Nicholas George Mancy

1969 - 2022

(News story)
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

Nicholas George Mancy, a one-time lawyer who changed careers to join his family's legacy Toledo-area restaurant business, died Monday in his Ottawa Hills home. He was 53.

He learned he had cancer in 2019. He was in hospice care at home since August, said his wife, Monica Mancy.

He was the proprietor of the Back Forty, a Sylvania Township catering business and event space. Working from home since June, "he continued to take care of things until two weeks ago," Mrs. Mancy said.

"Nick was one of the hardest workers I've known," she said. "He worked just as hard as his employees." And he called employees "family," she added.

His sister, Dena Harding, said: "He was as hands-on as they come."

Mr. Mancy began the Back Forty in 2016 as an offshoot of Shorty's True American Roadhouse, the barbecue-centric restaurant he helped found in 2003 as part of his family's Mancy Restaurant Group, which includes the well-known Mancy's Steaks on Phillips Avenue.

Most recently, the Back Forty became independent from the family restaurant group, and Mr. Mancy sold his interest in Shorty's to his former business partners - his oldest sibling and brother, Mike Mancy, and his cousin Gus.

During his illness, he reflected on the intense pace of restaurant work, the hours spent away from home, and decided a change was called for.

"I wouldn't wish it upon anybody to go through what I had to," Mr. Mancy told The Blade in 2021. "But to come out on the other side with better relationships and a better way of living - you've got to make the most of it. I feel like I did."

From the start, he ran Shorty's so well that it contributed to the reputation of the restaurant group, the older Mr. Mancy said.

"His hard work was 90 percent of it," he said. "He loved the fact that he carried on and hugely built upon our reputation, and I'll tell you that none of us knew much about barbecue when he came up with this idea. Barbecue is not an easy thing to master. He figured out how to do it right, he did it right, he continued to do it right, and he never went away from it.

"He was so well thought of and so well liked and very compassionate," the older Mr. Mancy said.

Their father, George Mancy, was a partner with his brother, John, for 33 years at what is now known as Mancy's Steaks, of which their father, Gus Mancy, was a founder in 1921.

He was born Feb. 26, 1969, to Sarah and George Mancy. He was a 1987 graduate of Sylvania Northview High School. He received a bachelor's degree in business administration in 1991 from Ohio State University. He always wanted to go to law school, Mrs. Mancy said, and was admitted to the University of Toledo, from which he received his law degree. He was admitted to the Ohio Bar in November, 1994, according to the Ohio Supreme Court online database.

He was an attorney for the American Federation of Teachers in Columbus for a time and then handled labor law for Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor.

"It was in his blood to be in the restaurant business," Mrs. Harding said. "It was what we grew up with and what he knew. He loved good food and liked making people happy."

Mr. Mancy enjoyed annual fall vacations with his wife to Las Vegas, spring family trips each spring to South Beach, and he remained a loyal Ohio State football fan.

"His sense of family was exceptional," brother-in-law Sanders Frank said.

Surviving are his wife, the former Monica Frank, whom he married in July, 1997; son, George Mancy; daughters Claudia Mancy and Margi Mancy; brother, Michael Mancy, and sister, Dena Harding.

Visitation will be from 3 p.m.-7 p.m. Thursday in the Walker Funeral Home, Sylvania Township, where funeral services will begin at 11 a.m. Friday.

The family suggests tributes to Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral or ProMedica Ebeid Hospice.