As one Albany eatery closes, another opens at a new location

ALBANY —Albany diners might have noticed a change in the restaurant landscape recently as one Albany eatery has used an emergency to prompt a move and an expansion, while another has closed its doors as the owner looks to reinvent his concept by returning to his catering roots.

A lot has changed for Q’s Cakes. Owned and operated by Quinetta Hall, the business has a new store location and an expanded menu. But one thing remains the same: Customers are treated like they’re guests at Hall’s own house.

The new shop, located at 1406 Dawson Road, next door to Merry Acres Inn, features a full kitchen, a large counter and a spacious dining area with quaint Southern décor. Hall said the new space has allowed her to take her business to the next level.

“It has allowed me to expand because I’m doing lunch now along with my baked goods,” she said. “So we kind of changed the name to Q’s Cakes and More. And it has allowed me to just be more available to my customers. Allows them to have seating areas I didn’t have at my home.”

Hall had been thinking about making the move to a new location two years ago, but she said it took God literally lighting a fire under her for her plan to come into fruition.

“I actually had a fire at my house. It burned me out, and I lost everything,” she said. “I lost all of my bakery stuff, I lost everything.”

Just two months later, Hall was able to move her business into the new location. And now she is doing more than she ever could in her former home-based bakery. In addition to signature baked goods, Q’s Cakes and More offers a lunch menu with sandwiches on fresh bake bread, wraps and salads to go, with chips and drink. Each day Q’s has a different special, and Hall noted that the menu is particularly health-conscious, including wraps, spinach salads, as well as tuna, chicken and egg salads.

Despite a devastating blow to her old shop, Hall said she hasn’t missed a beat in terms of sales, thanks to the overwhelming support of her customers, as well as her church.

“When the fire came, my customers were awesome,” she said. “They were the ones that carried me, along with my church, Agape Christian Worship Center. They came and brought all types of donations. They were meeting me at the burned location on their lunch break, bringing monetary donations. It was awesome.”

And while one Albany restaurant is preparing for a bright new future, another area eatery has closed it’s doors after a little more than a year in operation, leaving the owner looking for new ways to continue feeding his loyal customers.

Glenn Eames, the principal owner of Smoke and Fire on Gillionville Road, confirmed last week that the restaurant had recently closed its doors after several months of the barbecue and pizza-focused location not generating enough profit.

“We weren’t making any money, we were losing money,” said Eames. “We needed to make at least $3,000 a day (to turn a profit), and if I look at our yearly average, I’d guess it to be around $2,500. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist.”

Part of the lack of revenue, Eames said, was high overhead, a considerable portion of which came from the rent attached to the former Beef O’Brady’s building next to Darton State College, which many customers said was not in a convenient location.

“I talked to a number of people, and they liked the place but feel it’s out of the way,” Eames said.

Eames said a lot of customers were also surprised by his decision, saying they were under the impression that the restaurant was crowded most of the time, when in fact it was not.

“I’ve had so many people since we closed down say, ‘It looked so busy,’” Eames said. “We had our busy days, and we had a good following, a lot of regulars, many who were here everyday. That just wasn’t enough. Running a small business is tough enough. It takes a lot, so you can’t be bringing in less than it’s costing you to run it.”

Eames said he also believes that he should have listened to his very successful, restaurateur sister, who advised him not to move into that location and not to attempt a full-service restaurant with a full bar.

“She told me, ‘I hate this building, the layout’s wrong,” Eames said. “But big brother didn’t listen, unfortunately. We started serving beer and wine, and then we thought ‘We’ve got to put in other alcohol,’ and we became almost like a bar. Then we added music on the patio. We were doing so many different things than we intended and (were) half-way doing it.”

Fortunately for fans of Eames’ oven-fired pizza and the barbecue skills he honed doing slow-cooked meats for Darton State College fundraisers back when he was a teacher at the school, they’ll get to enjoy those favorites again.

Eames said even though Smoke and Fire didn’t work out, he’s currently looking for a different location in a busier section of town where he can open a new eatery that more closely adheres to the plan he originally had for Smoke and Fire.

“We’re looking for a different site, and we want to get back to the original idea of doing counter service,” said Eames. “I also want to do more catering service.”

In fact, since closing Smoke and Fire, Eames has already gotten back to doing small-scale events and getting use out of his pizza oven. Recently Eames has been at the Tift Market, and he was on-site at MCLB’s fireworks display and for the city of Albany’s July Fourth fireworks display, over the long holiday weekend.

“I’m going to be using it just as much as I can,” Eames said.