Heading south from Kingston on a flat stretch along Route 32, a mile or so beyond the Rosendale town line, there’s a roadhouse. A building sheathed in white siding sporting an ample corrugated awning. Hanging chimes singing in the wind of the passing traffic.
An old restaurant sign with its center scoured out still stands. There’s a circle of lighter wood where the name has been erased: Postage Inn.
For 30 years James and Mary Jerkowski ran a Hudson Valley restaurant out of this building. When James made up his mind to sell, he kept quiet about it, holding out for some worthy locals or at least people of whom he approved. He dreaded the idea that his building would be snatched up by big-city speculators. So it’s said.
It was 2020, and the Covid real-estate boom had kicked off.
James ended up selling to industry people. Bar folks from New Paltz, known for Huckleberry. And in New York City for Skylark Bar. And the Abilene Bar & Lounge.
An eye for talent
In fact, it was at the Abilene that Leah Allen and Mike O’Neil kicked off this boozy empire. For each new subsequent bar they would open, they hired from within the previous one, raising up former employees in the process.
With an eye for industry talent and a desire to do more business, Leah and Mike expanded the bar empire from within. Julie Dabbs was their employee at Abilene. At Skylark she would be equal. Billy Simkiss came along, and the four of them together opened Huckleberry.
And now it is Madi Taylor and Luke Peters’ turn. They met in the workplace. Luke was slinging drinks. Madi, his barback, learned bartending herself, then became his manager.
Luke was already where he wanted to be. The three married couples will open Darlings.
“They enlist you right out of the trenches, the people that work for them,” explains Madi, “to open the next bar, and then you have equity going in. And you know what the business is.”
Out of the trenches
The bar business, as anyone who has toiled in its inebriated fields knows, is a kind of feudalism. Bartenders try their luck, tips are the harvest, and sobriety is just one potential key to success.
A restaurant, on the other hand, is a completely different animal, where the customer is always right and hunger can often make them unreasonable. But after a good meal, gratitude replaces impatience.
And that’s where the hospitality-minded among us receive their rewards. Madi and Luke are just such souls.
Now Madi, a ten-year émigré from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Luke, born and bred in Brooklyn, will test their skills.
Taps, owls and horseshoes
A wide room with a low ceiling. Room for 20 tables, easily. An upholstered banquette along three walls, a suite of velvet armchairs. A booth by a picture window.
The floor is tiled with black and white squares like the floor of the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks. It will be perfect for dancing. Madi Taylor chose the tiles.
Leave the vast room and pass a small wooden-space bar or hostess station. Walk down a short hallway to the bar, a three-sided wooden horseshoe, made of straight angles. No curves.
On the other side of the horseshoe, the wallpaper describes a weird nighttime forest of blues and greens featuring mushrooms and owls that will watch the drinkers. Madi calls the wall “the inside, dark, cavernous and whimsical space.”
The bar tree itself has twelve taps, twelve lines of beer running through a glycol chiller. “We’ll have five or six lines of craft beer, but we want the working-man options, too. Bud will be on tap.”
Anticipating that the kegs would have to share space in the walk-in freezer with the foodstuffs that a restaurant must store, the walk-in cooler is constructed as luxuriously as a room in a Roman bathhouse. Even though the ceiling is tall, the kegs will not have to be stacked.
There’s a smoker as well. They’ve tapped Jingle John, popular Kingston smoked-meats aficionado to create some of the smoking.
Madi is a public-facing spirit, so the front of house is hers.
Counter-intuitive for a career bartender, Luke wants to handle the back of the house. The plan is to generate communal joy through cocktails and Southern cuisine.
“We’ll definitely have music,” says Madi. “You know, close the deck at 10 p.m. Get everybody inside. We’ll do some parties with RSVP out here, for sure.”
Really Secret Very Private is a Kingston-based party collective which creates happenings at various locations. There are plans in the works for monthly shows featuring live music, art and creative dishes.
Darlings. Where’d they come up with that name? You’ll have to pass by for a meal or a drink to find out.
Join the family! 
