Bistro opens in former Max’s on Main space
In the back of Lyonshare Public House, which whitewashed the former Max’s on Main space, a cabinet grand piano occupies the spot where four high-top tables once stood.
Bud Schmeling says he is happy to forgo revenue and fulfill his aesthetic goals. “Live music will be more mellow than, say, Dogwood, like trios, a jazz brunch and singer-songwriters,” he says.
In consultation with DJ friends, he’s curating 10 playlists. “There’s jazz for brunch, a dinner groove and hip-hop and R&B for late nights,” he says. “It’s not like one night the bartender plays death metal and another night it’s weird pop.”
During the official opening on Oct. 31, “Sixteen Tons,” which Tennessee Ernie Ford took to No. 1 on the country charts in 1955, piped through the speakers.
After Max’s on Main closed in April after 18 years in business, rumors swirled about the place becoming a steakhouse or a jazz club, partly because Schmeling worked for years at Brooklyn stalwart Peter Luger’s. Lyonshare includes elements of both.
Schmeling studied literature with Allen Ginsburg at Brooklyn College, earning a master’s degree. A bottle of Bushmill’s appears in his X profile photo and he writes and serves as a “spiritual advisor” for the sports quarterly Victory Journal.
Beyond a handwritten copy of Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” eye-high on a wall, there’s a nook for books and typewriters above the bar. He plans to write a tome about his time at Peter Luger’s, “like Kitchen Confidential, but for front of house,” he says.
Over the last five months, as he transformed the restaurant and opened up the kitchen by taking down a wall, Schmeling ingratiated himself with other bar owners, their employees and their patrons as he made the rounds about town discussing the venture and the piano, which fueled the scuttlebutt.
At a preview on Oct. 22, one attendee called him “Mr. GQ.” Indeed, the man looks like he stepped out of a silent film. And his clothes fit.
Schmeling’s reverence for history, including his own past, is apparent in the decor: In addition to the spittoons, brass doorknobs and black-and-white photos, there’s a picture of his alma mater, Virginia Military Institute, where he studied English. Holdovers from Max’s include the base of the shiny quartz bar and the brass footrail.
The name Lyonshare honors Capt. John Lyon, who plied a ferry from Nyack to Tarrytown for 70 years until 1923 and, according to lore, never missed a trip. The ferryman also ran the Smithsonian Hotel in Nyack.
Schmeling plans to revert the upstairs rooms of the 4,000-square-foot, 154-year-old Beacon building, formerly apartments with shared bathrooms, to their original use as hotel rooms.
The bistro’s stripped-down, work-in-progress menu offers five small plates ($12 to $15), five sides ($12) and four desserts ($12). Mains consist of a burger ($24), tilefish ($31), fried chicken ($29) and, for $26, “mixed grain ‘risotto’ ” with butternut squash.
And there’s beef: New York strip steak ($44) and a dry-aged 32-ounce porterhouse for two ($120). East Coast oysters ($3 each) rotate daily; the goal is to shuck three types each night.
For now, the whiskey selection is limited and the bar skews toward liqueur, cordials, aperitifs and digestives like Suze, Aperol, Campari and Italicus.
Old jazz provides the main musical mood. Art Labriola, who lives in Philipstown, played standards from the 1930s and 1940s at the Oct. 22 preview.
For a decade beginning in 1999, Schmeling co-owned Black Betty, a bar and music venue in Williamsburg. Its opening is recounted in a Village Voice article hanging on a wall. “Bars and clubs are creatures of the night,” it reads. “Their job is to seduce people. To do so, they have to be cool.”
Sipping a drink along with Francesco Bagala at Lyonshare on Halloween, Carlos Carrillo dug the vibe: “It’s classy and beautiful, with a city-like feel. You can’t get hipper than this.”
Lyonshare, at 246 Main St., in Beacon, is open daily except Tuesday. The kitchen operates from 5 to 10 p.m. and the bar until midnight. See lyonsharebeacon.com for reservations.
