Joe’s Crab Shack chain eyeing Boulder Creek site

A new national chain restaurant on Route 58, a new pizzeria in Aquebogue, Italian ices on Main Street
and a makeover for McDonald’s: Food was the theme of the day at the Riverhead planning department work session this morning.

Joe’s Crab Shack is eyeing the former location of the Boulder Creek restaurant on Route 58 and Mill Road.

The Houston-based chain is interested in opening up a 260-seat restaurant at the site, said Todd Huntington, an engineer representing the company. The restaurant usually includes an outdoor patio dining area and often a children’s playground as well, he said.

After the meeting, Huntington said the company had not yet signed a lease with the owner of the shopping center, but it was very interested in the location.

Joe’s Crab Shack is one of two restaurant businesses operated by Ignite Restaurant Group Inc., which runs 134 restaurants in 32 states. Ignite, a privately held company that had a $11.6 million profit in 2010, filed with the SEC in July to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering, according to Reuters News Service.

Joe’s Crab Shack, founded in 1991, has a full menu featuring fish, shrimp, lobster, pasta, steaks, chicken, burgers and, of course, crabs.

Town planners told Huntington and architect Mark Kruse the approval process would take an estimated  six to eight months if site plan review is necessary. Site plan review would be triggered by external changes or additions, such as the patio dining area.

New pizzeria for Aquebogue

Pizza will be returning to Aquebogue this year.

That’s the plan for the old Aquebogue Post Office building, on the northeast corner of Church Lane and Main Road, where David McElroy and Jeff Butler are putting in a 16-seat pizzeria.

It will be a rustic place with wood floors, brick ovens and outdoor seating, McElroy said.

The site is just up the road from the longtime home of Little Joe’s, a popular Italian restaurant and pizzeria that closed down two decades ago.

Italian ices coming to Main Street

A Ralph’s Famous Italian Ices franchise has signed a lease on a 1,250-square-foot store on East Main Street, representatives of building owner Mirahmax, an affiliate of Richmond Realty, told planners.

Mirahmax plans to subdivide the former home of Automotive Discount Center into three separate retail spaces. The other two spaces will be 2,000 to 2,400 square feet each, Richard Israel of Mirahmax said.

Ivan Albert, who owns and operates Ralph’s Famous Italian Ices franchises in Port Jefferson and Greenport, plans to open his third location in Riverhead next spring.

“Riverhead is starting to turn around and I figure it’s a good place to be,” Albert told RiverheadLocal in November. (See prior story.)

Mirahmax is seeking approval for  building renovations that include creating recessed storefronts and restoring the facade to its original brick.

“He’d like to be open by March,” Israel said, adding he told his tenant that was overly optimistic.

“They’re in the ice cream business and want to sell ice cream in the summer,” Israel said. “With all that’s going on downtown, I think it would be good to keep the momentum,” he said.

Since the building is within the downtown Riverhead historic district, the plan must go before the landmarks preservation committee, Councilwoman Jodi Giglio, the town board liaison to the planning department, told the developers.

“If anything we will be restoring the building back to more of its original look,” Israel said.

McDonald’s makeover

The Route 58 fast-food chain wants to add a second drive-through window to increase efficiency, Eric G. Mayn of Bohler Engineering told Riverhead planners today.

Mayn said the restaurant also plans to make additional exterior changes, including a new roof, as well as interior renovations to modernize the restaurant’s design and decor.

Plans would be filed with the town in about a month, Mayn said after the meeting.

In other business: Planners met with Riverhead Moose Lodge governor George Yaede about the organization’s application to hook up its 18-site RV park to the Riverhead sewer plant.

Yaede said the Moose lodge first approached sewer district superintendent Michael Reichel about the idea in 2008, and Reichel said it was no problem.

But it’s been nothing but problems ever since.

The lodge was told by the planning department it had to submit a site plan, which it did. But the plan was rejected because an existing dumpster was not enclosed and the parking lot was not striped, Yaede said. The lodge revised the site plan five times since then, he told officials — including council members John Dunleavy and Jodi Giglio and building inspector Sharon Kloss at Tuesday’s planning department meeting.

Now, Yaede said, he’s received a notice of violation for having a campground in a residential area. He said he’s called code enforcement officer Kevin Macabee three times but never got a return call.

The RV park has been at the site since the 1980s, Yaede said. It is open to Moose members only, he said.

“The premises and uses other than the campground are pre-existing, nonconforming uses,” Kloss said. “Why can’t the campground be a lawful accessory use to the lodge,” she asked.

The others in attendance agreed. Kloss told Yaede he would only need to obtain a use permit from the building department. She told him to make an appointment to see her and she would walk him through it.

“So I don’t need these site plans after all,” a somewhat exasperated Yaede said after the meeting. “Do you know how many hundreds of dollars we spent on these,” he said, gesturing to a manila folder, thick with folded surveyor’s maps and plans. Yaede said the application predated his term as lodge governor and speculated that the process would be concluded after his term expires.