Citing slow business, Daley’s on Yates will close next week
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Citing slow business, Daley’s on Yates will close next week
Daley’s on Yates in Schenectady will close after a farewell party on June 17. The restaurant opened in a gut-renovated former taxi garage a few blocks from City Hall. The turn-key business and 6,500-square-foot building at 10 Yates St. had been quietly being shopped for months. Less than half of the staff of 16, including management and in the kitchen, are full-time at the restaurant.. The final a la carte dinner service is Saturday. A graduation/Father’s Day buffet will be served from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. A farewell party with drink specials and complimentary food will be held from 4 to 9 p. m. Tuesday, June 17, at the same location. The asking price for the building is $1.6 million, Jim Pettit, a partner in the parent company, Troy-based Daley Hospitality Group, said.
SCHENECTADY — The restaurant Daley’s on Yates will close next week almost exactly seven years to the day after it opened in a gut-renovated former taxi garage a few blocks from City Hall.
Jim Pettit, a partner in the parent company, Troy-based Daley Hospitality Group, said Monday that slow business and staffing issues led to the decision to close now, after Father’s Day and graduation weekend at nearby Union College, but the turn-key business and 6,500-square-foot building at 10 Yates St. had been quietly being shopped for months. The asking price is $1.6 million.
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“It’s strictly a business decision,” Pettit said. “Except for thinking about how this will affect the staff, who could get jobs tomorrow if they wanted them, I don’t feel bad about having to do this.”
After the restaurant last week announced its forthcoming closure, “Customers were telling (waitstaff) that they knew where they could get jobs,” said Stephanie Pettit, who is married to Jim Pettit and is the company’s director of marketing, catering and human resources. Less than half of the staff of 16, including management and in the kitchen, are full-time at the restaurant, which recently has been open only Thursday to Saturday for dinner.
Said Jim Pettit, “Since COVID, business hasn’t been terrific and wasn’t going up. It was time to take advantage of the asset” — in other words, sell the building. But, he said, “If we don’t get any significant interest (from potential buyers) by January, maybe we’ll completely change it and bring it back as something different.”
The final a la carte dinner service is Saturday. A graduation/Father’s Day buffet will be served from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, and a farewell party with drink specials and complimentary food will be held from 4 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, June 17.
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Saying that the average lifespan of a restaurant today is seven to 10 years, Jim Pettit said, “It’s not like used to be, when a restaurant would stay open for 50 years. People are always are looking for what’s new, for something different.”
Further, he said, the Daley restaurant group is working on other projects he was not yet ready to identify that would make managing a Schenectady restaurant difficult because of the distance. Other DHG holdings include Daley’s on Crooked Lake, a seasonal restaurant and event venue in Averill Park; The Snow Man ice cream stand in Lansingburgh; a food truck; a busy catering operation based at its Troy headquarters; and The Delaware Restaurant & Bar in Albany, home to the company’s star chef, Elliott Vogel, whose resumé includes running the kitchens at Siro’s in Saratoga Springs and Jack’s Oyster House in Albany. Vogel was also the founding chef of Daley’s on Yates, hired in 2017 and on staff for more than a year until its opening on June 21, 2018.
Jim Pettit said the company is financially strong overall and is pleased with growth at The Delaware. Given those factors, continuing to run a money-losing entity like Daley’s on Yates was imprudent, he said.