Chamber president profile: North Fork's Andrew Binkowski

165

The Greenport-Southold Chamber of Commerce merged with the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Chamber of Commerce to form the North Fork Chamber of Commerce back in 2007.

It’s mostly family-owned businesses and small mom and pop stores. It’s a good, strong representation of local business and community people. It’s not like the big stores in New York City where the owners don’t know what’s going on at each store. These people run their business and actually live in the community. There’s no big-box stores like Walmart or Kmart out here.

One of our biggest is getting businesses involved in chamber events. The reason is that these people are the faces of their restaurants and have to be there most of the time, so it’s hard for them to get away and attend our events, but we understand.

Being a part of the community and being one of the faces of the ferry is good for business. I also provide a face for the chamber to those coming and going on the ferry.

To be honest, I hope it doesn’t change. What we have here is very unique. We have access by car and water, and small businesses, which creates a good atmosphere. I just hope our businesses prosper. I wouldn’t like to see this area get loaded with Burger Kings and McDonald’s. I want to keep seeing local people and tourists walk the streets of our communities.

Our community is a tourist destination and within the North Fork, the hamlet of Cutchogue, is referred to as the sunniest spot in New York State.

As much as I enjoy being president and working with the ferry company seeing thousands of people a day, I enjoy spending quiet days in Orient away from it all.