Serving the Community: DeRobertis Brothers To Open New Restaurant in Hampton Bays

In the early morning light, Andrew DeRobertis would make his way down to the kitchen of his family’s eatery, Paul’s Italian Restaurant in Southampton Village, and start baking muffins, buttering rolls and preparing meats using the slicer.

Then, he would grab his backpack and head off to elementary school.

“I made a pizza for the first time in my life at the age of 5 years old,” he said. “I put it into the pizza oven, standing on milk crates, by myself.”

By age 7, he was supervising his younger brother, Evan, in the kitchen — who, admittedly, was not quite as enamored with the business, considering he was only 4. But it grew on him, he said.

And now, decades later, the brothers are opening a restaurant of their very own.

“To say I wouldn’t be nervous would be false, whenever you’re starting up a business,” Evan DeRobertis said, “but I’m excited as well, and we look forward to serving the community.”

Last week, they signed the lease on the former Friendly’s building in Hampton Bays that will soon become DERO’S Food & Family, a restaurant that, in some ways, picks up where Paul’s — which their parents sold in 2023 — left off.

Their goal is to create a community beacon, where locals and visitors alike can gather, eat affordably, and eat well. The menu will range from classic Italian American cuisine — chicken Parmesan and shrimp Francese, steaks and hamburgers — to tacos, nachos and quesadillas, to gyros, loaded potato skins and chicken wings, plus much more.

“It’s going to be something on the menu for anybody,” Andrew DeRobertis said. “There is no reason for anybody to say, ‘We don’t want to order here tonight.’”

Since Friendly’s closed in 2017, two restaurants have cycled through the Montauk Highway space. First, in 2019, was Salvatore Biundo’s Hamptons Standard, but shortly after he opened, he was served papers for trademark infringement by Standard International, a global hospitality group that includes The Standard Hotel in Manhattan.

In short order, he renamed the restaurant Salvatore’s and replaced the continental menu with Italian dishes.

Then came Barona Bay in 2023, which served up a fusion of New American and European cuisine — but it didn’t last long. Over the fall, Andrew DeRobertis saw that the building was available for lease and he leapt at the opportunity.

“The sky opened up and it gave me a ray of light,” he said. “It gave me an opportunity. It was my vision of chance.”

The brothers expect the restaurant to open next month — “We’re in the state’s hands right now,” Andrew DeRobertis said, explaining that they’re largely waiting on the liquor license — and, in the meantime, they’re working on cleaning, décor and developing the menu.

“Food is a way of life,” Andrew DeRobertis said. “I can tell a story by a meal. When I cook, I cook with my emotions. When I’m happy, I think I can bring out happiness. When I’m angry, I create dishes that basically are bloody murder. Cooking is the easiest way of expressing myself.”

His brother, on the other hand, will be in charge of the front of the house.

“Unlike Andrew, I wasn’t into the restaurant business, really,” Evan DeRobertis said. “I didn’t enjoy it, but I did it, basically, because it was my family’s business. An early childhood memory would have to be when I broke my leg in second grade, and my father still sent me down to do chores and accept the bottles.”

The brothers laughed together. “I was on a garbage cart,” he continued, “that way I could slide around and put the bottles in the correct boxes.”

Evan DeRobertis doesn’t expect those kinds of labor conditions. He and his brother are extremely close — they spend most of their free time together — and opening this new restaurant feels like a natural progression, they said.

“Evan and I want to bring back what we were brought up in,” Andrew DeRobertis said. “We’re two kids, happy with this chance.”