Community Support ...

Ever since we bought the Gunk Haus, and started renovations, people stopped by to find out who these crazies are to take on such a project.

You see, the old Hollywood Bar has had its history. It was a hopping place in its time, but has been neglected ever since its owner died six years ago. His wife wasn't too interested in it.

So it had been a bit of a sore spot for a while, but now these two kids started cleaning things up, changing things around, that caught people's attention.

Many people who drive by wave, honk, or give us the thumbs up. You feel like the whole neighborhood is waiting for us to open.

We also get a lot of unsolicited support, like from our neighbor Joe (no, not the one I had talked about before, but everybody around here is named Joe or Jim), who stopped by out of the blue (as usual), and lent us a tool for stripping the old paint off the siding. Or there is our neighbor Billiam of Liberty View Farm, who offered us to promote our restaurant through his extensive email list. Then there is Joe (that's the one), a retired baker from Long Island, who gave us advice, tips and recipes for pretzels and bread making.

Our presence also seems to have a positive impact on the community. Rich, a real estate broker and developer, bought a house two doors down, fixed it up, and it is now on the market. He told us that he would have never done that, if it weren't for us opening a restaurant. Or our dear neighbor Evelyn, who along with others started a Clintondale beautification project.

I don't want to take credit for all this, but I feel we have a positive influence on the community, which is a great feeling.

Dirk