GUILDERLAND — Chef Yvette Dinovo-Schroeder is excited about opening The Nines restaurant at Guilderland’s town-owned golf course.

The town golf course is unique, said Dinovo-Schroeder, the only venue she knows that has three nine-hole instead of one 18-hole course. “That’s where we got the name,” she said. 

The Stone Fox Grill restaurant and food service, which opened this spring at 2350 Western Ave., is closing its doors permanently. 

A year ago, when Mallozzi’s ended its long-time relationship with the town, five eateries expressed interest in running the clubhouse restaurant. Guilderland Parks and Recreation Director Colin Gallup said that the town contacted the company whose bid came in second among the proposals the town received then and that that company had agreed to open a full-service restaurant and do event catering at the site. 

Co-owner Brian Van Vranken, who opened Stone Fox Grill in April 2019 together with his fiancée, Laura Loverro, said this week, “It just wasn’t a good location for a second restaurant.” 

Van Vranken and Loverro also own Maxon’s at 2544 Guilderland Ave. in Rotterdam and the couple will concentrate on Maxon’s, which he called “a very strong restaurant.” 

“It’s more of a catering atmosphere than a restaurant atmosphere,” Van Vranken said of the golf-course eatery. Gallup said that Mallozzi’s did focus more on catering, for golfers and special events, although it was always open to the public and “anyone could walk in and get a meal.” 

Van Vranken and Loverro redesigned the venue’s look before opening this spring. 

A Perfect Plate Catering 

Chef Yvette Dinovo-Schroeder of Sloansville, who says she has about 20 years of experience in the restaurant business, says she is “so excited” about opening a restaurant and eating service at the golf course. 

She earned a degree in culinary arts from Schenectady County Community College, she said, where she studied under Chef Robert Payne; she later studied at the Parrott House in Schoharie under Chef Rick Stevens. 

About seven years ago, she said, she opened a smaller catering business that grew into A Perfect Plate. She will move all of her operations to the golf course, she said.

She said she looks forward to the catering possibilities the venue offers for weddings, social events, and corporate events, citing its pavilion, which she said holds 700 people, its “beautiful ballroom,” with room for 300, and its “all-glass atrium” that holds 170.

Her plan is to open a full-service restaurant with bar and dining area, she said. The menu will be an affordable fusion of American and Italian fare that uses as much locally-sourced food as possible, she said. The Nines will also offer Sunday brunches. 

Since early childhood, Dinovo-Schroeder said, she was taught to cook by her Spanish and Italian grandmothers. They taught her to include love in all her cooking, she said, adding, “I feel that people can taste the love in the cooking.” 

She had always talked about opening her own restaurant or catering business, she said, but did it only after losing her son to suicide. He had always told her jokingly that her only talent was cooking. 

“It’s not a bad talent,” she said. “I love to feed people.” 

His death, she said, inspired her to try to fulfill her lifelong dream. 

Her four other children are all part of the business — working for it or helping out.

Dinovo-Schroeder said her catering company has held benefits in the past, including for suicide awareness and breast cancer research, and she hopes to be able to do more at the new, expansive venue.