On the coveted corner of Capitol and Virginia streets, he owns Bar 101, Ichiban and the adjoining storefront. Also on Capitol, he owns the stalwart Sam's Uptown Café and the building housing the Edge, the bar he started on a shoestring 24 years ago.

Reared in modest circumstances on Davis Creek, he recalls his awed reaction to the tall buildings when he journeyed to Charleston at age 16 to apply for a dishwashing job at Ernie's. He never dreamed five of those buildings would someday belong to him.

He credits his success to a lifelong work ethic instilled by necessity after the untimely death of his father. Luck helped, of course. To put it his way: "When you work hard, you get lucky."

He turns 52 on Aug. 25.

"I grew up on Davis Creek, in a little cinderblock house my dad built when I was 3. My dad was a salesman for A&I Supply. We lived next door in my grandparents' house while my dad built our house. My grandfather was Glenn 'Shorty' Hill, an old-time plumber in Kanawha City.

"I was a small kid. My grandfather was 5-foot-1. I was scared to death I wasn't even going to be his size. I didn't become taller than him until I was a sophomore in high school.

"My mom and dad married when she was 15 and he was 21. Mom was very strict, and we had a lot of chores. That gave me a good work ethic. My first job outside the house was delivering lunch orders for Ford's Pharmacy in Spring Hill. I was 12 that summer. I would make $3 or $4 a day in tips, delivering lunches in South Charleston.

"I got my first induction into the restaurant business when I was 16. I saw an ad in the newspaper for a dishwasher at Ernie's Esquire. I'd only been downtown a handful of times. I remember walking to Ernie's and marveling at how big some of the buildings were. I worked at Ernie's from 5 at night until 1 in the morning.

"Maybe the restaurant business was in my blood somehow. My grandparents owned Hill's Coffee Shop in Marmet in the mid-'50s. My grandmother got sick and asked my mom and dad if they would take it over. They sold it to the Eplings in 1958, the day before I was born.

"My dad died when I was 16. He had a sudden heart attack on Christmas Day. He was 45. When he died, he didn't have any insurance because he had high blood pressure his whole life, so the paycheck quit coming in. Mom went back to school and took legal secretary classes at State and got a job with a law firm. It was a pretty tough time.

"I went to Marshall. I paid my way through four years of school but never graduated. We didn't have anything, so I was more into having a job. I wish I had gotten my degree.

"I would work summer jobs to pay for college, and I made a lot of money shooting pool. It was nothing for me at Marshall to win 15 or 20 bucks a night shooting $1 a game.

"I worked for Cleveland Plant and Flower six days a week between my freshman and sophomore years, and pumped gas on Sunday. I had five days off that whole summer.

"I got a good job in '78 with Charleston Construction, $7.42 an hour. They were building a section of Interstate 79. I worked two different summers doing that.

"I've always had a good work ethic. That helped me getting in the bar business.

"I wrestled in high school and was on the team at Marshall for a year. A friend asked if I would help with the team at GW. They called me the statistician. A teacher who was called the coach went to matches with us and took care of meal money and things. I ran the team. We were KVC champs, 13-0, my second year and other coaches voted me coach of year even though I was called the statistician.

"I needed a job after wrestling season. One of the dads called Dave Fleming at Muldoon's. They put me to work as a cashier. The first weekend, they needed a bar-back to stock the bar and get ice and take out trash. They noticed that I had a rapport with the customers and trained me as a bartender.

"I was there from '81 to '82. I did a couple of stints at Fitzgerald's and the Charleston House, then opened Bennigan's, trained their bartenders.

"For a couple of years, I was in the oil and gas business, doing title searches and leasing property. It's a cyclical business. When I got laid off, we opened The Edge in July of '86.

"We started on a shoestring. I didn't have any money. There were two partners, Mike Hackl and Rick Miller, and they asked me to manage it. Within a week, Rick said he would sell me his half for what he had in it, $5,000. I had $2,000 saved from guiding whitewater trips while I was in oil and gas. I said I could pay the other $3,000 after the Regatta.

"All of sudden, I was half owner of a bar downtown. Business was slow the first six months. We put in a dance floor and hired a deejay and started surfing on the bar and blowing fireballs, juggling, anything to make our place interesting. We turned the corner that December.

"We didn't serve food the first two weeks at the Edge because we had to save up money to stock the kitchen. I've served food on this street ever since.

"I bought out my partner at the end of the first year and I had it until '99. I bought the building in '91. I bought a building in Huntington in '92. I had three bars in Huntington. In '93, I bought a building in Beckley and had a bar there. In '95, I bought the Sam's building.

"I bought the building in May and we worked our tails off to get it open right before Regatta. It opened Aug. 23. On the 24th, the Edge caught fire. Regatta started Aug. 25, my birthday. So on my birthday, I was sitting on the curb watching that building burn. But I did have two bars operating on the street before Regatta started going downhill.

"I leased out the Edge in '99. Tenants come and go because nobody has the work ethic.

"My 15th anniversary at Sam's will be Aug. 23. Sam's serves food until 2 a.m. 365 nights a year. Sam's hasn't closed a single night in 12 or 13 years.

"On Dec. 30, 2004, I bought these three buildings, 101, 103 and 105 Capitol. Foreclosure was starting on the Mulligan's building the first of the year, so it was kind of 11th hour. I was lucky to get it. I've been lucky to buy all these buildings. Buildings downtown that are good buildings don't change hands much.

"I've always wanted this corner. This is the best corner for a bar in the state. This building has such a history. It goes back to Belle's, then Cheers. Years ago, it was a pharmacy.

"We had been toying with putting in an Asian restaurant. When these buildings fell in our lap, it was perfect. The first thing we did was renovate 101. Then we renovated the next two buildings.

"Ichiban opened June 13, 2005. We have a sushi bar, but it's not just a sushi restaurant. We have a niche no other place around here has.

"My wife, Laura, quit a good job to run this restaurant. We really enjoy it. It's all in how you treat people. And you have to appreciate your employees. We say they work with us instead of for us.

"Last year, we read in the paper that the funeral parade was going to be history for lack of a sponsor. I called Charlie Miller and we scurried around and put the thing on. We're going to continue that this year.

"People look at me and probably think it's been easy, but you have setbacks in your life, and it makes you stronger. My dad gave me a better work ethic because I had to pretty much do everything myself.

"My first marriage didn't work out. I have a daughter who's autistic. Last September, I had open-heart surgery. I'd never had any chest pains. So I was lucky.

"I just started my 25th year owning bars and restaurants on this street. When I was walking down this street looking for a dishwashing job at 16, I never thought I'd own one building on this street, much less five. So I've been lucky in business too. When you work hard, you get lucky."

Reach Sandy Wells at san...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5173.