As a child, Krish Patel watched the hours his father, Rocky Patel, put in to run Philly Bar & Grill, the Latham restaurant Rocky founded in 2004, when Krish was a toddler. He later worked at the business, now called Philly Bar & Lounge and named after the Philadelphia area, where the family previously lived.
The hours were late and long, and the need for renewal and adaptation proved continual.
And so when father and son started discussing how the family might expand in the hospitality business, a franchise model appealed to them. They chose to introduce the Philadelphia-founded, New Jersey-based PrimoHoagies chain to the Capital Region and secured rights for up to 10 locations. The first, open since February 2024 in the Plaza 7 Commons on Troy-Schenectady Road in Latham, has seen sales grow 27% over what were already strong numbers a year ago at this time, Patel said. Their second location, part of The Rise | Midtown Square complex across New Scotland Avenue from St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany, debuted in March 2025.
Patel became the youngest PrimoHoagies franchisee when he signed the deal at age 21, according to a company spokesman, and remains it at 23. He has financial backing from his father, he said, but is responsible for operations, management and, often, making hoagies himself, usually in Latham, by far the busier of the two stores…