When the restaurant revival began in Peekskill, John Sharp got in on the ground floor.
The former Queens resident opened Birdsall House, a restaurant that pairs locally-sourced food with craft beers, at 970 Main St. with business partner Tim Reinke in 2010. The pair doubled down on the Peeksill restaurant market, opening Gleason”™s, a restaurant featuring unique cocktails and flatbread pizzas, at 911 South St.
Two years ago, Sharp told the Business Journal, “There”™s a lot going on ”“ a lot of people moving in, a lot of businesses opening.”
Since then, Sharp said, business has been great.
“Birdsall House is clicking on all cylinders; it”™s getting busier and busier,” Sharp said from a stool at Gleason”™s. “We”™re slightly challenged in the upper county, as far as population, and as far as a population that is a little more educated in craft beer and the gastropub scene.”
In spite of that challenge, Sharp said that the eateries have established a following and changed people’s tastes.
“It”™s funny, because it is higher in product and a better quality product, people have turned, so to speak,” Sharp said. “We”™ve not only got new people coming into the Upper Hudson Valley, but we”™ve also changed how people think about food and how people drink beer.”
In a way, Sharp is similar to a revival preacher, winning converts to the craft beer movement. “We (do) sell the big ones, we do have Budweiser,” Sharp said. “But it”™s always lovely to have a guy that starts with Budweiser, and then a year later he won”™t touch it with a 10-foot pole. It doesn”™t necessarily (mean) that he has to turn into a beer snob, just that he finds the taste for some malt or more hops or whatever else.”
Birdsall House aims to highlight the American craft brewer, and seeks to draw a clientele that wants to try a wider range of beer, including beers they couldn”™t find elsewhere. Gleason”™s drink menu focuses on wines, whiskeys and barrel-aged cocktails. The restaurant also serves flatbread pizza.
“Every Friday night, we do a little toast to Jackie,” Sharp said of a custom referring to his restaurant”™s namesake, the famous actor who once owned a home outside of Peekskill. “At ten o”™clock, everybody gets a little taste of something, and we cheer Jackie Gleason.”
The population increase has helped Sharp”™s business grow, but Sharp also sees more people visiting Peekskill from out of town. Peekskill has a good population base that has grown, but Sharp sees people coming in regularly from Mount Kisco and Dobbs Ferry.
“We”™ve had other business that have opened up and are opening up that are proof positive that Peekskill is becoming a destination,” Sharp said. “Peekskill Brewery has been great. As they”™ve expanded their brewery, they”™ve gotten into a lot of hipper, newer places in Brooklyn and Manhattan.”
That, according to Sharp, has gotten Peekskill into the minds of the city folk ”“ who then come and visit the brewery and see what the city, as a whole, has to offer.
“We keep thinking that we”™ve hit a ceiling, and it keeps growing beyond it,” Sharp said of the upward trend in his business. “We”™re definitely on the rise, but I don”™t think we”™ve come anywhere close to where it”™s going to be.”
