Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer
Bean’s Country Store at Oneida Corners in Queensbury is in the midst of a three quarter of a million dollar interior redo that it says will triple the size of the kitchen, double the amount of kitchen equipment, and increase product offerings by a projected 20%.
“We’re literally picking up the footprint of the inside of the store and flip flopping it,” owner Jeffery Bean told The Chronicle. “The layout of the store is going to be totally different.”
These plans “have been in my head for 10 years straight,” he said.
His mom Betty chimed in, “He kept saying ‘I need a bigger kitchen’.”
And his wife Jennifer echoes him.
“The kitchen’s too small,” she said. “We do a ton of catering and we’ve outgrown the kitchen. We’re not getting any slower; we’re getting busier.”
“We got a lot of customers during the pandemic and they never left,” Betty explained. “They found we have everything they need and they don’t need to go to a big grocery store.” She says, “If we don’t have it, you don’t really need it.”
Betty said, “We’ve owned it 20 years and it’s time to give it a facelift. We did the outside and now it’s time to do the inside. This is the last piece.”
Jeffery says the new kitchen will be “wide open. You can watch people make pizza.”
In size, he said, “It will rival any kitchen in the area. It’s a monster.”
“It’s just a little bit smaller than Trump’s ballroom,” quipped Jeffery’s dad Jeff Sr.
Jeffery said, “The whole interior of the store will have a more country store vibe, not just a convenience/quick stop store.”
Seating will be “spread out more,” whereas “right now they feel like they’re on top of each other.”
And he said the redo will allow for more products.
“The demand is there, we just need the space to produce it,” he said.
Jeffery said that along with more energy efficient equipment, “The flow of everything will be so much more efficient.
“We try to have a 15 minute turnaround time for people when they come in for lunchtime, and I think what we’re doing will greatly help with that,” he said.
The Beans said they began with eight to 10 employees; now they are up to 35. They said they’ll probably add another six after the redo.
“We plan on passing the store down to our next generations, if they decide that is what they want to do,” Jeffery said.
“We are making the changes now for the longevity of our store.”
The Beans purchased the store from the Shahay family 20 years ago. For many years it had been Bardin’s Store.
“I grew up on Sunnyside,” Jeffery said. “I’ve always thought of this area as like a different world than anywhere else around here. This area is family. I want to make it the social hub, which for over the past 20 years I think we have. Our employees see the same faces day in and day out, sometimes two or three times a day.”
“If you want a place for comfort food this is the place to be,” Jeff Sr. said. “Subs, pizzas and bakery. We do everything.”
“Everything is from scratch,” Betty added, including “homemade cakes.”
“For a country store you wouldn’t believe how much pizza we actually sell here,” Jeffery said. “We sell double what any pizzeria in town does.”
He said he switched up the dough recipe from the previous owner, but kept the sauce recipe.
He also said Bean’s is “one of the only Boar’s Head exclusive delis in the area.”
Construction on the redo started a month ago, and the Beans hope to have it completed by mid-May.
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