Kay’s Pizza in Averill Park has been a seasonal destination for decades. The parking lot is full by the time they open each afternoon and the queue forms for callers looking to reserve a pickup spot an hour before opening each day. (It also lands on the Times Union’s Best Of list year after year.)
But what, exactly, makes this place — a rustic space with sloped floors, low ceilings and tables with vinyl covers — so popular?Â
It’s a combination of factors.Â
More than 75 readers weighed in, listing nostalgia, location on the lake and, of course, the pizza as a few of the reasons Kay’s may be more of the summer place to be than — gasp! — Saratoga.Â
“It used to be all the locals,” said James Lilly, the restaurant’s owner and president. Lilly started working at Kay’s when he was 14. “Ever since social media and word of mouth it’s really exploded.”
The staff makes anywhere from 200 pizzas on a slow night to more than 700 when they’re busy. Once, the kitchen turned out 800-plus pies in one day (and they don’t open till mid-afternoon).Â
And it’s not just the customers who keep coming back. Most of the staff returns season after season, with one or two working in the kitchen having grown up at the restaurant, working alongside Lilly.Â
“I’ve been here since I was a kid. So, sometimes I don’t fully understand how much this place reaches people, because I’m so used to it,” Lilly said. “It is crazy to me when I see driving from hours away or waiting awhile to be seated. I love that we can have such a draw.”
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