Archive: Around Town

Crossroads RestaurantThe corner of Triphammer and Peruville Roads has always been a Lansing focus of sorts.  It was a crossroads for passenger railroads at one time, and more recently a Crossroads for food and drink.  Four years ago the Crossroads restaurant closed its doors, and the building was occasionally used for private parties.  Last December it reopened under new ownership.  Owner Jay Dietershagen has plans to make it the place to go in Lansing for a long time to come.

"I want it to be the east side of the lake version of the Glenwood Pines," he says.  "I want it to be the restaurant where everybody can come whether they're in jeans and a tee-shirt or just getting out of work.  They can just come and relax.  We'll get bands going, and the patio open.  We'll get the horse shoes and volleyball leagues going.  We'll start clammin' and jammin' again, We'll keep doing fish fries.  I just want this place to be busy.  I want to make people happy."


The bar and restaurant is off to a great start, filling up on weekends.  Dietershagen offers a selection of family fare with a burger that easily rivals the Pinesburger and prices in the range of about $10 for a dinner meal.  It is currently open seven days a week from 3pm to 1am with dinner served until 11pm.  On Fridays it's fish fry featuring 10 to 12 ounce pieces of Icelandic haddock with a light fried batter.

The restaurant is attractive with a frosted glass wall separating the bar from the restaurant.  The back of the bar is an attractive cabinet with four levels of shelves full of bottles, backlit in festive warm colors.  The restaurant side offers booths and tables, and can seat 70.  Historical pictures of Lansing and Tompkins County adorn the walls.  The space is flexible to allow for live music.  The first band to play will be Iron Horse, scheduled for February 13th at 9pm.

Dietershagen owns the restaurant in partnership with his father John Dietershagen, who owns the building with Leo Mahool.  He is a Lansing native who studied culinary arts at TST BOCES while attending Lansing High School.  During that time he worked for Mahool at the Lakewatch Inn and then at The Rose in the Triphammer Mall.  He studied hotel and restaurant management at Delhi and Syracuse university, where he earned his degree.  He attended the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan, and was hired there as Executive Sous Chef of Event Operations.

That job got him involved in popular national television cooking shows.  He was the sous chef for one of the contestants in the first season of Top Chef on Bravo, and worked as a food stylist on several shows, including Chef Story.  Chef Story featured interviews of famous chefs from around the country, and Dietershagen made the food for the cooking segments.

"I loved it," he says.  "The experience was great.  But it's extremely expensive to live in New York City.  You're working to live, not for a future.  It was kind of frustrating."

That led him to return home.  He managed Al's Wine & Whiskey Lounge in Syracuse for three years.  He had worked there while attending college, and now his job as manager taught him the skills he would need to open his own restaurant.  When the opportunity arose he jumped at it.  Dietershagen says that throughout it was his dream to own his own restaurant before he turned 30.  At 29 he has realized that goal.


Dietershagen's goal was to create a family restaurant where you can take your kids without subjecting them to the bar, but at the same time be able to get a beer or wine.  He notes than many of his Lansing High classmates are married with children now, and he wants Crossroads to be a place they can bring their families.  He worked with local craftsmen for about four months to create that goal.  They rebuilt the interior with a diagonal wainscoting pattern, the divider separating the bar from the restaurant, and the bar itself.  He consulted with his family as well.    He and his mother spent hours with Town Historian Louise Bement, picking out pictures that would reflect the town and Crossroad's place in it.

"Louise is a phenomenal lady," he says.  "She helped us so much with the pictures.  We're not even done -- there is so much wall space here.  Over the years I want to cover this place with Lansing nostalgia.  It's generational so when you look at the pictures of the salt mines you see your grandfather.  Maybe we'll talk to Dr. Grimm and Principal Hartz to get some sports pictures.  And student art work wouldn't be a bad idea."

Dietershagen is something of a workaholic, spending long hours in the kitchen each day preparing for the evening onslaught of diners.   Although Crossroads has only been open for six weeks he has long range plans to establish the restaurant as the place for townspeople to come.  He envisions a local hangout, that may be perfectly placed at the edge of the location the town is considering for a future town center.


With lots of flexible space for musicians and a dance floor he hopes to establish Crossroads as a venue for live music, and talks about buying a hay wagon or flatbed truck to set up as an outdoor stage when summer comes.  He also plans to reconstruct the volleyball court and host volleyball and horse shoes tournaments.  The restaurant is available for private parties, and Dietershagen is willing to fire up the fryer for customers who come in when the kitchen isn't in full swing.

This year's rough winter has meant a slow launch.  Dietershagen says despite that business has been good, and that having a 'soft launch' in a slow season has given him and his staff time to work out the efficiencies of running the restaurant.

"I think it's almost a blessing that we opened in the slower season," he says.  "If we tried to open in the summer we'd be overwhelmed.  Now we can look at the systems that we have in place and decide whether they are working or not working.  We're constantly trying to refine them to make the best customer experience that anyone can have."

That great customer experience is exactly what he is striving for.  He is already taking suggestions from customers and adapting what they want into the overall fare.  By doing so he hopes to establish a longstanding tradition that will make Crossroads successful as a business and as an integral piece of the Lansing community for many years to come.

"How many Lansing people have driven to the west side of the lake just to get a Pinesburger?' he asks.  "If I can get them to come over to Crossroads I'll feel like I've done something special.  I'm not here to get rich over night or to have a rock star status restaurant.  I'm here for the long haul.  I want to create something where I can say 'This 30 years has been great.  I opened a restaurant and have seen generations of people come with their children who are now grown with kids.'  I'm growing here.  I came with the hope to drop an anchor and create a life and have a family here."

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