Jason Carlucci, of The Dew Drop Inn in Derby.
DERBY – The Dew Drop Inn, a small Valley bar and restaurant known for its 126 varieties of wings and extensive craft beer menu, is looking to expand.
Dew Drop owner Jay Carlucci recently filed an application with the city to expand the restaurant/bar located at 25 North Ave.
During the July 16 meeting of the Derby Planning and Zoning Commission, Carlucci and land-use attorney Dominick Thomas gave a brief overview of what the expansion would entail.
The commission is slated to take up the matter at its next monthly meeting in August, following a review of the proposed plans by the building inspector and other city officials.
Carlucci said an expansion is necessary to meet the growing demand at the business.
Carlucci and his wife Kenna took over the place in 2006, transforming it from a neighborhood bar to a destination that has been featured on cable and YouTube foodie shows.
“We’re getting busier and it’s a great problem to have,” Carlucci told the Valley Indy during a follow-up interview on July 17. “A bigger kitchen is what I need to keep up with demand.”
Carlucci is proposing to build a roughly 15 x 20 foot kitchen addition to the right side of the existing building that he said will more than double his existing fryer space. He currently has four large fryers, but the addition will allow him to install five more fryers.
Carlucci said the kitchen expansion would actually create two kitchens, one for in-house orders and the other for the growing to-go order arm of the business.
The two-story addition will also enable Carlucci to move the two existing bathrooms further back, and create a small hallway for privacy. The space where the existing bathrooms are will enable Carlucci to add a couple more tables for customers. The addition will also enable more storage space for kitchen equipment. Carlucci also plans to create a small office and storage space on the second floor.
“We’re looking to continue to grow, and this place wasn’t ever built to do as much volume as we do,” Carlucci said. “We’re looking to keep up with the demand. We want to stay in Derby. We don’t want to look elsewhere for a bigger location. We’re excited about this, and (the expansion) will allow us to do some different types of food, too.”
The expansion, if approved, will allow Carlucci to add two or three more employees to his current roster of 38 employees.
Creating more space is something Carlucci has been wanting to do since the COVID-19 pandemic. He gained approval from the commission in 2021 to make an outdoor patio. Carlucci, however, said he decided not to go ahead with those plans.
“We were going to do it during COVID, but we never did,” Carlucci said. “We were going to have to do some blasting and that became really expensive. Adding a patio would have added four or five extra tables, but without having a larger kitchen to keep up with demand, we decided a bigger kitchen is what we really needed.”
The pandemic also caused demand to explode for to-go orders.
“We grew so much through COVID, it was amazing,” he said. “We want to keep growing that part of the business and the addition will allow us to do that. We’re going to come to the commission in August and we’ll hoping for an approval then.”
If he gains approval, Carlucci said he hopes to start construction late summer or early fall, and be ready to debut the new digs this fall.
Carlucci said the proposed addition requires no blasting and won’t have a major impact on parking, with only two spots being removed to make way for the addition. He said the Dew Drop has more than 100 parking spaces for customers, which includes the lot he owns on Park Avenue.
Commissioner Gino DiGiovanni applauded Carlucci for wanting to expand and stay in Derby.
“The Dew Drop Inn is one of the only restaurants that has made its footprint in Derby and has grown over the years,” DiGiovanni said. “With some downtown businesses closing, we as a board need to make this city more business-friendly.”
