Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Zander Frost, Chronicle Chief Operating Officer
After 33 years John and Vicky Osakowicz have sold their Peppermill Restaurant — a South Glens mainstay in the Midtown Shopping Center — to local couple Chris and Jennie Dore.
The Osakowiczes are natives of Poland who came separately to the U.S. at the age of 9. In 1990 they bought the former Lum’s and turned it into The Peppermill. John ran the kitchen, Vicky ran the front of house of the family restaurant known for affordable prices and long-term, friendly staff.
“I’m really excited to have a partnership, because before it was more isolated,” Jennie said, saying she and Chris were like “ships passing in the night.”
Chris said they aim to keep the “essence of what the Peppermill is now and just transforming it a little bit — keeping their family and morphing it into our family as well.”
Jennie said he has “had business plans since we were dating. He’s wanted to do this forever. And we’re both entrepreneur people.”
John and Vicky Osakowicz emigrated from Poland to Connecticut as children.
“Bridgeport, Connecticut, specifically, was a very big industrial area,” John said. “Huge corporations, GE, Remington Arms, Sikorsky, AVCO, that was a big area of manufacturing, especially for the war effort….
“They brought in a lot of immigrants, there was a huge, huge melting pot,” he said, including large Polish, Italian, German, and Portuguese communities.
“We met at one of the Polish dances,” John said.
“He thought I was a lot older,” Vicky laughs.
He said that in high school he studied food prep in a BOCES type program, taught by a chef who had stayed behind when the Culinary Institute of America moved from New Haven to Hyde Park.
John cooked for three years in the military, he said, moving quickly through the ranks, “based on my culinary background.” From there, he ran the kitchen at his brother’s fine dining restaurant in Connecticut for 14 years.
He learned “all segments from fast food to fine dining,” he said.
All the while, “I was just a little old hairdresser,” Vicky joked. And stay-at-home mom of their three boys. Kris, Jasiu and Jeff are now 49, 46 and 44, respectively.
“We used to vacation in Lake George,” Vicky said and tried for some time to move here. They applied to different jobs, including the Queensbury Hotel, but “the pay scale was so different from what he was making…we couldn’t afford that.”
Until one day, sitting poolside at a Lake George hotel, she said “he picked up the paper and saw the Lum’s for sale.”
The chain had gone under, and local franchisee Dan Godin was liquidating his “three Lum’s,” in South Glens Falls, Queensbury and Saratoga.
John said they chose the one in South Glens Falls. “We did our research as far as affordability, schools, church, hospital …a very ideal place for us to raise a family, because we moved up there with three young sons.”
“And it was year-round,” Vicky said.
They said it was in rough shape and took a few years to become a success.
Vicky said there was an initial rush when they posted the restaurant was under new management. “The lines were crazy….I waitressed…I had no choice. I never waitressed in my life,” she said.
John said, “I originally started implementing some of the fine dining aspects into that Lum’s format, but that did not work. Eventually, six months later, we changed it to our own format. That was The Peppermill.”
Their “concept,” said John, “because we have the flexibility, is to put out an affordable meal based on the income level in the area.”
“Listening to the customer is very important,” he said. “If they want certain meals, we’d be more than happy to provide them.”
John said people didn’t know what a Bechamel or Bordelaise sauce was. “They wanted comfort foods,” like “stuffed peppers and Yankee pot roast.”
“I said, alright, I’m going to take off my chef’s hat and put a business hat on.”
The comfort foods of choice have changed, “but we have that earlier experience to still adapt to whatever the public wants. That’s what we did for 33 years.”
“Now it’s more like quesadillas, wraps,” Vicky said. “Younger people, even middle age, they don’t know some of the meals like stuffed peppers.”
The Osakowiczes credit both the community and their employees for the Peppermill’s 34-year run of success.
During Covid, John said, they got their entire staff together “and their spouses” who’d lost their jobs and asked “do we shut down, or can we make this happen?”
“Out of 28 employees, we only laid off three,” John said. “All the employees got so involved in this whole process — we delivered, we did anything possible. We actually were doing equal amount of business. But that’s due to our employees only.”
Vicky said customers sat “in the parking lot with chairs and blankets just to order from us to support us.”
“It’s really, fortunate that we have long- term employees,” John said. “Without the employees there, we would never be as successful.”
“What the basic employee needs — they want to earn enough money to meet the financial needs. They want to be appreciated and complimented and respected for the job they do. That formula we put into effect for years — that helped to generate a family concept restaurant,” John said.
It resonated. “People come from Vermont, from Albany, that’s as far as they travel to come to the Peppermill,” Vicky said proudly.
Selling the business is a bittersweet moment for John and Vicky.
“You know when to move on,” John said. After reaching their financial goals and some health issues, they’ve been trying to retire for around three years.
“We might as well take whatever youth we have left,” John said. “49 years we’ve been married. We’ve survived —”
“Not only married, we worked together too!” Vicky interjected, laughing.
For 33 years, John ran the kitchen, Vicky ran the front of house of the family restaurant known for affordable prices and long-term, friendly staff.
“And now to leave it — that’s going to be a little bit of a hardship for us,” John said.
Their middle son Jasiu is staying on to work with the new owners.
Chris estimates it will take at least six months to learn the “community they’ve built around the Peppermill, and the patrons.” Eventually, he said, they’ll update some systems and put their own touch on it.
“At the essence of it, the core that’s there is what’s most important,” Chris said. “And then taking different avenues of where we see business could expand.”
Chris said staff is “one of the most important things you need…You need your staff to be like family.”
“Doesn’t matter how good your food is, it comes down to the people that work for you. And when we heard their story, it was like, we want to be a part of that, hands down,” Chris said.
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