Cicero, N.Y. — The former Borio’s Restaurant on Oneida Lake, which was sold and renamed Stone’s Lakeside last year, has closed with no indication of when or if it will reopen.
The restaurant has been shut for weeks due to what its web site and Facebook page said are “staffing” issues. But the Facebook page now appears to have been taken down. Owner April Stone has not responded to syracuse.com’s request for more information.
The restaurant’s web site contains this message: “Due to staffing issues we are now closed. Thank you to the staff and loyal customers for your patronage.”
The shutdown comes amid what is traditionally the busiest season for the year-round lakeside restaurant, which has also long been a popular venue for weddings and other events. Borio’s had been in business since 1960.
Stone, a local business executive, bought the four-acre property and business at 8891 McConnell’s Parkway from the Borio family for $1.7 million at an online auction last summer.
Stone also owns Stone’s Steakhouse in DeWitt, which is open, and is president of a healthcare company called CNY Infusion Services in East Syracuse.
At the time of the sale last summer, Stone said she planned to make no major changes to the lakeside restaurant, which fulfilled a desire by the Borio family.
“The restaurant has been such an ICON in the central New York area for so long that I have no plans for major changes,” Stone said then via an email.
Joseph Borio Sr., a native of Turin, Italy, had cooked for decades at Syracuse-area hotels before opening the Corner House Restaurant in Syracuse. He sold that place in the late 1950s and moved out to Oneida Lake to open Borio’s in 1960.
Over the decades, Borio’s expanded into a nearly four-acre property overlooking the south shore of the lake. Generations of customers married, celebrated new babies and baptisms, held confirmation and graduation parties and watched their own children toast marriages at Borio’s.
In recent years, the business had been run by Marty Borio and his cousin Tony. Another family partner, Charles “Chuckie” Borio, died in 2020. The family first attempted to find a buyer in 2018 because much of the younger generation had moved on to other careers.
More CNY dining and restaurant news:
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First Look: An NYC pizza maker from Italy just moved into this Liverpool strip mall (video)
Don Cazentre writes for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.
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