Retail Roundup: First Dickey's Barbecue Pit for Suffolk County
Credit: Dickey's Barbecue Pit
The nation’s largest barbecue chain is expanding on Long Island.
Dickey’s Barbecue Pit will open its first Suffolk County location — in Centereach Square — in the first quarter of 2020, said Jerry Stephan, the restaurant’s franchisee. The shopping center is at the corner of Middle Country and Mark Tree roads.
Stephan has rights to bring 21 Dickey’s to Long Island by franchising them through his company, Right on Cue Inc., which is based in Miller Place, or by selling franchises to others.
He has a long history in the franchise business.
“I also brought the first Quiznos to Suffolk County, too, a long time ago. I like to do stuff that’s different. And barbecue is really underrepresented on the Island,” he said.
The Dickey’s planned for Centereach Square will be in a 2,150-square-foot space that had been occupied by Mad Over Yogurt, which closed in November 2018, said Jennifer Maisch, spokeswoman for Kimco Realty Corp., the New Hyde Park-based company that owns the shopping center.
Stephan has sold franchise rights for a Dickey’s that will be opened in Freeport by Scott Raifer in spring or summer 2020, he said.
Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants Inc. was founded in Dallas in 1941. The chain has 500 restaurants, including six in New York state.
The vast majority of the restaurants are franchises, spokeswoman Claire Reyes said.
The only other Dickey's on Long Island is a 5-year-old location in Lawrence that is about 48 miles from Centereach Square.
Dickey's is a fast-casual chain that slow-smokes meats on site.
The menu includes beef brisket, pulled pork, St. Louis-style ribs, polish sausage, spicy cheddar sausage, smoked turkey and marinated chicken.
“Buttery rolls are served with every meal along with complementary ice cream,” according to the website.
Dickey's sales fell 7.4 percent between 2017 and 2018 as the chain closed some franchise locations in a pullback from "over-expansion," said Anne Mills, senior manager of consumer insights at Technomic Inc., a restaurant industry research firm in Chicago.
Dickey's has 69 fewer locations now than it had in 2017, she said.
Retail Roundup is a column about major retail news on Long Island — store openings, closings, expansions, acquisitions, etc. — that is published online and in the Monday paper. To read more of these columns, click here. If you have news to share, please send an email to Newsday reporter Tory N. Parrish at tory.parrish@newsday.com.
Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.
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