Hidden, unique Chesapeake restaurant Ddeb’s closes its doors forever

Ddeb’s A Taste of Home never felt quite like a restaurant.

The Chesapeake eatery, tucked amid tall trees in a near-century old home on a Great Bridge side street, felt instead like a hidden secret you were privileged to know, a place where literally everyone had a standing invitation to pop by for a literal home-cooked meal of she-crab soup or liver and onions.

The walls at Ddeb’s were filled with the sort of paintings your grandma might hang: cherubs with their eyes toward heaven, dappled forest glades in autumn. At Christmas, you might wander in to find brightly wrapped presents under a decorated tree.

But on Saturday, after nearly seven years in business, Ddeb’s served its final meals to its many regulars, a night so busy it required a reservation.

Though this year has taken a terrible toll on restaurants in the region, popular Ddeb’s is not a victim of COVID-19. Its owner, Debbie Toth, decided more than a year ago it was time to retire.

“When I reached age 60, I said there was more in time behind me than in front,” said Toth. “I told myself that when my husband retired, I would retire at the same time.”

Toth placed her restaurant on the market in late 2019. And while she hoped she could find someone to carry on the tradition of running a restaurant in the little two-story home, the new owner will instead turn the home into office space.

The closing puts the cap on 40 years in restaurants for Toth, who grew up in Connecticut before moving to Chesapeake in 2002.

The house at 105 Old Dr. had been a tea room before Toth opened Ddeb’s in July 2014.

“It was a perfect fit,” she said, “a nice quaint house. The first few years were rough, but we got ourselves on the map though word of mouth and Yelp. People felt like they were coming into a friend’s house.”

Alongside coastal Southern classics like crab cakes and shrimp and grits, the restaurant also served its own personal takes on down-home fare, including a crab-stuffed rockfish, gorgonzola prime rib and maple walnut chicken.

“I keep it simple with comfort food and try to bring a smile to the customer’s face, and maybe a few ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs,’ " she told the newspaper last year. “Thumbs-up are always good, too, especially from our littles. That’s what I call our youngest customers.”

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The littles, she said, are the customers she’ll miss the most — she’s felt privileged to watch many of them grow up.

“Seeing them, hugging them and playing with them was the best part of this journey!” she wrote in a Facebook post on the day of her closing. “I consider all of them to be my surrogate grandchildren.”

But now, Toth said, after settling her home affairs and putting her restaurant equipment up for auction, it’s time to move back to the Northeast to be with her family, and eventually visit some relatives in French Canada once she’s polished up her language skills.

“I always wanted to learn how to play the piano, and relearn my French and Spanish. I was not a very good student,” she said.

The final night was full of goodbyes. But after that, Toth said she’ll be looking forward.

“It was bittersweet, for sure,” Toth said. “Saturday was a little sad. But Sunday morning I woke up and felt a great weight lifted off my shoulders.”

Matthew Korfhage, 757-446-2318, matthew.korfhage@pilotonline.com