COLONIE — Roger Martel, who has run the restaurant at the Albany municipal golf course for 32 years, and his son are the new proprietors of Otis & Oliver’s, the restaurant at Mill Road Acres Golf Course in Latham.
They bought the business from Don Wade and Erin Cavanaugh, the husband and wife who opened Otis & Oliver’s in 2005 elsewhere in Latham and moved it to the Mill Road course in 2012. Martel and Wade confirmed the news Monday.
Wade, who is 67, said he has been in the restaurant business for 40 years, and he and his wife want the freedom to travel and spend time with family. Martel, a restaurateur for nearly 60 years, said he and son Jim recognized that Otis & Oliver’s is frequently busy and wanted to add it to their portfolio after closing Martel’s Grill at the Town of Colonie Golf Course at the end of last year.
The elder Martel opened Martel’s Restaurant in 1994 at what is now known as Capital Hills at Albany, operated by the city’s Department of General Services. He said Jim Martel, who ran the Colonie course restaurant, will spend the next month learning the business at Otis & Oliver’s. Martel Hospitality Group will fully take over the restaurant by the end of May after finalizing a lease with Mill Road Acres owners Jay and Gloria Jevons. The Jevons bought what was then a nine-hole course nine years after its 1973 opening, expanding it to 18 holes about 30 years ago.
“We’re not going to change anything,” Roger Martel said. The menu and business model of Otis & Oliver’s will remain the same, he said. The restaurant serves lunch and dinner daily. Martel’s Restaurant at Capital Hills will also continue unchanged, he said, serving lunch and dinner Tuesday to Sunday, closed Monday.