The Van Anden family, from left, Buffy, Katy and Johnny, stand with their Lakeview Deli work family. On Friday, this group will be in the kitchen, putting together lunch at the deli counter for the last time before the business transitions into a catering business. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — Lakeview Deli has been a lunchtime staple in Saranac Lake for decades, but Friday will be the public’s last chance to stop by and order a sandwich from the deli counter before the business transitions into a catering service amid staffing shortages.

“After 37 years, a lot of our customers are really our friends,” Lakeview Deli co-owner Buffy Van Anden said.“It’s going to be a circus.”

This was not a decision to be made lightly. For the adult children, Katy and Johnny, the restaurant across the street from Lake Flower has practically been their home growing up. For their mother Buffy, it’s the business she ran with her late husband John for years, and one she became more involved in as John’s health declined. John died in 2021, leaving behind many friends in Saranac Lake.

Buffy said the people who work at the deli became their family. This was their everything. And it’s sort of coming to an end. But Katy said the “sandwich world” is not going away. It’s just changing. And it’s something they hope will bring them closer to customers, make more business sense and allow them to still provide sandwiches for people.

This change has been the long-term plan since before John got sick.

“It’s been a life of chaos for a couple of years with staff shortages,” Buffy said. “Our staff is so much smaller than it used to be. When you’re stretched thin, if you’re doing two different things, at some point you have to pick one.”

She said staffing pushed them to make this transition to catering only at this time, and the decision to make the change now happened fast. Last weekend, they saw they had no catering events scheduled on Friday, so they could hold the big party. They announced their plans to the public on Wednesday morning.

They knew they needed a big send-off for their loyal patrons.

When the coronavirus pandemic shut their doors, the Van Andens took over the customer dining area to expand the space for more catering work. The catering side of the business grew significantly during the pandemic-related lockdown in 2020. The shop pivoted to window service at the start of the pandemic and stuck with it. Katy said the face-to-face contact was the best part of the business. It’s harder to get that community feeling through the window, she said. They were always in a rush.

“Once we got this space we couldn’t really ever give it back to the general public,” Katy said. It’s a small building with little room to spare.

But at the going-away party on Friday, that space will be opened up once again for the final occasion.

This week, the Van Andens are cleaning out all their mail and office supplies from the dining area.

Friday’s event will also see the return of 10 former deli employees, who are coming back to work in the kitchen for one more day. Buffy said some are taking a day off of their current job to come sign off from their work at the deli counter.

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Catering and the future

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The business’ future is as a catering, private chef, special order and prepared meals operation named Lakeview Catering. Buffy said they love the creativity of catering and will be able to control things more with limited staffing.

“People can still get what they want to get with a little preparation,” Katy said.

And it’s not like you’ve got to hold a wedding to get a turkey club, she said.

“If you know you’re going out on the lake tomorrow and that you want sandwiches for you and four of your buddies, give us a call,” Katy said.

Katy said to call and place orders at least 24 hours in advance. This is all also based on their availability on a given day.

Buffy said catering is about taking care of people at their happiest times — a wedding or a baptism — and a lot of taking care of people at their worst times. They’ve done a lot of funerals over the years. Funeral catering can’t be planned far in advance, and Buffy said when a call came in, they always said, “We have to do this.” They could never say no.

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Home away from home

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“We legitimately were raised in this building,” Katy said on Wednesday. “We probably spent just as much time here as we did at home, if not more.”

They both came on staff officially in their teens.

“Legitimately when I was 14. Illegitimately? I had a little step-stool that would take me up to that cash register and I would push the numbers at age 4,” Katy said.

She and Johnny started working there as soon as they were old enough, sorting empty bottles and cans in the bin behind the shop.

“I got my first bee sting being the bottle girl,” Katy said.

After school, they would gather with their friends in the apartment above the shop, presumably doing homework. But they’d be seen running downstairs to sneak snacks and sodas up.

“That was our hang-out spot,” Katy said.

Johnny said he was in the shop all day, every day as a kid, so he tried to keep his distance as he grew up. He didn’t want to get sucked in. But the day after he turned 19, he was on summer break from his freshman year of college and needed a job for a month, so he started as a prep cook there. He found out he loves cooking.

“I really kind of resisted it for a long time and once I finally dug my hands it I was like, wait a sec, this is actually great,” Johnny said.

Aside from two stints living in Puerto Rico, he’s been working with his family ever since.

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“This was his world”

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Katy and Johnny grew up watching their dad interact with nearly every customer who came in.

“This was his world,” Katy said.

She called the deli “his third child.”

It’s where he got all his social interaction. It’s where he saw his family. It’s where he connected with his friends.

“John was the big talker. Too much,” Buffy said with a laugh.

This was the dream he had for the shop when he purchased it. He had left a career in accounting and banking.

“He realized he hated sitting behind a desk,” Buffy said.

He was strong on people skills, loved making people happy and loved cooking. When the couple moved up here from New York City they looked at a bunch of businesses and eventually agreed on a NYC-style deli.

The Van Andens bought the deli business from George Stearns and opened it under their management on June 26, 1986.

Buffy worked at the Adirondack Daily Enterprise at that time. Things got so busy that, after a few years, she left the newspaper to work at the deli and bounced between the two for years.

John was known for his chattiness.

“My favorite is, him never knowing anyone’s name and having to sneak away to find my mother to ask her their name, where she would then charge him $5 for telling him,” she said.

The back wall of the kitchen is full of notes about people and their lives. Even when he didn’t know someone’s name immediately, Katy said he could hold “effortless conversation” and through asking them about their kids, their job, their plans, figure out who they were.

“It was like watching magic happen,” Katy said.

Buffy said she was proud of the atmosphere they fostered. When customers came in they were all equals, she said. She recalled seeing television star Chris Noth “goof it up” with neighbors and contractors at the deli counter. They kept a strict rule for employees to not to make a big deal when someone famous came in. Buffy said she almost fired someone for breaking this rule once.

The end of the era of Lakeview Deli is “bittersweet” for the Van Andens. Buffy said customers were telling them they were “thrilled for us and sad for themselves.”

The Van Andens are selling the buildings on the corner of River Street and Shepard Avenue and will move to a new location. They plan to announce the new address soon. One thing’s for sure: It will be in Saranac Lake.

“I only want to be in Saranac Lake. I don’t want to be anywhere else ever,” Buffy said.

People have asked her to move all over, but she said she never will. They chose to operating in Saranac Lake because it was a community-minded business community, rather than a competitive one.

The doors for the day-long last-call at the deli counter will open at 10 a.m.

Katy expects there will be a lot of laughs and maybe some tears as they celebrate their customers and give tribute to John Van Anden.