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!!
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