There are just a handful of early 20th century chrome diners left these days, regionally or otherwise. So when Doves Diner reopened in the former West Taghkanic Diner in Ancram on March 6, with a classic menu “elevated” only through local farm sourced ingredients and run by skilled kitchen pros, it’s a meaningful moment for local food culture.
The bones of the place, its shine, its vinyl, the remnants of the original signage are intact thanks to an extensive, two-year renovation and revitalization by Doves co-owners Lauren Stanek and Emma Rosenbush. “Our joke is that it had been held together by Scotch tape and bubble gum for 50-plus years,” says Rosenbush. “It just needed a lot of infrastructural support.”
Stanek and Rosenbush both spent the bulk of their restaurant careers in the San Francisco Bay Area without ever crossing paths. Stanek cooked at Tartine and Chez Panisse before moving upin 2019 to open Kitties in Hudson, just before the pandemic. Rosenbush ran operations at cala, a Mexican seafood restaurant she opened in San Francisco with chef Gabriela Cámara, until it became a Covid casualty. She relocated to Germantown with her husband, winemaker Charlie Miller, to focus on their longterm project Dew East Farm Winery.
Over the past few years both wound up consulting separately for the building’s most recent owners, Gigi Danziger and Albert Wenger, founders of the Spark of Hudson, a community hub and nonprofit in Hudson that pilots initiatives focused on radical generosity, economic stability, and creative collaboration. They found themselves excited about the possibility of saving the diner, even if it was going to be a lot of work. “I was like, ‘Wow, what a dream come true,’” says Stanek. Rehabbing the space brought things back to reality a bit however. “The kitchen was such a disaster.”
Danziger and Wenger funded the renovation under a model Rosenbush describes as steward ownership. “It’s a more European model of investing without the expectation of return,” she says. “That’s basically unheard of in the restaurant industry.” Rather than taking ownership of the business, Danziger and Wenger renovated the property and leased it to Stanek and Rosenbush, a structure that lets the restaurateurs run the business how they desire. “It was a really generous and amazing opportunity,” Rosenbush says, “because we all cared equally about the space and the beauty of this diner.”…