Dang Roadhouse closes in Seaford

It’s the end of the road for Dang Roadhouse in Seaford. The 6-year-old barbecue specialist, housed in the old Seaford Palace Diner, served its last rack of ribs on Feb. 28.

Owner Anthony Mastrantonio said the location had proved "too big for the amount of business it was doing," and that he and his landlord were looking for a replacement concept.

The Dang brand debuted in 2017 when Dang BBQ opened in Islip. Two years later, Mastrantonio launched a truck that catered private events and appeared at street fairs and ballgames. (He added a second truck in 2021.) 

After the success of Islip, Mastrantonio looked for a second brick-and-mortar spot and was drawn to the gleaming hulk that was the vacant Seaford diner on Merrick Road. "I looked at all that chrome and it made me think of sock hops, soda shops — just the kind of nostalgia I wanted for my restaurant."

Dang BBQ opened in Seaford 2020 and, except for the new sign, the building’s exterior remained untouched. But, inside, reclaimed wood and corrugated metal did a fine job of transforming the dining room into a rollicking modern, country-style roadhouse that gradually expanded on the barbecue menu with Southern specialties as well as panini, salads and bowls and a milkshake bar. In 2024, he renamed the place Dang Roadhouse.

Still, Seaford never fulfilled the hopes Mastrantonio had for it when he opened, six weeks before the pandemic turned the restaurant world upside down. Early in 2025, Mastrantonio decided to consolidate his business and announced the closure the original Islip location. "Our dine-in never fully recovered from the pandemic," he told Newsday at the time, "and, since then, alcohol sales — which are supposed to help carry you — have been down too."

But a wave of support from customers and other local business owners persuaded him to keep Islip open. "In the week following my post," he recalled, "our business tripled. But the vast majority of customers were people who had been here before and wanted to come one last time." In October, he closed for good.

Mastrantonio conceded that barbecue is a tough concept on Long Island because, unlike pizza or sushi, for example, it's a cuisine that most people want to eat every few weeks or months, rather than every few days. He observed that "what hurts us in the restaurant helps us in catering. People hire the trucks precisely because they serve food that people don't eat all the time."

That said, he is not willing to concede restaurant defeat: He's looking for a small location somewhere between Seaford and Islip where he can continue to sell smoked meats to his community.