Deli owner picked to run Smithtown Landing Country Club will pay more in rent, documents show

The deli owner who won contracts for catering and food service at the town-owned Smithtown Landing Country Club will pay more rent but invest less in capital improvements than the hospitality company that held the contracts for decades. 

According to bid documents the town released to Newsday, Panico’s Community Market principal Donato Panico Jr. will pay $2,940,000 to operate the club’s catering facilities for the next 15 years, about $173,000 more than hospitality giant Lessing’s, the exclusive caterer at the country club for 35 years. 

Panico pledged to spend $137,000 on painting, new wood floors and other upgrades, $463,000 less than Lessing’s said it would spend.

Panico also was awarded a concessions contract for the club, for which he will pay $480,000 in rent for the next 15 years. Both contracts are for five years with two optional five-year extensions. 

The contracts are potentially lucrative for vendors because they offer access to a stream of customers who visit the club for golfing, swimming, weddings and other functions. Each year, golfers play about 50,000 rounds at the club and 1,200 people buy season passes for the pool complex.

The catering contract includes service of two dining rooms and a cocktail lounge; the food service contract includes service of four concession stands and a bar. 

Smithtown’s town board in September awarded both contracts to Panico after a committee of town officials reviewed bids from Panico, Lessing’s and a third company, J&B Restaurant Partners. 

Lessing’s said in its proposal that it catered more than 10,000 events last year, operates 100 locations across Long Island, New York City and Florida and has multimillion dollar contracts with about a dozen municipalities. It bid only on the Smithtown catering contract, offering $2,766,947 over the next 15 years. The company had pledged $600,000 for improvements. 

J&B bid $2.7 million and pledged $265,000 for capital improvements.

Lessing’s current contract expires Dec. 31. Anyone who booked an event after that can cancel and get a full refund or move to another Lessing’s venue, the company said in a message on its website. 

Panico did not make himself available for an interview. But in his August proposal to the town, he wrote that his business grosses over $1 million annually and caters 2,500 events, positioning him to run an operation at the town country club that will “be comparable if not exceed” others on Long Island. 

He already holds a $50,000 contract with NYPD PBA and smaller contracts with Hauppauge and Smithtown fire departments.

He wrote he did not have a liquor license but believed he could get one get one by January, when his contract is set to start. 

Smithtown Town Supervisor Edward Wehrheim told Newsday last week that Lessing’s had violated its contract with the town by not stocking or opening snack bars on time for golfers. The company also failed to clean up, as required, after parties, he said.

“On Saturday morning I’d get photos from the golf pro shop about drink glasses and cigars… right where golfers assemble to tee off,” Wehrheim said.

In an emailed statement, Lessing’s president Michael Lessing said any suggestion that his company “didn’t fulfill our contractual obligations at a venue that’s been a core location in our group for over three decades is both unfortunate and wrong...We are disappointed to see that the Town did not value our long-standing relationship.”