Fat Lady Café is feeding Kauneonga fire

By CHARLIE BUTERBAUGH

KAUNEONGA LAKE — As with many Sullivan County hamlets, life is what you make of it in Kauneonga Lake.

Judith Maidenbaum knows that. Last May she opened The Fat Lady Café, which has since remained the only open business on this commercial cluster along Route 55.

But the people of Kauneonga are beginning to dream again, Maidenbaum said recently inside her lakefront restaurant.

“I think the loss of hotels and summer crowds really discouraged the whole morale of the area,” she said, referring to the economic depression that continued to plague Sullivan County until five or six years ago. “But the Kauneonga people had faith.”

Over the past 12 to 18 months, every commercial building in the hamlet has been purchased, according to Leon Smith, director of the Bethel Local Development Corporation (BLDC).

Bill and Rachelle Carmack, the new owners of the building that was home to Vassmer’s General Store—the anchor of the hamlet’s local economy for over a century—have begun restoration work.

“It’s great to have them. I don’t feel so alone,” said Maidenbaum, who Carmack referred to as “the pioneer.”

Maidenbaum began visiting the lake community in 1985 and soon bought the Kauneonga Boat Club, which she rebuilt for her home. Now, she spends three days per week practicing as a psychoanalyst in New York City and the rest of her time managing her restaurant, which offers a collection of American regional dishes like blackened catfish and roasted chicken, all made from scratch.

This summer, she will open her second floor as Jack Sprat, a casual bar and grill serving Mediterranean foods, tapas style. Both floors overlook the lake and open up to large decks for outdoor dining and lounging.

Maidenbaum has been doing research on the hamlet’s history and will present a retrospective exhibit of letters and photographs on the café’s second floor in June.

She credits the late Joe Lorino for inspiring the hamlet with its “spirit of change.” Lorino used to make appointments with Maidenbaum to discuss the future of the town.

“He was the one who coined the phrase ‘beautiful downtown Kauneonga Lake’. He dared to dream about the future. He refused to be stifled,” she said.

A week after interviewing Maidenbaum, Smith at one of the café’s hand-painted tables by local artist Eva Driscoll, discussing Kauneonga residents’ recent collaborative work to begin planning the hamlet’s future.

The BLDC recently hosted three community workshops to generate ideas from the community about what in Kauneonga Lake needs to change as well as what should remain the same. The information was gathered to develop a vision statement for the hamlet and will hopefully give an edge to the BLDC’s application for a state façade revitalization grant, said Smith, who used to manage computer systems for large banking corporations.

“I see opportunity and potential, and it’s hard for me to leave these things alone,” he said.

Kauneonga Lake is an example of how public and private sectors can work together to revitalize a community. At this point, in addition to the local business owners and the BLDC, involved parties include the Town of Bethel, Bethel First, Sullivan Renaissance and the Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development.

And if it’s up to Maidenbaum, the energy to rebuild Kauneonga Lake won’t end until the fat lady sings.