Woodstock’s first Dominican restaurant closed suddenly on August 8 after a year in business, sparking confusion from customers amid widely conflicting accounts between chef Samantha Fernandez and chief financial backer Ryan Giuliani about what had happened.
Fernandez, who owned the concept for Que Lo Que at 1 Tinker Street, said she learned of the closure when she began receiving texts of condolences from vendors. It was a Tuesday, her scheduled day off.
Fernandez said she got a call from her manager saying she was locked out of Toast, the restaurant’s point-of-sale system. Fernandez then discovered she couldn’t get into the restaurant’s Instagram account, which she managed.
It was then that she knew something was amiss.
“All these things I kind of knew but didn’t know,” she said.
About six weeks prior to closing, Fernandez was offered the business. Asking for more details, she said, she heard nothing further.
“My partners said they wanted to walk away,” Fernandez said. “It was a small amount I would have had to pay off the partners. It was essentially dangled in front of my face.”
The paperwork never arrived, she claimed. “I waited around for it, and it never happened,” Fernandez said. “I had an idea they thought they were going to get their return very fast. They just had to hang tight and tune the dials.”
Fernandez said one of the partners was trying to control the narrative. “Word spread faster than I could explain it to the employees,” she said.
GoFundMe success
The conflict over the survival of the business intensified.
She said Giuliani, the primary backer and also co-owner of the Woodstock Way hotel, told her that there may or may not be severance checks for employees, and that Fernandez should not expect one.
“He said you don’t get a severance. I didn’t get a return on my investment,” Fernandez said.
She then started a GoFundMe campaign to get some money in her employees’ pockets before they were able to collect unemployment. On August 15, the normal Tuesday payday, everyone, including Fernandez, had payments in their bank accounts.
The GoFundMe had a goal of $15,000, a number Fernandez said she arrived at by calculating two weeks’ wages for her staff. To date, it has raised $15,120. It is still open at https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-que-lo-que-workers-be-compensated. The money raised will supplement the severance funds, she said.
Many of her staff are moving. One worker was homeless.
“These are real people who are affected,” Fernandez said.
She believes the partners may have had a change of heart after the crowd-funding campaign spread throughout social media.
Financial losses continue
Giuliani, a second cousin of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. has a different account of the events that led to Que Lo Que’s demise.
“The decision to close Que Lo Que was due to the significant financial losses it had been dealing with since its conception. Even in the high-season months, the business was losing money. Close to $9000 per month,” Giuliani wrote in response to questions via email. “Management was given ample time to right the ship, but due to heavy labor costs, increased food costs and lack of revenue, the hard decision to close was finally made.”
According to Giuliani, the closure was not as abrupt as Fernandez made it seem, He said he did speak with her about ways to stem the losses. The four-month discussion prior to closing “revolved around how to establish better procedures and strategies to increase revenue, cut labor costs and determine ways to sell menu items that had higher profit margins and less prep labor,” he said. “Those attempts failed.”
Once an audit was completed, he wrote, he intended to figure out a way to compensate everyone.
“This was reiterated the next morning when I called each of our employees personally to let them know of the closure, and it was followed up by an email to every employee stating the same,” he explained in the email. “The closure of this restaurant is not a reflection on anyone, person or performance of the team. The business failures are due to many circumstances, the most being the lack of revenue.”
Giuliani said he did take the liberty of contacting the vendors and suspending their accounts, but only after Fernandez was unreachable. “Sam was not returning communication for over 36 hours, beginning on August 7th. All my phone calls were being put to voicemail, emails not responded to, and texts not returned,” he wrote.
Giuliani said none of the vendors were told the restaurant was closing, only that the week’s orders were canceled until further notice.
He acknowledged offering the business to Fernandez. He reiterated that the August 10 offer was still on the table. To date, he has received no communication.
Giuliani said Fernandez understood the basics, including the debt incurred. “I’m not willing to give the details on what our purchase price was, but it was very obtainable for her,” he said.
“I assume that Sam’s lack of communication to purchase the business was due to the financial losses. Her goal was for us to keep supporting it through the end of October, which we decided not to do because in June, and July, a portion of the high season, we still continued to lose money month after month.”
Giuliani said the partners had just fronted $15,000 to keep the business going and would have had to give another influx of cash very shortly.
A cookbook next?
“After being in the food and beverage business now for over 20 years, I understand most restaurants need ample time to become profitable. This particular restaurant continued to trend downward, and due to its size, high labor/food cost and diminished revenue the tough decision had to be made,” he said. “Chef Sam did a great job, creating delicious food and a great culture within the restaurant. Unfortunately, sometimes those two things don’t bring people in the door on a consistent basis. We wish Sam the best of luck in all their future endeavors.”
What’s in store for the centrally located space? Giuliani said there were no definite plans.
Fernandez moved to Woodstock in 2017. She started out at The Lodge and built a clientele, A local family had purchased the Landau Grill at 17 Mill Hill Road, and was remodeling it. Fernandez jumped on the opportunity to design the menu and help get it up and running. The result was the return of The Pub.
Fernandez partnered with the owner of The Pines in Mount Tremper on pop-up restaurants. She said she was eventually encouraged to speak with the owners of Woodstock Way about doing something in the former Shindig space.
“I was very distrusting at first,” she said. “It took them awhile to reel me in.”
The entrepreneurial Fernandez is not yet sure about the next chapter in her life. “I’m going to take this month to regroup and think about a lot of things. I’m thinking of writing a cookbook,” she said.
Join the family! 
