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SCHENECTADY
Cooking up something different With Schenectady eatery Aperitivo, owner Angelo Mazzone follows successful recipe of creating ‘intriguingly unusual’ restaurants
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

   It’s not enough for Angelo Mazzone if a project is billed as a challenge. It has to look so impossible that bankers reject him and onlookers tell him he’s crazy.
   But his latest venture is such a risk that even he didn’t want to try it at first.
   “He said, ‘I’m not doing anything in downtown Schenectady,’ ” business partner Paul Sciocchetti recalled. “He really wanted no part of a downtown project. But deep down inside, he’s a Schenectadian. He had a soft spot for it, but we had to find a way to get to it.”
   Mazzone, 54, is a Long Island native. He now lives in Clifton Park, but he did spend the first decades of his business career working in Schenectady.
   So every morning, after they lifted weights, Sciocchetti would talk up the downtown resurgence, trying to convince Mazzone to come back to the city.
   “I had maybe 15-minutes, half-anhour conversations, while we were in the hot tub,” he said. “We got there — he signed on before anyone, before the movie theater, before Proctors.”
   However, Mazzone swore he wouldn’t start work until Proctors was done and he saw steel at the theater site. Only now is he putting the finishing touches on Aperitivo, a tapas bar designed to provide quick meals before a show.
   While trendy, tapas — which consists of small, appetizer-sized plates — isn’t commonplace fare, and Mazzone isn’t sure how it will play in downtown Schenectady. But no one else has any worries.
   “It’s not so much that he has great ideas,” Sciocchetti said. “There’s a lot of people out there with great ideas. He can just get anything done.”
   Everyone who meets him seems to come away with the same impression.
   “He’s one of those people who seems to be successful at everything he does. I think he just works really hard,” said Metroplex Development Authority Chairman Ray Gillen, architect of the downtown economy. “He’s a very busy person.”
   Sciocchetti added that when he got to know Mazzone, six or seven years ago, he learned immediately that the man doesn’t slow down.
   “He’s in fifth gear all the time,” Sciocchetti said. “That’s his secret. He just doesn’t stop till he gets to the finish line.”
   Sciocchetti and others who meet Mazzone now believe he can accomplish anything. After all, he’s never failed before. But the successes came nowhere near as easily as they now appear.
   He started the first pub at Union College, then gave up a lucrative career there in 1981 to buy a little diner in downtown Schenectady.
   “I was really, really nervous about the investment I made. I wanted to do it just as [the previous owner] had done it because I wanted to be successful,” Mazzone said.
   The only trouble was, doing the same old thing didn’t make him happy.
   “Three or four months into it, I said, ‘This is not my kind of place.’ ”
   So he ripped out the counter at Peggy’s Diner, putting in tables, chairs and a bar.
   “We just changed the whole concept,” Mazzone said. “Pretty much that’s how I run my businesses today. I come in one day and say, ‘We’re ripping this out.’ ”
   His changes were a tremendous success. Business at Peggy’s quadrupled.
CONFIDENCE BOOST
   That gave him the confidence in 1988 to take an even bigger risk: the renovation of the Glen Sanders Mansion in Scotia.
   “My concept was the restaurant needed to be on the water. It’s not the water traffic, it’s the view,” he said. “I thought this was a great location. Every bank turned me down.”
   He finally got one banker — a personal friend — to offer him a partial loan. He scraped up the rest of the money himself, even selling Peggy’s to make ends meet.
   “I was absolutely worried then. I remember during the process of building this place, I couldn’t afford to go to the movies,” he said.
   The work eventually went $500,000 over budget. Then when he finally opened, customers complained. The food wasn’t good enough. And even if they liked it, they thought the portions were too small.
   “I didn’t think we’d make it,” Mazzone said. “We just worked harder.”
   He haunted the mansion, interviewing every single customer, trying to learn how to run an upscale restaurant.
   “Remember, when I took over Glen Sanders, I came from Peggy’s. I cooked hamburgers and french fries,” he said. “At Peggy’s, my philosophy was buy the cheapest meat.”
   His new customers were eager to list his faults. He didn’t defend himself.
   Instead, he made massive changes, rethinking much of the operation. Customers noticed, and his business soared from $500,000 a year to $4 million.
   And still he didn’t rest. In 2005, he opened Angelo’s 677 Prime, an Albany steakhouse for those who want a $50 cut of meat. Business leaders assured him that no one in Albany would pay that much for a steak.
   677 Prime is now the busiest independent restaurant in upstate New York.
   With that success under his belt, he’s taking on Schenectady again, going back to the diner he had to sell when he scraped up the money for the Glen Sanders Mansion.
   “I was really, really nervous about downtown Albany,” Mazzone said. “I’m equally nervous about Schenectady.”
   So why does he keep betting on long shots?
   “Not for the money,” he said with a laugh. He has more successful businesses than he can count — in addition to the restaurants, he does all of the catering for Hall of Springs, Saratoga National Golf Club and the Inn at Erlowest on Lake George. He’s also a co-owner of a real estate development company called Westmere Realty.
   But as he described his reasons for opening his restaurants, it became clear that he liked them because they weren’t a sure thing. Instead, they were intriguingly unusual.
   “We’re trying to do something different,” he said. “I’m very selective.”
   In fact, Aperitivo isn’t innovative enough, in his mind. After all, no one’s laughed at him yet for this latest restaurant venture, which he took on mostly so that he could buy back the building he had to sell in 1988.
   He’s trying to make Aperitivo as different as possible.
   “The decor is really funky. Very high booths, high chairs, bright colors, more of a lounge feel,” he said. “The top of the bar is crinkled glass, lit from underneath.”
   He’s also building an open kitchen, so patrons can watch the cooks.
   “With the food network, everyone wants to see people cooking,” Mazzone said. “All of the desserts will come from the front of the line.”
   He’s happily designing a new menu that he expects will cater to customers heading to shows at Proctors or Movieland.
   “We have to gear our menu to much quicker and smaller plates. People don’t want to eat that much before a show,” he said.
   But it’s not innovative enough.
   “If it wasn’t where we started, I probably wouldn’t have picked it,” he said, admitting he couldn’t pinpoint any tremendous differences between Aperitivo and the other restaurants in Schenectady.
   “Maybe it’s not too different. But it’s a rebirth and I want to be part of it,” he said. “I just think the restaurant in the urban setting is going to be great. And the apartments are unbelievable.”
   Locals have scoffed at his plans to rent luxury apartments above the restaurant for $1,500 and $3,000, a reaction Mazzone has come to expect when he announces a new project.
   “People always say I’m crazy,” Mazzone said. “But there’s a lot of reasons to do things differently.”

At the Glen Sanders Mansion in Scotia, Mazzone, right, talks with general manager Sean Wilcox about some lunch entrees.

MARC SCHULTZ/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER Angelo Mazzone stands in his new restaurant, Aperitivo, which is still under construction in downtown Schenectady.

MARC SCHULTZ/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER Angelo Mazzone checks in with his son, Matthew Mazzone, who is chief financial officer of the Mazzone properties.

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Kudos to restaurateur who helps community
First published: Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Many people recognize Angelo Mazzone as the most successful and prolific restaurateur in the Capital Region, but do not realize how much he actually enriches our community.
Not only does he provide leadership as a board member for the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Center for Economic Growth, and as board chairman for The Chamber of Schenectady County, he also greatly improves the economy and quality of life for all our residents through his business ventures.

     
More importantly, he constantly shares his success with our less fortunate citizens by providing assistance to nonprofit organizations.

Most recently, as announced in the Times Union, the grand opening for his new restaurant Prime at Saratoga National was held June 28. Those attending raved about this spectacular celebration, because no one knows how to throw a party like Angelo and his staff. But the best part of this event is that he partnered with the Times Union Hope Fund, and raised $35,000 for needy children in our region.

He did not have to do this, but Angelo is always giving back. He has staged thousands of special events for nonprofit organizations in our region, and always makes in-kind contributions to their worthy causes. In so doing he provides an example for all local corporations to follow. Hooray for our community champion!

DR. JAMES F. JOHANS President and CEO Northeast Parent & Child