town feel.”
Early on, a few merchants grumbled about losing parking to Christopher’s customers. But the wider community embraced the new dining spot from the start.
In short order, “A Neighborhood Place” had become a neighborhood institution.
Parents who used to come in with their kids started bringing grandchildren.
More than a few third-graders who made pizza at Christopher’s during elementary-school walking tours of Wayne returned for jobs as teenagers.
At least a dozen staffers fell in love. The Todds remember six “Christopher’s weddings,” including one on-site. A current hostess, Mila Bennett, chose to work where her parents had met as Eastern and Penn State students.
Todd, 54, and Molly, 55, are A-OK with intra-restaurant romances. After all, they fell for each other at Manayunk’s Sonoma in the early ’90s when Molly was a hostess and Todd was a line cook.
“Everyone knew about us and nobody cared,” Chris says. “There was no HR back then.”
Still, Molly has a rule that survives to this day, he says. “No touching in the restaurant.” Their wedding kiss in 1998 was the first time their then-boss, restauranteur Derek Davis, had seen them embrace.
Akil Waters has tended bar at Christopher’s for the last decade. A handful of his coworkers have stayed for 15 years or more.
It didn’t take long for the Todds to become the most local of locals. They moved out of Belmont Hills, settled in Wayne and sent their two kids through T/E schools. Todd quickly joined the Wayne Business Association (WBA) where’s he’s served on the board for years with stints as president.
“He’s the unofficial Mayor of Wayne,” Molly says, only half-joking.
Over the years, Todd has led the WBA’s push for outdoor dining, street upgrades and parking lot repairs.
He helped craft signature town events like the music festival in June (then a Jazz Fest), Radnor Fall Festival and the Wayne Tree Lighting.
He cultivated a we’re-all-in-this-together feeling among business owners – a record 300 of whom are now members of the WBA. “Everybody feeds off everybody else.” Chris says.
When Christopher’s is full on weekends, Molly sends customers to Main Point Books (and teens to Free People Movement) to await texts that their tables are ready.
But what about all those new restaurants? Aren’t they competition?
Not at all. The Todds welcome them.
“It’s good for the town,” Molly adds. “When I go out to eat, I like to have options. I like to have a drink somewhere, then go somewhere else to eat. It’s boring to have one destination.”
The couple’s only real detour from Wayne was a second location in Malvern Borough from 2013 to 2020. It closed during the pandemic after the corporate crowd started working from home.
“We got out clean,” Chris recalls. “We paid our people. We used the [PPE] money for what it was supposed to be used for.”
The biggest exit hurdle was breaking the news to longtime King Street photographer David Campli and Posh Collections owner Tina Corrado, who are to Malvern what the Todds are to Wayne. “It was sad to close it; we felt guilty,” Molly offers. “I told them we’d done everything but it’s not sustainable. We needed to return to our mothership and keep it going.”
The Todds have since doubled down on Wayne.
In partnership with Ken Kearns’ Cadence Real Estate Advisors, they finally bought the Christopher’s building, along with three adjoining storefronts in 2021.
Todd and Molly toasting their restaurant’s 21st anniversary during the COVID shutdown. The community rallied to support them with takeout orders throughout the pandemic. Their secret sauce isn’t “fancy,” says Molly. “We know our customers. You come in with five kids. You don’t care where the server is standing. Just get the order, give me my drinks and get the food out.”
And last month, the Todds unveiled the mothership’s most extensive facelift in 25 years.
“When we cut through the bricks, we didn’t find any bootleg money in the walls. I was so pissed,” jokes Molly.
The biggest change is the bar, which feels more grownup. Parents no longer ask to sit there to watch the game because there’s a wall of new TVs in the dining room. So kids are no longer sitting on bar stools – the PLCB told the Todds that had to stop. And no one is traipsing by the bar looking for the bathrooms, which were wisely relocated to the old Pat’s barbershop, which the Todds have taken over.
There are spacious new booths – a first for the bar. And a taller dividing wall more effectively blocks the din from the dining room.
“It’s been nice to see people, our age and up, coming back, rediscovering us and just coming to the bar to hang out,” says Molly.
Once a late-night hangout for area hospitality workers, bar business remains solid but dies off earlier. “No one stays out late now,” Chris says. “Our slam period is 5 to 7.”
To keep things hopping later, the Todds are also trying TV Quizzo on Thursdays and acoustic acts from 8 p.m. on weekends. They might even resurrect happy hour.
Another big improvement: Grubhub and Uber Eats drivers no longer clog the front door. All pickups are handled in the old barbershop.
One day, customers might see another Todd taking care of Christopher’s: Molly and Chris’ younger child, Collin, who’s studying business and hospitality at Virginia Tech.
“Collin told me, ‘Dad, when I come back, it’s to own it.” And I said, ‘OK, sounds like a plan. But start saving up, buddy; Mom and Dad need a pension,’” says Chris, eyes twinkling.
With or without Collin, Christopher’s will carry on. “We never wanted to just open and close restaurants, We always wanted to be a steady part of the community.”
Working under the same roof for three decades, Molly and Chris know to “stay out of each other’s hair … As we say to the lawyers, ‘We’re in too deep to get divorced now,’” Chris deadpans. “We’re not going anywhere. I’ll probably be bussing tables when I’m 90.”
Great article on this couple. Yes the hospitality industry is tough and I will say, though, I miss their presence in Malvern being a resident of Paoli. That space still stands empty. Any thoughts of a return??You would be most welcome. Seriously!
Lovely article. Miss the restaurant so much in Malvern! Great offerings for outside lunches, bar, and dinner in Malvern. I don’t get to Wayne as much as I would like for dinner.