(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2022).
Armand Vanderstigchel, center, Tatty Vanderstigchel and Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim, right, cut the ribbon at Brasserie Benelux, March 4, 2022.
Brasserie Benelux, the central European-themed restaurant at 390 Broadway opened at a time and in a space when no one else wanted to, said operational partner Chef Armand Vanderstigchel on Friday March 4. He spoke after a pandemic-delayed ribbon cutting event. The restaurant opened about a year ago.
“I always said I want to open a restaurant in Saratoga, but it has to be on Broadway, and it has to be in the middle of Broadway,” the chef said.
When brokers were watching for him, a space opened up. It was the home to the Bamboo Cookhouse and before that the Crown Grill. What was one restaurateur's bad luck during the pandemic, was Vanderstigchel’s chance.
“Let’s say, if there was no pandemic, I wouldn’t be sitting here. Most restaurants here are owned by restaurant groups. They have three or four locations, so somebody would have snagged this up," he said.
He said that there were others looking, but his good credit, a clean New York liquor license, and experience elsewhere in the state, won the day. He was most recently the Executive Chef for the restaurants at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, near the historic location of the 1969 Woodstock concert, and at the Jolly Onion in Pine Island, New York. He has sold most of his stake in the Jolly Onion, he said.
[Flight Restaurant also used the pandemic to their advantage. Read more here.]
As well, he has written two books on Adirondack cooking and cuisine. Vanderstigchel is perhaps best known for the chicken wing. He has written a book on that, too.
But even for a man with his pedigree, it was a risk.
“Trust me, I would wake up every morning with a knot in my stomach,” Vanderstigchel said, adding that he was careful with money and now could write another book on how to open a restaurant during a pandemic.
If an investor says here’s $400,000, some people would blow through that without thinking that all the money needs to get paid back, he said.
To save money, there are choices to be made: a $200 chandelier or a $5,000 chandelier. You go with the lower price. Also, he said he kept inventory low and did not hire too many people so he would not have to pay them or lay them off. He kept the monthly bill down to the rent and a small electric bill he said, and he waited.
“I just was really careful with the money,” he said.
“We are a celebration of central European beer, cultures and food,” he said. Beers and food from the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Holland and Scandinavia are the focus. Various schnitzels to Swedish meatballs, to wurst platters and duck l'orange are sprinkled through the menu.
It’s the apple strudel that drew Michael Dunn and his husband Joel Rabina back. New to the area, they said they found Brasserie Benelux early and they kept coming because the service was great and the strudel was even better.
The Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce hosted the ribbon cutting.