[title]
For 10 years, a brightly hued restaurant in the Hudson Valley made dinner feel like an invitation to the best party in town. Now, Lil’ Deb’s Oasis is preparing to serve its last meals on Monday, October 12.
The gloriously colorful Hudson restaurant will close next week, ending a decade of tropical comfort food, queer performance nights and warm hospitality that made room for everyone. Lil’ Deb’s Oasis ultimately became a destination well beyond its small upstate city.
RECOMMENDED: This full-day leaf-peeping cruise takes you from midtown into the Hudson Valley—and it’s totally worth the trip
Co-founders Halo Kaya Perez-Gallardo and Hannah Black started with Tuesday-night pop-ups at Debbie’s Lil’ Restaurant, a local greasy spoon. When owner Debbie Fierro retired, they took over, named the restaurant in her honor and painted the exterior pink and teal. Artist friends helped make the décor; the dining room became somewhere to eat, perform, gather and get a little weird.
“We wanted a place for the weirdos and the freaks,” Perez-Gallardo told Grub Street.
That invitation caught on. Monthly queer performance nights packed the room, while the kitchen built a following for exuberant food that matched the surroundings: whole fried fish, scallion cornbread with Calabrian-chile butter, and tomatoes and cucumbers served with roasted peach jam.
And when a Yelp reviewer complained about affectionate patrons, writing “if u gay perfect,” the restaurant put those words on merchandise. (An excellent reminder to consider the potential merchandising opportunities before posting your restaurant grievances.)
Lil’ Deb’s also maintained a community fridge, kept Narcan in the bathroom and added a 77-cent charge to checks to support monthly payments to the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans. But sustaining that space became increasingly difficult. Perez-Gallardo had explored selling the business or transitioning it into a worker-owned cooperative. The landlord’s decision to sell the building complicated those plans and the cooperative effort collapsed. Weather-related closures also depleted reserves; in June, Perez-Gallardo reported close to $100,000 in business debt.
The farewell announcement explicitly asked supporters to celebrate the restaurant’s life rather than launch a rescue campaign. “I feel clearly in my heart that closing the business is not a failure,” Perez-Gallardo wrote in the announcement, reported by Rural Intelligence.
There’s still time this weekend to head to Hudson for one last meal beneath the colorful décor. Come hungry, wear something fabulous and give Lil’ Deb’s the send-off it deserves.