Scott Johnson is a man about town. After founding his first business in 1993, the ever-popular Riverwest hangout Fuel Café, Johnson went on to have a hand in the creation and continuing success of a variety of restaurants and coffeehouses.

Many, like Comet Café (recently featured on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives”), are now East Side cultural institutions. Johnson recently took time out of his busy, down-and-dirty managerial schedule to have a chat with the UWM Post about the direction of the East Side and just what it’s like to have a direct hand in so much of it.

The UWM Post: To start off with, give us some background information. What are the businesses that you own?

Scott Johnson: My partner Leslie and I are together in everything, but the ones that we’re partners in are Fuel Café, Comet Café, Hi-Hat Lounge, Hi-Hat Garage, Balzac, Bel-Air Cantina, Palomino, and Honeypie Café.

Post: Are you founders of those places or did you acquire them somehow?

Johnson: We founded all of them.

Post: And what’s the oldest of those places?

Johnson: Fuel started in 1993.

Post: What is it like to own so many important businesses?

Johnson: [Laughs] It’s pretty great, it’s a pretty great job. We work with really great people and every day is different. I, myself, handle everything from maintenance and building and design to many developments in marketing, fixing toilets, plumbing and grease traps. So you get to do a little bit of everything.

Post: How long have you had a foothold on the East Side?

Johnson: Comet was the first one; that was in 1995.

Post: What’s the difference between running a business in Riverwest, like Fuel, as opposed to running one on the East Side?

Johnson: Riverwest is its own thing. I don’t know if you’ve been over there, it’s kind of a different burgh. It’s way more bohemian, more mixed ethnicities, a lot of students, a lot of families. They’ve got a pretty tight community over there. The East Side does too, but it’s a bigger thing; Riverwest is kind of its own enclave. It’s kind of small, whereas the East Side encompasses a lot of overlapping neighborhoods.

Post: Is there a difference between running a business between the two neighborhoods?

Johnson: Not really, you’re just dealing with different kinds of people. All in all, it’s the same: I’m just trying to serve good products and make people happy.

Post: Lately some East Side businesses you own like Comet and Hi-Hat have been significantly modernized while Fuel has stayed the same pretty much from the time it was founded.

Johnson: Fuel did get a little bit of an upgrade like four years ago, but basically it’s been the same. But that seems like what people want. Since it was the first one, we’re kind of attached to it the way it is. But that’s not to say it won’t change, there are actually some bigger changes we’ve been talking about for next year.

Post: What was the impetus for upgrading Comet and Hi-Hat?

Johnson: You’ve got to stay up with it; we can kind of tell when people’s interest starts dropping off, and our interest too. We want to keep it fun to do ourselves. It’s a business but it’s also an art project. We like to keep recreating and upgrading. So far it’s worked out.

Post: How much of an influence would you say local arts and culture have had on your businesses as they’ve grown?

Johnson: Pretty huge. We’ve always been into the local art, music, and film scene. Over at Fuel they have Riverwest Film & Video next door. There’s a recording studio in the basement, and we have art studios. We do small installations with UWM architecture students, and we’re doing another project with the next generation of UWM architecture students at Balzac. We like to stay involved.

Post: How have you seen the Brady Street area in particular change over the years?

Johnson: It seemed like it was really taking off and then it plateaued for a while, and in the last year or so it seems like there are some good changes afoot.

Mike down at the Nomad [World Pub] is always doing big events, like last year’s event on the street for the World Cup. Brady Street Festival is getting bigger and bigger every year. It’s just a good group or merchants over there, just a good neighborhood and community. Just in the last year there’s a new vibe and some new energy over there, and I really think it’s going to be a good couple of years. We’ve got a new thing we’re doing there next to the [Hi-Hat] Garage in the parking lot: a beer garden that we’re going to be building. That’s going to be a big thing for us and a pretty cool thing for the community, too.

Post: How much of a hit did you see the recession take on any of your businesses?

Johnson: It was pretty huge in the beginning, and it feels like it’s starting to bounce back a little bit, but it was pretty significant and I feel like everybody felt it in a huge way. At the same time, I feel like, before the crash hit, banks were sort of giving away money to anyone who wanted it, so it seemed like there were a lot of businesses going up that weren’t all that well thought-out. It was good to see people getting into business, but I feel like, at a certain point, it just reached saturation.

Post: How long do you think the recession will continue to be an influence?

Johnson: As long as the construction industry, which seems to be pretty big in Southeast Wisconsin, is depressed, I think that’s going to be the biggest thing. As long as housing doesn’t bounce back, it’s going to continue to be an issue for pretty much everyone. I think it’s definitely coming around, though. People are finding new things to do and everyone’s getting pretty creative starting their own businesses, which is good. It’s definitely coming around, but it’ll continue to be an issue for a little while.