(Credit: Gordon Woodworth, 2023)
The classic sign outside Massie's Restaurant, a beacon for generations, will not be lit for the time being.
Massie’s, the historic Italian restaurant in South Glens Falls, has closed for at least three months, maybe four.
Jonathan Greenwood, the great-grandson of a former Massie’s waiter who purchased Massie’s in 2016, made the announcement exclusively to FoothillsBusinessDaily.com Monday afternoon, Feb. 20.
“Last night was our last night,” Greenwood said emotionally, “We are closed for now. I need to remember who I am again. The future is uncertain. Ideally, we will reopen down the road, but not the same way I’m doing it now.”
Greenwood bought the 94-year-old restaurant from Pat Russo. He remodeled and expanded, dramatically changing the interior while keeping many of the traditional dishes that generations of diners have enjoyed.
He sat at the corner of the new Massie’s bar as he spoke about his turn at the helm
Greenwood, 38, said business is booming with 220 dinners a night and $1.5 million in sales last year. He said his goal when he was 12 was to own his own restaurant by the time he was 30, and he missed it by two months.
“It’s been seven-and-a-half years of going all out, but I’m burned out to zero. I’m working 70, 80 hours a week. I’ve got to recharge. I have no quality of life anymore.”
The last two years have been especially hard.
His front-of-the-house staff - waiters, waitresses, busboys, bartenders - isn’t the issue. It’s finding and keeping kitchen help. In the last month alone, he lost three dishwashers he lost three dishwashers who just wouldn't show up for work. And those are the ones he can hire.
Finding staff can be nearly impossible, and they do not want to work for the pay he can afford, he said.
“I had one chef who I trained and had for three years who just took another job for family reasons. That was a big blow,” he said. “I can’t find anyone besides me to work in the kitchen and it has become overwhelming with no end in sight.”
[Restaurants have faced worker shortages in high numbers since the pandemic; the post-pandemic pivot; 100% capacity is a dream; looking at 2021 and beyond.]
Many restaurants are struggling to keep staff as the state mandates how much they must pay wait staff.
“It’s the reality for a lot of restaurants,” he said.
He said his focus has always been on the quality of the meals and less on making money, but he finds it “grueling” now.
“Keeping this going for the regulars who have been so faithful has been wonderful. I don’t care about the money. I have never cared about the money,” he said. “I care about the quality of every meal that goes out of our kitchen.”
He said telling customers and employees last night that he was closing was “the most emotional thing I’ve ever been through. We are packed every single night we are open. It still feels like I’m letting people down.”
He said many of his employees told him this was the best job they ever had, and were so positive when he told them of the decision to close temporarily.
“It makes me feel like I did right by them,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. “It devastated me but also lifted me up.”
He said one employee told him, “Thanks for treating me like a human being.”
He said he has taken only two vacations in the last seven years, and has never taken a sick day.
“My brain is mush right now,” he said. “You hope there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but the darkness just grows and grows.”
Ralph J. Russo opened Massie’s in 1929 at the onset of the Great Depression. Ralph Russo, known as Massie, passed away in 1992, and his sons Bobby, Ralph Jr. and Pat took over. When Bobby Russo died in 2011, Pat Russo came out of retirement to run the restaurant until selling it to Greenwood in 2016.