At 10:45 a.m. on a recent weekday, a gray-haired man with a newspaper folded under his arm walked into Lanie’s Cafe in Loudonville and took a seat at the bar as the bartender, unasked but having spotted him at the front door, finished pouring a glass of his preferred wine.
Sports played on the six TVs in the bar area, numbers popped on the pair of Quick Draw lottery screens, four servers and the general manager readied the dining room, heaped greens and vegetables awaited in Lanie’s beloved salad bar, and owners Kelly and Joshua Gallacchi, who took over from eponymous founder Lanie Lansing nine years ago, smiled indulgently at the regular at the bar, who’d arrived only 15 minutes before the 11 a.m. opening.
“Sometimes he’s here at 10:30,” said Kelly, who started at Lanie’s at age 17, when she was a student at South Colonie High School…