Enhanced unemployment, pandemic lockdown helped sink The Laughing Duck

The site of the former The Laughing Duck at 45 North Main is back on the market; inset, Kyle Billings, left front, with his former restaurant staff. (Rochester Voice photo; inset, Courtesy/Facebook)

ROCHESTER - It could be one of the shortest runs ever for a Rochester restaurant - just five months - but a pandemic that kept customers holed up at home and gave those out of work a better paycheck than they'd ever earned proved enough to scuttle The Laughing Duck.

"The unemployment subsidy made staffing an issue, plus people were scared of going out," said former owner Kyle Billings of Lebanon, Maine.

The Laughing Duck opened in April amid the toughest days of the pandemic when restaurants were restricted to pickup or delivery.

When indoor dining at 50 percent occupancy was approved by the governor's reopening task force in June it helped a little, Billings said, but other problems dogged the eatery.

"We couldn't get a liquor license," he said, not because of anything he did wrong, "But just trying to get a liquor inspector down here was a problem with the scheduling (because of the pandemic)," he said.

Billings closed The Laughing Duck in early September along with his other Rochester business, LMK Trading at 69 North Main St.

The Laughing Duck was located at 45 Main St., site of the former Slim's Tex-Mex and Publick House.

Billings said he's looking to open another restaurant or other business, but probably not in Rochester, which he said needs to be "more pro-business."

He urged anyone interested to continue to follow him on his Laughing Duck and LMK Trading Facebook pages, so they can be apprised when his next venture is about to get off the ground.

And he said there will be a next venture.