Eric Deising of Deising’s Bakery, the longtime uptown Kingston breakfast and lunch spot known for its glass cases full of dessert confections, stood outside his business in the 92-degree heat on Monday, with various notables looking on. He handed over an oversized $15,180 check to Christine Hein, executive director of People’s Place, a non-profit that runs the largest food pantry in Kingston.
The transfer of wealth caps off a bizarre journey which began when a corporate-owned national chain restaurant, Red Lobster, abruptly locked the doors of its Town of Ulster location in the least classy way possible, notifying the 40-plus people who worked there by email that they no longer had jobs.
When an endless shrimp offer exhausted its coffers nationally, the Orlando-based operation, with 568 restaurants in the United States, closed the local location and the ones in Poughkeepsie, Stony Brook, Buffalo, and six more locations in New York State.
The decision to auction off the kitchen equipment in Kingston started a chain reaction. Comedy-show host John Oliver snapped it up, along with the furniture, and built a Red Lobster set on his show. As Deising had hoped to purchase the kitchen equipment, he communicated his dismay in the pages of a News 12 Westchester article, which got the show host’s attention. Oliver issued a challenge. In order to receive the contested cooking equipment, Deising’s had to create a John Oliver cake-bear.
At the end of this improbable dream sequence, Deising’s sold 3800 Oliver cake bears. Deising said the idea to give the $15,000 in profits from these sales came to him while he was lying in bed.
Receiving the outsized check, Hein was near-flummoxed with gratitude.
“We are humbled that you thought at three o’clock in the morning to say, ‘Yeah, People’s Place,’” said Hein. “It’s not just the finances that you’re donating, which is phenomenal, but it’s also bringing awareness about what People’s Place does for our community and gives us a little national attention.”
Operating a food pantry, a thrift store, and a community cafe in Kingston, People’s Place says its mission since 1972 has been to serve Ulster County with kindness and compassion.
Hein expects to use the cake-bear windfall to pave a new parking lot.
“I know it doesn’t sound wonderful and glamorous, but the fact is people come to People’s Place every day, not just to use People’s Place but to use all the different businesses and agencies in the community,” said Hein, “…and it needs to be redone. It needs to be resurfaced. So that’s where most of this money is going to go.”
Join the family! 
