Campaign Trails is our new weekly series in which we talk to business owners, would-be politicians and locals about their thoughts on the city as we head into the municipal election.

On a Sunday afternoon in January, politics is not the first thing on Louis Nemes' mind. When I spoke to him last month, the owner Bistro on Avenue was much more concerned about the afternoon NFL game – or more accurately, how to turn his popular Lawrence Park wing joint into an appropriate base for fans of the Denver Broncos.

In the kitchen, staff are busy concocting a perfect game-day recipe. By the bar, Nemes' trusted manager, Cindy Stern, is puzzling over how to put a cowboy hat on a toy horse. The bistro is so bestrewn with Bronco orange and blue that I almost fail to notice that Nemes has made a more permanent switch in decoration. The front of the restaurant, once a shrine to Nemes' campaign to bring Rob Ford to the mayor's office, now sports only a few restaurant reviews.

When I ask a bartender about the missing Rob Ford articles, she laughs. "It's a long story," she says.

In the spring of 2010, when Rob Ford was just an Etobicoke councillor, running for mayor alongside nine more recognizable names, Louis Nemes endorsed him. Then, Bistro on Avenue founder and the "Louis" of St. Louis wings, put together a postcard series of Ford with north Toronto small business owners and local taxpayers. The postcards were meant to be a populist riff off of similar postcards that George Smitherman had released featuring the frontrunner standing alongside politicians and Liberal power brokers. Nemes' campaign caught the attention of the Toronto Sun, among some other papers, and soon he became a central figure in what could be described as Ford Nation North. In October of 2010, Ford was elected mayor, and Nemes displayed the Toronto Sun articles about his role in the campaign proudly.

After we sit down to some coffee and "rocky mountain pizza," Nemes tells me that after the crack scandal, the pictures had to come down. When the story broke in October of 2013, Nemes wasn't sure what to do with the article, but acting on advice from some of his customers – many of whom are lawyers and parents to young children – Nemes decided it was better to be safe than sorry. Now he and manager Cindy Stern are very happy that they went that route.

"That scandal was handled very badly," says Nemes, who is in his mid-70s. "He could have handled it better, like Bill Clinton. He came out of his scandal well."

"Well," Stern interjects. "You have to remember that Bill Clinton was brilliant."

"Yes, Bill Clinton was brilliant," says Nemes. "So you see it's a very different situation."

Nemes says he was initially attracted to Ford for his hard-line, fiscal conservative views. "Like most small business owners, I don't like too much government. I don't like red tape." When Bistro on Avenue applied for a patio, he says it took the city almost a year to approve their request.

When he was 18, Nemes came to Canada as a refugee of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. After the popular uprising was brutally put down by Soviet forces, he was forced to flee. First he escaped to Austria, then made his way to England, before arriving at St. John's. When Nemes arrived in Toronto in the February of 1957, he had only $1.70 in his pocket. 68 years later, he is the owner of Bistro, and the inspiration behind the growing St. Louis franchise. When you escape communism and pick yourself out of poverty to build a thriving wing business, Nemes says, you "tend to gravitate towards conservative politicians."

But Ford's recent behaviour, he says, has been "worrisome."

"I'm hoping that another centre-right candidate gets into the race," he says. "The problem is that Ford has lost some weight, he's looking pretty good. And also, he's a celebrity now. If it's just him and the left-wingers… I think that lots of people might vote for him again."

The cure for City Hall, says Nemes, is more candidates.

"Just a few weeks ago I was telling a customer here, a former cop, that he should run for office, and he told me he would really think about it," he says. "We've got to get fresh blood out there."