Deli owner looks to play ball in Yonkers
 
When Georges Kuri hung his new business sign over his New Main Street storefront in Yonkers, neighbors noticed. “Kuri”™s Ballpark Deli,” it announces. There are baseball-themed sandwiches on the menu ”“ Bush-Leaguer and Bench Warmer and Caught Stealing and Joltin”™ Joe and Heavy Hitter among them ”“ but not a ball park in sight in downtown Yonkers.
That only exists now in an architect”™s drawings for River Park Center, the mixed-use development off Getty Square planned by Struever Fidelco Cappelli L.L.C. that includes a 6,500-seat minor league stadium directly across Nepperhan Avenue from the deli. The stadium looms in Kuri”™s vision for his startup enterprise. Across the busy avenue, shuttered shops along New Main Street stand at the gates to the small-business owner”™s field of dreams.
The sign went up about two months before the deli and caterer”™s opening in the three-story rental building Kuri owns at 204 New Main St. “People would walk by and knock on the window: ”˜Hey, is that ball park really coming? Do you know something we don”™t?”™” he said last week outside his 1,100-square-foot store.
“This almost in their eyes or their minds legitimized all the talk. People are excited about it in this area.”
All the talk about SFC”™s $1.6 billion downtown and waterfront redevelopment and the location of the planned stadium drew Kuri back to his native Yonkers to resume his family”™s tradition of enterprise there. After several years in telecommunications sales, most recently at Norcom Solutions in Thornwood, the 32-year-old graduate of Manhattan College decided he “wanted a shot at managing my own business.”
Yonkers seemed the opportune place for that.
The son of Jordanian immigrants, Kuri carried a legacy into his new venture. His late father, Ibrahim, ran a liquor store at the same location in the ”˜70s before converting it to a delicatessen. A tenant operated a bodega there, on a block lined with Mexican eateries and clothing boutiques and a Hispanic Pentecostal church, when fire heavily damaged the building in 2007.
For the Kuri family, “We were really out in left field,” said the deli owner. “We didn”™t know what we were going to do with the property.” After 18 months of renovations and construction and with a $175,000 business investment and five employees, Kuri opened Ballpark Deli.
“It”™s definitely a risk, a change of lifestyle, a lot more work. But it was worth a shot,” he said. “It”™s nice to build something from the ground up and see it grow. That gets you up in the morning.”
“My father had run a successful deli from here. Given the opportunity and location we have here across from the ball park, I knew we had a chance for a home run,” said the former college and semi-pro third baseman.
“There was a lot of talk amongst me and my family about what we were going to name it.” The roster of sandwiches ”“ Leading Off (a breakfast burrito) and Team Mexico and Double Play and High Heat and Darrrryyylll among them ”“ would have been trotted out “with or without the ball park,” Kuri said. “But the deli was named because of the ball park.”
Kuri has seen first-hand the urgent need for jobs in Yonkers. When he first opened, several residents each week stopped by looking for work there. “I can only imagine what a project like that (River Park Center) would do for work once those retail businesses come in” and during construction, he said.
Ballpark Deli draws about 80 percent of its business from the downtown lunch crowd, Kuri said. River Park Center “would put a lot more 9-to-5ers in the area” ordering from a modestly priced sandwich line-up that includes Mr. Met and Ball Boy and Tommy Terrific and Who”™s On First!? and The Ump and South Paw.
“I”™m not banking on that to make my living here,” he said of the ball park and larger SFC project, now caught in a double play of protracted negotiations over a land transfer agreement between the city and developer and frozen credit markets. “It will help, no doubt, but it”™s not going to make or break the business. I”™m hopeful it will happen and if it doesn”™t, I”™m prepared for it.”
Kuri suggested other development projects in Yonkers, especially Forest City Ratner”™s mixed-use Ridge Hill Village and Cross County Shopping Center”™s major makeover, might have made the downtown SFC project a bench warmer.
“It”™s unfortunate there might be a few distractions for us in Yonkers right now that kind of put this stuff on the back burner,” he said. “But it shouldn”™t be on the back burner. This is important to a lot of businesses. It”™s important to the development of Yonkers going forward. I think this one would be bigger and better” than those other projects.
The deli owner repeats like a business mantra a line from one of his favorite movies, “Field of Dreams.” “If you build it, they will come,” he says with conviction. “If you build it, they will come.”
He hopes city and SFC officials hear his plea and step up to the plate. As the name on his sandwich (salami, pepperoni, fresh mozzarella, roasted peppers, lettuce, tomato, house oil and vinegar and pesto) orders: Batter Up!!