"We thank them for considering the Village; however, the trustees and myself felt that their business model would not be successful at that location."
That's Babylon Village Mayor Mary Adams, explaining why the Village Board voted 4-1 to deny an application from DHT Babylon Inc. to open a restaurant called The Dark Horse Tavern at 90 Deer Park Avenue. If you've walked past that address recently, you already know it's not sitting empty. It's The Argyle, doing steady business under a chophouse concept, with a private dining room named after the lake down the street. The rejection is the part almost nobody talks about, and it's the key to understanding why Deer Park Avenue looks different than it did two years ago while somehow still feeling exactly the same.
The Board Said No
The Argyle Grill & Tavern closed after a 24-year run at 90 Deer Park Avenue, with a last call on June 30, 2024. The ownership group had already lined up a successor: DHT Babylon Inc., which operates three other bar and restaurant locations in Massapequa, Rockville Centre, and Farmingdale, planned to take over the space as The Dark Horse Tavern. At a public hearing, DHT's president told the board he wanted hours running from 11 a.m. to 3 a.m., a jukebox, and a reconfigured bar area to accommodate private events. Trustees pushed back on whether that read more like a nightclub than a restaurant. The board voted the application down, and Babylon Village went from having a confirmed successor for one of its most storied restaurant addresses to having none at all.
That kind of scrutiny doesn't show up in a Yelp review or a real estate listing. It shows up in board minutes, and it's the reason the character of this specific block hasn't drifted toward late-night bar culture even as the businesses inside it keep turning over.
The Insiders Who Said Yes Instead
With the Dark Horse plan dead, Lily Flanagan's Restaurant Group stepped in. This wasn't an outside operator testing the waters. Lily's already ran three other establishments in the village, Lily's Babylon, The Villager, and The Local, along with Oakdale Brew House and The Wharf in Oakdale. The group kept the Argyle name, refreshed the space with new flooring and reupholstered seats, and reopened to fanfare on November 21, 2024. Joe Flanagan, a 2012 Babylon High School graduate who started as a barback at 18 and spent the last decade bartending at The Villager, was put in as partner to lead it.
The concept landed somewhere between the old Argyle and something sharper: a $49 prix fixe Monday through Thursday, skirt steak and watermelon martinis carried over from the previous menu, and a pitch from Lily's own Wayne Meehan that stuck with me. He called the new Argyle "a layup for local diners," describing it as steakhouse quality at prices that don't require a special occasion to justify.
The space kept evolving. In March 2026, shortly after St. Patrick's Day, The Argyle opened a 20-seat private dining room called the Lake Room, built out of what had been a cluttered upstairs office. Owner Niall Crowe called it an underutilized space that took three or four weeks to transform. The name is a nod to nearby Argyle Lake and the historic Argyle Hotel, which dates to the 1800s. It's a detail that only makes sense if you already know the neighborhood's history, which is exactly the point.
The Same Names, Different Storefronts
The Argyle isn't an isolated case. Follow the ownership threads on Deer Park Avenue and you keep landing on the same handful of people.
Talina Osteria Romagnola opened at 376 Deer Park Avenue, a building that spent roughly 60 years as a deli before becoming Molto Pizza during the pandemic. Talina's ownership trio includes Massimiliano Gargiulo, who also owns Molto Vino just down the block. His new partners, Pietro Faetanini and Brittany Middlemiss, actually met him while working at Molto Vino years earlier, Middlemiss in the kitchen and Faetanini behind the bar. The restaurant specializes in dishes from Italy's Romagna region rather than the red-sauce standards most Long Island Italian spots lean on, and it's been booking steadily through this summer.
A few doors down, Babylon Social took over the space that housed Horace & Sylvia's for two decades before it closed in 2024. The grand opening included a ribbon cutting with Babylon Village Chamber of Commerce president Tom Vitale on hand to welcome the new tenants, a detail that says something about how tightly the village's business community tracks its own turnover.
None of this is a story about outside chains discovering Babylon. It's a story about a small circle of local operators recycling storefronts among themselves, expanding their own footprints rather than ceding ground to newcomers.
Even the Insiders Get Stopped
If you think this pattern means an established local operator can walk into any space and open without friction, The James is worth knowing about. Andrew Affa and Steve Squitiro, who already run The Piermont in Babylon and Arlo Kitchen & Bar in Northport, spent a year and a half renovating the old Babylon Carriage House at 21 Fire Island Avenue before opening The James as a modern American brasserie built around dry-aged steaks. It became one of the village's buzzier tables.
Then, in spring 2026, it closed without warning. The cause, according to reporting picked up from Newsday, was a paperwork issue with the New York State Liquor Authority that forced the restaurant to halt operations starting April 10. It stayed closed for weeks before reopening on May 4, 2026, with a $59 prix fixe and 50 percent off bottles over $150 to welcome regulars back. Even operators with deep roots and multiple successful restaurants aren't immune to the regulatory machinery that runs underneath this strip. It's a good reminder that the paperwork behind a liquor license matters as much as the menu.
The One Newcomer to Watch
The pattern may be about to get tested by an actual outsider. Whiskey Down Diner, a Farmingdale restaurant known for pairing classic diner fare with a curated, gastropub-leaning menu and alcohol service, announced plans to open a second location at 175 E. Main Street, taking over the former Ristorante Gemelli space. The owners are targeting a fall 2026 opening. This one isn't a Deer Park Avenue insider expanding sideways. It's a genuinely new name coming in from outside the village's usual circle, which makes it the closest thing to a real test case for whether the board's caution is about protecting a specific stretch of Deer Park Avenue or about something broader.
Deer Park Avenue, Right Now
If you're keeping track of what's actually open on the strip this month:
- The Argyle, 90 Deer Park Ave: chophouse concept under Lily Flanagan's Restaurant Group, plus the new Lake Room for private dining
- Talina Osteria Romagnola, 376 Deer Park Ave: Romagna-region Italian, currently taking reservations
- Babylon Social, Deer Park Ave: brick oven pizza and pub fare in the former Horace & Sylvia's space
- The James, 21 Fire Island Ave: dry-aged steaks in the historic Babylon Carriage House, back open since May 2026
- Whiskey Down Diner, 175 E. Main St: expected this fall
Worth pairing a walk down that strip with the village's own summer calendar while it's still running. The Gazebo Concert Series plays free shows every Thursday night at 8 p.m. through the end of August, with JC Keys Band closing out the season on the 28th.
The turnover on this street looks, from a distance, like constant change. Get closer and it's mostly the same names finding new addresses, with the village board acting as the one check on who gets to try. That's a detail worth knowing whether you're grabbing dinner tonight or just trying to understand what actually shapes a downtown you've lived near for years.
If you're curious what any of this means for a home's value in a village where the restaurant lineup shifts but the ownership rarely does, Caroline Sweezey knows this stretch of Babylon block by block. Request a free home valuation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
