WEST SPRINGFIELD — The restaurant business isn’t for everyone, especially those who don’t have an appetite for risk. But even as a huge percentage of restaurants fail in their first year, two iconic local eateries have survived for decades, overcoming odds that would have struck down many others.

Caffeine’s opened on Memorial Avenue in West Springfield in 1990. The first menu was handwritten on a notecard and featured little more than thin crust pizza, omelets and cappuccino.

Artists hung out there, and so did their work. The place was popular with the broader community, too, and what was once a husband-and-wife café evolved into a full-service, award-winning restaurant.

In 2005 Caffeine’s closed and the owners retired. The business remained shuttered for 17 years until Amir Bhatti, one of the original employees, reopened it as Caffeine’s Midtown last December in a new location at 240 Westfield St. in West Springfield.

After nearly two decades, a change of address and a new name, Bhatti reports that Caffeine’s customers have returned like the place never closed. Their loyalty has not diminished, and business has been good, he said.

“These people were in their 40s when they came to Caffeine’s years ago. Now they’re in their 60s and their faces light up every time they walk in the restaurant. After they have their dinner, they pass by the kitchen to say hello. This was the place to be back in the day, and it still is,” said Bhatti.

Bhatti says he didn’t do any advertising when he opened last year. He knew people would find out the restaurant is back — and then they would tell their friends and family. He was right. The business is building on word of mouth.

Caffeine’s Midtown offers dinners, lunch and brunch. The menu follows a fusion theme, said Bhatti, who is also the chef.

“It’s American fusion with a California touch and lots of greens. It’s a lighter version of food. After you eat, you still feel fresh. I make everything by scratch, it’s all local,” he said.

Bhatti’s new restaurant occupies the Westfield Street storefront formerly known as The Cup, an eatery taken over in 2015 by Partners Restaurant of Feeding Hills. Though Partners’ owners — the West Springfield couple Mark and Sue Tansey — decided not to reopen Partners @ The Cup after the COVID-19 restrictions lifted in 2021, the original location is still going strong.

Mark Tansey said he opened Partners Restaurant and Catering on Springfield Street in Feeding Hills in 1984. The business did well until a fire shut it down in 2014. Reopened the next year, Partners had a good run until COVID-19 forced another interruption. Tansey offered curbside service during the pandemic emergency, eventually reopening the restaurant a third time when he was able.

“It’s been tiring and mentally draining,” Tansey said. “I have great employees who came in and cleaned after the fire. They also did everything they could to help us survive COVID. I’m very lucky to have a staff that is fully behind me.”

Like other restaurants, Tansey has dealt with supply chain problems but found creative solutions. If he needed napkins, he traded with a fellow restaurateur who needed Styrofoam cups, in a bartering economy that lasted more than a year.

Inflation is the foe now. Tansey has raised some of his prices, but rather than hiking them all, he’s shifting the focus of his menu.

“If something has a higher profit margin, I put that on special and pull back on lower-profit items,” he said.

Customer support

Between the time Bhatti left Caffeine’s and brought it back as Caffeine’s Midtown, he was scrambling to keep his career on track. He earned a degree from the Connecticut Culinary Institute, worked in several restaurants as a chef and taught at Branford Hall Career Institute — he even built up and sold a restaurant.

Bhatti says he knew the time had come for him to renew and relaunch Caffeine’s. It’s where he got his start as an apprentice to the owner. Today he wants the show to go on, and so do his customers.

“The restaurant is very much in demand. Every time I came across old customers, they said they wanted me to reopen the place,” he said.

At Partners, the customers there are loyal, as well. After all these years they’re still coming back for American breakfast and lunch “including the classics and trendy specials using local farms and vendors,” said Tansey.

Each restaurant’s owner knows community support has kept them in business.

“Whenever I go out for a meal, I try to go to the little guy to take care of them,” said Tansey. “I don’t mind spending a little more because I understand what they’re going through.”