This Month’s Featured Article

For anyone who has owned a business, reaching the milestone of 90 years extending to four generations isn’t just a “that’s nice” accomplishment, it’s a “wow, that’s amazing” feat. And for Birch Hill Catering, while honoring its past, the focus is on the present – with no desire to slow down in the future.

How do you celebrate this occasion? With a big party, of course. A really big party. And if anyone can make it happen, it’s the team at Birch Hill. They’re hosting a special wedding show and community celebration on their properties in Schodack, and neighboring Castleton-on-Hudson, NY on Saturday, May 9. Couples seeking to make their wedding dreams come true will be treated to over 25 local wedding vendors, food and beverage stations, a mimosa bar, interactive chef stations, and guided tours of the venue. (Head to birchhillcatering.com for more info!)

What’s extra special about this event, and this milestone for Birch Hill, is that family makes it happen. Safe to say that hospitality is in their blood, and this extends to overseeing with care and passion details as small as the way a napkin is folded to as big as guaranteeing that every serving at a large wedding is perfect and every part of the grounds and every moment of a guest’s time at their venue is magical (phew!).

“The Man”

Steven Feldman is the current owner and president of Birch Hill. He grew up in the Capital Region, spending time with his father, Matthew Erwin Feldman, and grandfather, Harry Feldman, at their multiple restaurants, which included the flagship operation, Herbert’s, which opened in 1936. Herbert’s was a destination in Albany, starting as a deli and evolving into a very popular restaurant. Albert Einstein even brought a group to dine there in 1940. A fire destroyed the original Madison Avenue location, and Steven helped with its relocation to Washington Avenue. The restaurant expanded to include a catering business, which is at the heart of what is now Birch Hill Catering.

The Feldman family also owned and operated the Albany establishments Daddy-O’s, Mall Mart, Daddy-O’s Party Place, Snack Shack, and Albany Business College Food Services, and Steven’s maternal grandfather Benjamin Hammer even operated several restaurants in Manhattan back in the 1930s and 40s. Sadly, when he returned from the war there was nothing left of his businesses.

“I grew up with Russian dressing in my veins,” Steven quips. He was never bored, and never without guidance and inspiration for what is required in the restaurant business. “The first day I was able to carry two ice buckets all the way to the bar just like Louie, the cook’s assistant at Herbert’s, was a big day for me,” Steven says. His restaurant and hospitality work experience when he was young included stints at Burger King and the Albany Ramada Inn Silo, where he advanced from room service to banquets and catering. “I was hooked,” he says.

He opened his first restaurant, Daddy-O’s North in Lake George, just after graduating from high school. Wanting to up his culinary game, Steven attended and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, and then “came home to my family’s businesses,” he says, “to work hard.” His first big event? A function for Amtrak with 55,000 guests!

In 1987, he acquired and renovated the 110-acre property in Schodack that is now the site of Birch Hill Catering. Back then it was an abandoned rest area along what is now I-90. His father was involved in this acquisition and shared his vision of its potential. The property is forever a work-in-progress where, as Steven describes it, they’re “constantly building and adding on new ballrooms and pavilions at Birch Hill and developing the facilities at Stablegate Barn and Vineyards. No time to slow down now,” he quips, “it’s a big tiger to hold by the tail, but the fourth generation is moving in.”

Carrying the torch 

Valerie Feldman is Steven’s eldest daughter, and while she helps across all the properties and functions of Birch Hill, she is the head of Stable Gate Winery in nearby Castleton-on-Hudson, which opened to the public in 2018. Stable Gate features an old barn that serves as a wedding venue and event space in addition to the winery’s tasting room.

Val graduated from Endicott College, near Boston, with a bachelor’s degree in hospitality. Graduation took her to the west coast, first to San Francisco and the restaurant business, and next to Napa to study winemaking. Val is a certified sommelier, and her talents could have taken her to the finest restaurants in the world’s biggest cities. In 2014, however, she “answered the call” to return to the family business. “I always felt it was inevitable,” Val says, “and I’m grateful every day.”

Val describes growing up at Birch Hill as “a dream,” adding, “the wedding shows, the events, having bounce houses set up and food everywhere, seeing my dad in the kitchen, my grandma doing the gardening, and my aunt – who was my dad’s right-hand person and a visionary like my dad – doing sales and so much more, all of it is part of me, then and now.”

At Stable Gate, Val oversees a vineyard and winemaking facility in addition to helping coordinate and stage the events that take place there. Val’s wines are rooted in her philosophy of low intervention, yielding bright fruit flavors. She is also crafting meads with the honey made from Stable Gate’s bees, and she recently launched a Vermouth (Dionese’s) that Wine Spectator called “exuberant.”

Bringing the fun back

Serena Feldman’s first official title at Birch Hill was “Activities Participant” because she could always be found assisting in the bounce houses and climbing rock walls that were part of activities for kids at Birch Hill functions. “I loved doing that,” she says. “And it taught me a lot about how bringing the ‘fun’ aspect to events can make things so memorable” – part of the skill set she now uses on a daily basis. An animal lover, Serena pursued a degree in veterinary science and spent some time in Florida until she, too, heeded the call that was always in her and returned to the family business at the end of COVID. She waited tables at first, filling in the gaps due to COVID staffing struggles and everchanging regulations and moved up through operations and into sales.

Today, Serena is Birch Hill’s special events sales manager, assisting everyone from nervous brides and their families to heads of corporations planning retreats or special events with the details that will make their days extra special. She credits a lot of her personal success to an operations background, where she learned the ins and outs of the business, and mastered each component, bringing a different perspective to coordinating a variety of events.

One of Serena’s motivating influences? “Bringing back the fun things.” She feels weddings and parties of all kinds are transitioning from more formal affairs to occasions that express who a couple or family or company is. “The carnival station is a great example,” she says, “of how people want to have fun at their wedding.” It includes cotton candy, fried dough, popcorn, and caramel apples. “We offer 100% customization along with our set packages,” Serena says, reflecting Birch Hill’s slogan, ‘Catering to All Your Tastes.’ “We’ve done weddings and other events centered around cultural themes, from African to Kosher to Indian and beyond. We have a large team in place that can accommodate every piece of a wedding or event.”

Serena is proud of the hard work and dedication she knows Birch Hill was built on, and credits her aunt and grandma in addition to her father for the examples they provided. “The weddings we do have always been beautiful,” she says, “but I’m excited about the trends for today’s couples. We’ve had magicians at weddings; one couple did a first joust instead of a traditional first dance,” she shares. “Really fun.”

Working with people to coordinate the event of their dreams takes a special kind of someone. “I like being the rock for my clients,” Serena says. “The calming presence.” She also “loves the challenge of doing an event in the middle of nowhere,” which is another part of what Birch Hill offers. Their catering and event planning are for off-site locations, too.

Blake Feldman, Steven’s son, shares his siblings’ idyllic childhood memories, having grown up at Birch Hill and being able to attend many of the carnival-type events that were held there. “I remember a trade show where the many vendors left all kinds of things behind. My dad gathered me and a bunch of friends for a ‘sorting’ party, and we got to go through it all, keeping some of the stuff we wanted,” he says. “It was fun.”

Blake’s role at Birch Hill is as an advisor on any and all things technical, which can range from water supply issues to Internet connectivity between sites to helping generate sales leads. Like his siblings, having grown up there gives him an amazing perspective on how everything works together. Blake earned a dual engineering and management degree at Clarkson, which further supports his contributions to Birch Hill.

When asked about this special anniversary year, Blake reflects, “I think any family wants to leave something better for future generations, and I feel we at Birch Hill have done and are doing a wonderful job of that. It’s a fixture in the community,” he continues, “we employ a lot of people from the community, and I feel really lucky to have grown up with this kind of example in my life. It has given me the perspective to want to succeed in other roles, and I’m hopeful that it will offer this to many more generations.”

Then there’s the conductor

With over 50 years of service in the business, Steven recognized a few years ago that it was time for him to retire. His children were established in their areas of expertise, but he knew he needed someone to oversee all the moving parts. Steven turned to another shining star of his team, who is “essentially family,” they all agree, and in 2021 named William (Will) Patterson operations manager.

Will is from Port Jervis, NY, originally, but grew up in Kinderhook and went to Ichabod Crane, where he and Blake Feldman became friends in first grade. As close friends, Will inevitably spent a lot of time at Birch Hill and progressed from playing on the grounds to pitching in as he and Blake got older. “I was here just about every weekend in high school,” he says, “helping out and learning.” Hospitality resonated with him as it did for the Feldmans, and he was soon serving elegant dinners in the formal dining rooms. This experience took him to Yono’s in Albany, a restaurant renowned for its standards.

Will graduated college with a degree in business administration and worked for a local financing firm through COVID. Always, he was in touch with Blake and the Feldmans, and like the others, felt himself heeding the call to be a part of the Birch Hill team. With the example and coaching of Steven, who Will admires for his “persistence and resilience” as a “make it work” kind of guy, Will knows that, for himself, “finding how to continue the legacy” is a big but exciting challenge.

He says, “Steven has always dreamed bigger,” and he considers it his role and job to build on that. “As a team,” he says, “we all understand how it’s supposed to work; we have the institutional knowledge, and we are all committed to making any celebration the very best it can be. We aren’t building a set or check list,” he continues, “we’re ‘composing’ the event by bringing all the different parts together in harmony and beauty. I love being the conductor.”

Will knows he has big shoes to fill, but through his involvement over the years and with Steven’s coaching even now, he knows he can dream big, too. “I like looking forward and building a plan for the continued growth of Birch Hill,” he says. “I want to see the legacies of Birch Hill continue: the big events, the varied events, and the community gatherings.

“What’s wonderful is when we work with people who came here for their prom, for example, and now they want to have their wedding here,” Will continues. “Or the parents of people getting married here who connect to the history of Birch Hill. So many families through the decades. It’s wonderful on every level that we help provide milestones in so many peoples’ lives.” Steven’s mother is 94 and “sharp as a tack,” he says. How wonderful for her to be able to celebrate her son’s and family’s achievements through the years.

Then & now & next

I asked Steven what he thinks Louie from Herbert’s would say now if he could see all that Steven and his team have built. “I think he’d be pretty amazed,” he says. “And I’m sure he’d be proud. I know my grandfather and father would be, too,” he shares.

The 100th Anniversary isn’t far away, really. I ask Steven if he has a vision for Birch Hill when that one comes along. “I hope it won’t change too terribly much,” he muses. “I’m taking my foot off the gas, but my children are involved, and Will is committed to its growth. It’s an opportunity for me to continue to see what I’ve worked to grow continue to blossom and prosper.”

We all know that even the smallest garden needs lots of TLC to reach its potential, much less flourish. Steven has been successful in business – the hospitality business, no less – for all these years. His advice to other entrepreneurs? “Be prepared to work really hard all the time. Unexpected twists and turns happen, and they happen in a heartbeat.

“What kept me going was laying the groundwork of all of this with the hope that my kids would follow me into it,” he shares, “and I know they saw how hard I worked. How hard we all worked.”

A toast to the Feldmans, to Will Patterson, to the extended Birch Hill team – past, present, and future. Happy 90th Anniversary. And many more. •

You can find out more at birchhillcatering.com.