Naples-raised chef Todd Johnson to launch new restaurant in his hometown

Todd Johnson is coming home. 

The lifelong chef and restaurateur is planning his next venture in the city where his culinary career started: Naples. He and his wife, Dana, plan to open a 150-seat concept in early 2022, although they’ve not yet disclosed a name or exact location. 

“This is something we’ve been wanting to do, by we I mean my wife and I, for quite awhile,” Todd Johnson said. “We actually almost did it six years ago, but we didn’t pull the trigger because Rumrunners was such a beast.”

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Rumrunners, the Cape Coral restaurant Johnson and his business partners opened in 2003, will close by year’s end after its landlord declined to renew its lease. Johnson said he still doesn't know who or what will be taking Rumrunners' place at Cape Harbour. The pending closure has elicited a range of emotions in Johnson. He said he’ll miss his many longtime employees, but he’s also excited to finally take this next step — one that will keep him much closer to home. 

Johnson has lived in Naples since he was 10. He graduated from Naples High School. He helped launch the Naples Olive Garden when he was still a teenager. After graduating from Johnson & Wales University in Miami in 1994, Johnson worked his way into high-end kitchens in downtown Naples and on Fifth Avenue South. 

In the 1990s and early 2000s, he left his hometown to open restaurants in Fort Myers (Bistro 41), North Naples (Aqua Grill), Tampa (Mia’s) and, most recently, Rumrunners in the Cape. 

He’s spent the last couple of decades commuting north. With this new concept, those long drives will be behind him. 

“The food’s going to be all the upscale food I do at charity events and wine fests every year, the stuff that I do for specials at Rumrunners,” said Johnson, who's taken part in the Naples Winter Wine Fest and SWFL Wine & Food Fest for more than 15 years.

“My style, what I really love, is global cuisine. I don’t lock in on any one thing, it’s the best of everything.”

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While Johnson declined to name the Naples neighborhood of the new restaurant, he said it would complement the area’s dining scene nicely. He pointed to places such as Osteria Tulia, which focuses on Italian cuisine, and Sea Salt, which concentrates on seafood and Mediterranean fare, noting that he and his wife’s concept would be less specific, melding influences from around the world. 

“I think what we’re going to do is unique,” he said. “We’re going to offer such a nice mix of food, and I think we’ll have a great market for it.”

This isn’t the first time Dana Johnson and her husband have worked together. Dana Johnson comes from a restaurant family and has worked in the industry since she was a teenager. The couple team up often for charity events. They raised two now-adult children together, and, way back in the early 1990s, they met while working at the aforementioned Naples Olive Garden. 

“We actually opened that location,” she said. “He was back of house, I was front of house.”

Thirty-some years later, the husband-wife team will be working together again — at their restaurant, in their hometown, with a menu they’re equally passionate about. 

“We’re just really excited,” Todd Johnson said. “Rumrunners ... it’s been a very huge success for us, a very busy restaurant, but it hasn’t allowed me to fully do what I want to do. 

“This is the perfect excuse, with the lease not being renewed, to move on. It’s bittersweet for sure, but really I think, for me personally, it’s more sweet than bitter.”

For more on Rumrunners' upcoming anniversary and final months in business, visit rumrunnersrestaurant.com. 

Annabelle Tometich is a staff writer and food editor for The News-Press and Naples Daily News. Email atometich@news-press.com; connect on Instagram (@abellewrites) and Twitter (@atometich).