“If you can work a busy Saturday night in a restaurant, a shoot day will feel very familiar,” says Joe DeVito, who, after a 25-year career in the film and television industry, just recently opened vinyl music bar the Print House on Main Street in Fleischmanns.
“Growing up in the restaurant world starting at 13 until I was in my early twenties, what I learned was hustling, multitasking, remembering details, and working hard for long hours on my feet. All of this completely prepared me for television,” DeVito says. “And then those years in television, especially as an executive producer when I was responsible for many people’s wellbeing, safety, and moral, retranslated to the experience of opening my own restaurant and bar.” Full circle.
When he was growing up in New York City, DeVito and his family occasionally visited the Catskills on vacation. When the pandemic hit and work dried up, he returned to the familiar setting of his childhood, living in an Airbnb in the mountains. By July 2020, he had purchased his own home in the village of Fleischmanns in Delaware County, which he visited on weekend trips from the city. As he spent time upstate, an old fantasy crept back into his mind. “I decided I wanted to open a place, something I had dreamed of for a long time, that incorporated all of my passions—music, food, and gathering,” says DeVito.
Initially he searched for locations in the city, but changed his plan as he fell more in love with his upstate neck of the woods. “I just felt like my heart was up here now,” explains DeVito. “Everything about this village—the people, the nature, the energy—is so amazing. It became really obvious to me that my path was going to lead me here.”
DeVito teamed up with longtime Fleischmanns resident Mark Birman to find a location for the bar. The pair soon found a c.1905 building on Main Street that had once housed independent publisher Purple Mountain Press, from which the bar derives its name. Abandoned for over 15 years, the building was in need of renovation, which DeVito agreed to on one condition. “If the renovation required the original tin walls, crown molding, and tin ceilings [to be demolished], I’m out,” he told Birman. “If you looked beyond the trash, garbage, smell, dust, and grime, it was about what this place had at its core that made me know it could be a bar.”
Led by Ryall Sheridan Carroll Architects, the extensive renovations included new electrical and plumbing for the entire building and restoration of the wooden floors and tin walls. With the building back in working form, DeVito was free to decorate the interior to his original vision. “I have a vinyl record collection with about 4,000 records,” he says. “About 1,500 to 1,800 of them are on shelves behind the bar.”
DeVito’s vinyl collection reflects his lifelong passion for music. “I grew up in a musical household,” he says. “My brother is a drummer, and when I was a little boy, I would curl up and sleep inside of his kick drum.” For the opening event on July 14, DeVito invited his brother’s band, Murderer’s Row, to be the first performers to take the Print House stage.
There will be live music at the bar most weekends, and some weekdays, bringing in local and visiting artists from all genres. When there aren't live performers, DeVito keeps the records spinning, making sure that the space is always filled with music.
Like his passion for music, his lifelong love for cooking can be traced back to his family. “My grandmother had that Italian-American grandma cooking skill set,” describes DeVito. “I remember being very young and sitting on the kitchen table helping her make meatballs, helping her peel garlic, and climbing up on a chair to stir the sauce every 20 minutes. Food was such a huge part of our lives.”
DeVito, who designed the Print House menu and cooks all the food, made sure to include his grandmother's meatballs ($12). This dish is cooked and served in cast iron skillet, a style signature to the Print House’s entrees. The restaurant also serves three flatbreads ($12-15), and share-sized dishes including the Farm Fresh Cheese Board ($18). DeVito is still tweaking the menu, which will expand and change based on the seasonal availability of ingredients.
“The sourcing is important to me,” says DeVito. “There is a hyperlocal touch to everything.” The blue cheese featured on the cheese board comes from Two Stones, a cheese maker adjacent to the bar. The meat comes from local farms, and DeVito grows the herbs used in his food.
This local touch is felt with the bar’s signature cocktail, “It Takes A Village,” a tequila and hibiscus drink based off of the famous hibiscus tea from the Village East cafe, across the street from the Print House. “It’s dangerously delicious,” says DeVito. The bar has developed three cocktails thus far, and DeVito is hoping to expand the menu to eight by the end of the summer.
DeVito’s plans to grow the menu, bring in more chefs, and develop creekside dining behind the building will add to his ongoing efforts to bring his vision to Fleischmanns. “This community is very diverse,” he says. “I want it to feel accessible and welcoming to everyone.”
The Print House is open Tuesday through Sunday.
