Customers line up to say goodbye to the burgers they enjoyed for 40-plus years (video)

Mattydale, N.Y. — All day and all night long, it was two-for-one well drinks at Zebb’s Deluxe Grill & Bar in Mattydale. Same for wine. And beer? It was whatever they had left. The Miller Lite and Labatt taps ran dry days ago, but they had a few bottles left in the worn-out coolers.
“Say goodbye to the tequila, everyone!” bartender Stacey Ossit announced to a packed bar at 1:04 p.m. Saturday.
“Bye, tequila,” the daydrinkers responded.
She dumped the last drop of Patron into a rocks glass with orange juice and grenadine. That tequila sunrise chased down one of the last burgers any customer would eat in this restaurant hidden in the back of a nearly deserted Kmart plaza.
Zebb’s is closing for good on Sunday, after serving Central New York burgers alongside an 8-foot toppings bar in its retro-style dining room for more than 40 years.
Richard Zdyb opened Zebb’s back in the 1980s. At one time, the local chain had two restaurants in Rochester and one in New Hartford. Zdyb sold it to Brian Bergeron in 2006. As the business fell off, Chris Damick took over this last-standing Zebb’s in 2022.
Since announcing the restaurant would shut down, customers over the past six days were greeted with two-hour waits for a table for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic.
At 6:30 p.m. Friday, management taped a sign on the front door announcing they were taking no more customers for the night.
“It’s been nuts all week, from open to close,” Ossit said. “This is how it used to be. I’ve seen people here this week that I haven’t seen in years. This is what I’ll miss.”
Like most of the employees here, Ossit has already lined up a job starting next week. She’s moving on to Julie’s Diner on Route 11 in North Syracuse. On Saturday, she was one of few employees left to feed customers craving to get one last order of nostalgia. She served a packed bar and then took orders from the tables behind. All the while, dozens of customers waited just inside the entrance by the cookie counter for a table in the dining room, already stripped bare of the neon beer signs.
Christopher Claven stopped in Saturday afternoon for one last order of chicken tenders, a burger and the fresh-cut fries. Zebb’s was his parents’ favorite restaurant.
“This place was part of my growing up,” he said. “This food right here? I’m going to miss it. We don’t have places like this anymore. And that’s too bad.”
As of Saturday afternoon, Zebb’s will be open until 10 p.m. Sunday or until the last of the food is served.
****
Charlie Miller finds the best in food, drinks and fun across Central New York. Contact him at (315) 382-1984, or by email at [email protected]. (AND he pays for what he and his guests eat and drink, just so you know.) You can also find him under @HoosierCuse on Twitter and on Instagram. Sign up for his weekly Where Syracuse Eats newsletter here.