Fly Creek is abuzz with new business.
Business partners Constantine Gavalas and Bart Burr launched The Buzz, a craft cocktail and tapas bar at 6208 state Highway 28 in Fly Creek in late October.
Alexandra Gavalas, Constantine’s wife, said both men bring decades of hospitality experience to the endeavor.
“My husband used to run a restaurant and Bart used to run a bar,” she said. “So, they have experience in the field, and Bart Burr’s family has been here for generations; not specifically Fly Creek, but the Cooperstown area. We just had this business opportunity to buy the building and we fell in love with the area.
“We’re New Yorkers, so we spend our time usually in Windham and the city, and we met Bart that way,” Gavalas continued. “We bought into his dream of opening a place for the locals — that’s what he calls it — so it is designed to be a local place; it’s not designed to capture summer crowds, but somewhere we’d like to see open all year ’round.”
Though it took until mid-November to secure a liquor license, Gavalas said, patrons are appreciating The Buzz’s food and beverage offerings.
“On the drink side, we have a very experienced mix master and local bartender who makes his own syrups and extracts and has come up with a lot of custom cocktails for us and for patrons and also revised some old ones,” she said, noting that The Buzz also offers “really good” mocktails. “His Old Smokey — where he brings a covered cloth to the table and lifts it up and a little bit of woodsmoke fills the air — has been very popular in this cold weather. On the food side, we were doing mostly our tapas menu, but we recently added entrees. The crab cake is the most popular dish; it’s in a tapas portion but it is this nice mouthful of crab meat and we’ve had people drive an hour twice to have it, so that’s been surprising. It is delicious and one of our most popular (food items). We plan to (change the menu seasonally), we’re just trying to get a feel for what the neighborhood wants.”
Despite the name, Gavalas said, she hopes the space inspires a slower pace.
“We consider it a place where you can sit down and order a glass of wine and one little plate if you’re not that hungry,” she said. “We have people who sit at the bar and order a plate of olives and munch them with a glass of wine. We’re not expecting to turn over tables quickly. What we like to see is people enjoying themselves and not being rushed.”
Gavalas said customers are appreciating that approach.
“They’ve been very encouraging and very welcoming and even coming in to give us advice,” she said. “We are surprised that we got the locals as (soon as we did). We have people walk over and we didn’t expect people to just walk in and have been surprised that the word got out so soon.
“It’s really been a mix,” Gavalas continued. “It’s older people and people who are probably retirees, and we have younger people coming out on date nights and, really late, around 9:30, we get a lot of locals and local business owners. So, we’re just starting to see return customers and people coming back.”
And, Gavalas said, safeguarding the 1850s building while returning to it some livelihood has been meaningful. She said The Buzz hosts local bands, though she is “still working on getting a schedule and seeing what people like,” and catering and brunch options will likely be added.
“It is part of the national historic district of Fly Creek and, even though I’m not a local and my husband is not a local, we honestly feel a responsibility to maintain it well,” she said. “Once you’re inside, the fact that this was a store before — its history was retail, and there was also a society upstairs — and you see the pictures of people hanging out and you think about how much more social it was back then to go to the store, it’s exciting to bring that back to a neighborhood.”
The Buzz is open from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday.
For more information, find “The Buzz” on Facebook, follow @thebuzzflycreek on Instagram or call 315-933-5050.