Lido catering hall sold, pal to pal

In the early 1960s Lido Boulevard in Lido Beach could be compared to Miami Beach, dotted as it was with clubs, cabanas and catering halls. One of the best known halls was The Sands, owned by JoeYachnowitz, the son of a Brooklyn butcher.

Yachnowitz, who died in 2004 at age 84, had turned The Sands over to his son, Stu, years ago.

Stu began working at the Lido Beach Sands when he was 10. "I grew up there," he said earlier this week. "It [The Sands] was almost like a sibling. I was a busboy, porter, dishwasher. I learned how to make ice cream sodas. I had to work my way up."

Yachnowitz, 60, recently had the difficult emotional task of selling The Sands, which he did two weeks ago, to his friend Butch Yamali, 48, an entrepreneur who began his business career two decades ago operating a single ice cream truck in Eisenhower Park in East Meadow.

Most business deals don't go down as smoothly as this one: Yachnowitz and Yamali have known one another for decades. If he was going to sell to anyone, Yachnowitz said, it was going to be Yamali.

"There is not another person I would have made this deal with other than Butch," said Yachnowitz. "Our word is our bond."

Yamali said: "He told me he didn't want to sell it to anyone who was going to run it down."

Yamali noted that Yachnowitz has offered to stay on "to show me where all the cups and saucers are."

Yachnowitz still owns the other Sands, in Atlantic Beach, which he plans to keep operating with his son, Andrew, 33. "I don't want to do both," Yachnowitz said. "I'm 60 years old. Enough is enough."

Yamali has more miles to go. The one ice cream truck turned into two and then three and finally more than 50. Then he got into the vending machine business. He has 1,500 vending machines at 40 concessions on Long Island.

Yachnowitz remembers whenbandleader Xavier Cugat and comedian Henny Youngman played The Sands in Lido Beach. He figures there have been some 10,000 weddings and bar mitzvahs at both Sands over the decades.

Yamali knows all about that. He was married at the Atlantic Beach Sands 20 years ago. His West Hempstead High School prom was at the Lido Beach Sands 30 years ago.