The Iron Horse Pleasantville, a 63-seat restaurant in the 110-year-old former Pleasantville train depot, reopened recently with a ribbon-cutting reception that attracted civic and business leaders who embraced the refurbished venue as both village anchor and superb eatery.
“We”™re gonna make this train roll,” said Pleasantville six-year Mayor Peter Scherer, who helped cut a ceremonial ribbon with restaurant co-owner Andrew Economos as well as William Flooks Jr., proprietor of Beecher Flooks Funeral Home and president of the 188-member Pleasantville Chamber of Commerce.
- Andrew and Judith Economos. Photo by Bill Fallon
Scherer praised co-owners Judith and Andrew Economos”™ nearly two-month renovation and now yearlong tenure as Iron Horse building and restaurant owners, saying, “Pleasantville put a great building in capable private hands. Their private investment has unleashed this renovation. It”™s sleeker and more modern, but every bit as good as always.”
Pleasantville is home to the Jacob Burns Film Center, with which the Iron Horse has a dinner-and-a-movie arrangement; a bustling farmers market; and restaurants that include all-natural, Asian, Indian and fusion Indian-French menus.
Judith Economos”™ canvases and sculptures serve to decorate the dining area and enhance the romance of trains as iron horses. She embraces the literal in depictions of the depot”™s past and the abstract with her galloping horses on the wall of the building”™s former telegraph office and on the front door.
Andrew Economos designed the new space, which includes Economos-made mahogany wine racks and bar, about six months of woodworking effort. With a doctorate in math from UCLA and a work history with the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs, his eye for restaurant detail remains as exacting as was his eye for the two-part lunar excursion module, on which he worked. The wine racks, for example, showcase the entire bottle, not just the neck and cork; top-drawer wines are retrieved with an old-style rolling library ladder, another Economos detail. The new bar is bigger and more convivial. The telegraph office provides a private-room dining space.
The space since 1998 has been the Iron Horse, run by Phil McGrath, who had leased the building from the village.
The menu is seasonal American, changing quarterly, with an additional monthly regional theme, including the likes of Santa Fe and New Orleans. This month it”™s Miami, and that means stone crab empanadas and classic Cuban black bean soup, among other specialties.
“We have a lot of good things, a lot of different things,” Andrew Economos said of the fare. “I also do quality control. Whatever is on the menu that I haven”™t tasted, that”™s what I”™ll go for.”
Scherer said, “I”™ve eaten here many times. I almost always get the duck. I would not hesitate to recommend it to your readers.”
The building was twice moved to accommodate lowering the Metro-North tracks in the village, a project that began in the 1950s. “We are extraordinarily lucky at the time the railroad cut was made that the building was saved,” Scherer said. “It can”™t have been an easy job to move it.”
After the ribbon-cutting, Judith Economos greeted patrons and prepared for a busy Friday night. “It”™s been a lot of fun,” she said of the new look. “All his life Andrew has had his projects and his business life, and here you can see how talented he is. He did a damn good job.”
The Scarsdale couple also owns Iron Horse Larchmont on Chatsworth Avenue. Andrew Economos said the Pleasantville venue gets mostly Westchester County traffic, but the Larchmont restaurant actively draws from Fairfield County as well. Another Economos eatery, the all-natural Pony Express to Go, is across the street from Iron Horse Pleasantville.
