Bay-Gull Store owner Patrick Williams, who now works as a hotel doorman, quietly closed his beloved 19-year-old Broad Channel bagel store in January after pouring thousands of dollars into reviving the storm-ravaged cafe.
BY MELISSA CHAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Hurricane Sandy battered his store and crushed his dreams.
Bay-Gull Store owner Patrick Williams quietly closed his beloved 19-year-old Broad Channel bagel store in January after pouring thousands of dollars into reviving the storm-ravaged cafe.
“The hurricane killed us,” said Williams, who now works as a hotel doorman. “We put so much into it to reopen after the hurricane. After a while, it was just like, ‘enough is enough.’”
The savage storm surge in 2012 devastated the uninsured small sandwich shop on Cross Bay Blvd., destroying the ovens, display cases and refrigerators needed to supply the seaside community its signature cheese bagels.
Williams “pulled teeth” just to receive a scant $5,000 grant from the city. His family told him not to re-open, saying it would be too much work and too much money.
But in an ambitious move to save the store he bought from prior owners four years ago, Williams shelled out $40,000 of his own money to gut and clean it, redo the walls and buy more equipment to reopen one month later.
“I went to auctions with whatever money I had to try to get the best deals I could because I couldn’t buy brand new equipment,” said the 29-year-old, who spent nearly half his life in the food business. “I worked in a deli since I was little kid. I always planned on opening something.”
Year-long efforts to bounce back failed — despite a successful first month — and the bagels stopped rolling out early this year.
“We weren’t making a profit,” said Williams. “I reopened it and I just played catch up. I was never able to reopen it as it once was.”
Williams in February took a doorman job at Refinery, a hotel in Midtown, to make ends meet. He’ll leave his lifelong digs in Broad Channel Friday for a pad in Midtown to be closer to the hotel.
“I think about it every day,” he said. “It sucks to put so much hard work and then all of a sudden — boom! — the hurricane hit.”
The closure has also left former patrons lamenting the sudden loss of the cheese bagels, which came in spinach, bacon and broccoli variations and built up a loyal following from nearby residents and cyclists just passing through.
“They were incredible. Perfect. I had never had anything like that,” said John McKinney, 32, who used to bike from Greenpoint, Brooklyn and back for them. “This is a huge bummer.”
The neighborhood staple, built by Broad Channel native Charles Howard in 1995, was one of the few mom-and-pop shops left in the area, local leaders said.
“It’s truly unfortunate,” said state Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr. “It was traditionally one of those good local stores for Broad Channel.”
Broad Channel Civic Association President Dan Mundy Jr. said the storm put a “young guy trying to get ahead” over the edge.
“I knew he was working hard to get up and running after the storm,” he said. “All of a sudden, I went by one day and all the stuff inside was placed on the curb.”
Sandy killed the place, huh? Nothing to do with the short supply of stale, hard bagels, the cream cheese nazi, the generally unfriendly staff, and the horror-show of a satellite postal facility? Damn you, Sandy!
ReplyDeleteThat's too bad. I liked this place. It was a convenient place for me to pick up lotto, milk, whatever. Even bagels, which were always fresh for me. They did tend to run out of the plain ones early, though.
ReplyDelete