Juicy Burgers shuts Guilderland shop

PHOTOGRAPHER: Courtesy Google Maps

Juicy Burgers & More has closed on New Karner Road in Guilderland.

GUILDERLAND — A small, local hamburger chain is now a standalone store after Juicy Burgers & More closed its Guilderland location Sunday.

Owners Bobby Mitchell and Dustin Flannery did not return a call for comment left at the Milton location of Juicy Burgers on Tuesday. A note on the door of the Guilderland shop and on its Facebook page gave no explanation for the closure, though it thanked customers for their patronage and invited them to the Milton shop.

Jonathon Locke, of Rotterdam, who said he’d been general manager of the Guilderland store for five years, was a bit rankled by the way the closure was handled. He said Flannery told him and the other employees five minutes before closing on Sunday that he was closing the store.

The odd thing, he said, is that Flannery had been hiring people for the Milton location in recent weeks, even as he made plans to eliminate the jobs in Guilderland.

Locke said he had known for months the shop would close at some point to make way for an urgent care facility, but he thought a replacement burger shop would be built before the Guilderland shop closed.

The schedule apparently was moved up, Locke said, after a meeting with Albany Medical Center, which he said wants to build the medical office there.

Albany Med did not return a call Tuesday seeking comment about what plans, if any, it has for the site.

Locke said the Guilderland shop was doing well when the owners pulled the plug on it. He said he has other plans and will do fine, but he worried about the other eight employees, some of whom are adults working full time.

“My heart goes out to these people,” he said.