Forty-One Storefronts, One Family, and a New Deer Park Address
A Port Washington family runs 41 Long Island storefronts across three brands. Their next one opens on Deer Park Avenue, next door to their own.
By Melville Chamber of Commerce ·
A Dave's Hot Chicken is going into 1822 Deer Park Avenue in Deer Park. It runs about 2,500 square feet, it is targeted to open in the fourth quarter, it will be the brand's first location in Suffolk County, and it is expected to employ around 60 people.
The more useful fact is who is opening it, and what else that company already runs on this Island.
One family, forty-one storefronts
The operator is Burger Brothers Restaurant Group, based in Port Washington and run by brothers John and Jeff Froccaro with their partner Harry Braunstein. The group operates 31 Burger King restaurants across Nassau, Suffolk, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, and six QDOBA Mexican Eats locations on Long Island, where it holds exclusive development rights for both counties.
It is also the franchisee behind Dave's Hot Chicken here. In 2023 the Froccaros signed a development agreement with that brand for 14 restaurants over five years, seven in Queens and seven across Nassau and Suffolk. The first Long Island unit opened in Carle Place in April 2025, a 2,555 square foot store in Parkway Plaza.
The QDOBA pipeline the company announced runs alongside it: Deer Park at 1826 Deer Park Avenue with a drive-thru, Bethpage on Hempstead Turnpike, Lake Grove on Alexander Avenue, Lindenhurst on Sunrise Highway with a drive-thru, Riverhead on Old Country Road at 5,000 square feet with a drive-thru, and a Brooklyn store on Court Street.
The trick is being your own neighbor
Look at the two Deer Park addresses. The new Dave's Hot Chicken is at 1822. The QDOBA the same company opened is at 1826, next door.
That is not a coincidence and it is the part of this worth studying. Most retail operators spend their negotiating energy worrying about who the landlord puts beside them, because co-tenancy determines traffic and it is entirely outside their control. An operator running several brands solves the problem by being the neighbor.
The savings compound. Two units on one site share a parking field, a construction manager, a general contractor, a single trip through the town's permitting and inspection process, and a utility connection program. They can shift staff between them when one is short. They give the landlord a single credit tenant for two boxes instead of two separate lease risks. None of that is available to a one-location operator, and all of it is why national brands reach Long Island through one local franchisee assembling a portfolio rather than through fifteen independent owners.
Sixty hires, in the worst possible quarter to be hiring against
The roughly 60 positions at the Deer Park store land in the fourth quarter, which is the same quarter every retailer, every carrier and every warehouse on the Island is staffing up for the holidays.
That collision matters more this year than last. The state's July labor briefing for Long Island showed leisure and hospitality down 4,500 jobs over the year, the sharpest decline of any sector here. The labor is available in a way it was not in 2023. But a single opening pulling 60 people onto one block of Deer Park Avenue in October and November still sets a local wage, and it sets it for everyone hiring within a few miles of it.
What it means for members
If you hire hourly on or near the Deer Park Avenue corridor, get your fourth quarter staffing done in September rather than November. A 60-person opening on that road will move the posted rate on that stretch, and you would rather be the employer who hired at the old number.
If you are a retail or restaurant tenant negotiating a renewal on a corridor where a multi-unit operator is actively assembling sites, your landlord has an alternative with a stronger balance sheet than yours and a proven ability to build fast. Your renewal leverage is lower than it looks. Open that conversation early and know what the alternative tenant looks like before your landlord tells you.
And if you run a single location, the co-tenancy idea scales down. You cannot buy the storefront next door, but you can approach the operator in it about shared hours, shared parking arrangements and joint promotion. The advantage the Froccaros are buying with 41 stores is mostly the advantage of a predictable neighbor, and two independent businesses on the same pad can manufacture a version of it for the cost of a conversation.
