A New Chapter Ahead for Bethel’s Sycamore Drive-In

One week after the Sycamore Drive-In’s proprietors announced that they would be closing, the property’s landlord has now revealed that the popular Bethel restaurant will reopen in early 2026 under new ownership.

Bethel’s Julio Russo shares ownership of the restaurant site at the west end of Greenwood Avenue with his brother, Rocco Grosso, and their mother, Theresa Rotella. The restaurant will be closed for several months for renovations. What remains to be seen is whether its new management will continue the Sycamore’s status as a performance venue and event spot.

“The Sycamore is the kind of place that has made Bethel the kind of town that it is,” said local musician Billy Michael, who has performed several times each year at the Sycamore. He noted that since it first opened in 1948, the Sycamore has welcomed an idiosyncratic assortment of townspeople and events through the decades.

“Many of those people, sadly, have either died or have moved far away,” said Michael, who as an authorized justice of the peace officiated at a wedding hosted by the Sycamore some 20 years ago. The vows and man-and-wife pronouncement took place outdoors, on the bed of a large flatbed truck that also saw duty in town parades.

Chris, Patrick, and Kathleen Austin were the last of four owners to operate the popular spot at the west end of Greenwood Avenue – and their 28 years at the helm made them the longest in duration. December 24 was the restaurant’s last day of operation in 2025, and the Austins’ closing announcement came out on December 26.

“We are proud to have been part of Bethel’s history…and we are grateful to all our loyal customers and the many friends we made along the way,” the Austins wrote. “We have shared milestones with generations of families, watched children grow up, leave the area, and then come back with children of their own. It was always special to welcome those who had moved away and then stopped in when they returned for a visit. Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, engagements, and even weddings have been celebrated at the Sycamore.”

The Sycamore’s enduring popularity owes greatly to its one-of-a-kind menu, including an assortment of special burgers and sandwiches and homemade root beer. Many of those menu items will likely be continued. The Sycamore also owes some of its popularity to its status as a symbol of a bygone era: In the mid-20^th Century, according to a National Public Radio statistic, there were almost 200,000 drive-ins nationwide.  Just a fraction of that number continue to operate.

Among those that remain, none are quite like the Sycamore.

Longtime resident Chris Farris Andersen recalls when both the Sycamore and a Friendly’s restaurant across the street served as popular hangouts for local teens during her own high school years in the late 60s. “The Sycamore became more the place for the ‘greasers’ of the day, while Friendly’s was the hippie hangout,” noted Andersen.

An earlier memory is when Andersen’s family would gather at her grandparents’ home in Danbury, which had a wraparound porch. “My dad would go pick up Black Cows from the Sycamore for all of us,” reminisced Andersen, referring to the restaurant’s popular root-beer floats. “What a summer treat that was! We’d spend the entire evening on the porch drinking Black Cows, talking, and catching fireflies on the lawn.”

Later on, raising two children who are now 35 and 32, the Sycamore continued to be a routine stop for both meals and sweet treats at all times of the year. During this period Bethel maintained its small-town, blue-collar vibe long after many other Fairfield County towns became destination addresses for the highly affluent. Evidence of that enduring vibe was present in the summertime “Cruise Nights,” where owners displayed classic cars in an iconic setting.

Rob Volpintesta, front man for the heavy-metal band Sacred Oath, credited working at the Sycamore for almost a year during high school with the band’s start in 1984. “I was 15 when I started working there as a dishwasher. My best friend at the time was Pete Altieri, who was a waiter,” Volpintesta recalled.

“I was chopping onions in the kitchen, my least-favorite thing in the world,” Volpintesta recalled. “Pete came back and said to me, ‘let’s start a metal band!’”

This past fall, Sacred Oath performed at the Sycamore and that performance will appear in a soon-to-be-released music video for the new single, “1986.”

“The video tries to pretend that it’s 1986 - in part of it we’re hanging around the video games in the back,” said Volpintesta. “The Sycamore was the perfect place for that.”

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Volpintesta also claims credit for the name of one of the Sycamore’s newest sandwiches, the Blondie. It’s a complement to the popular Dagwood, which is a tall, multilayered sandwich featuring multiple meats, cheeses, and condiments. The Blondie is a burger with jalapenos and pepper jack cheese.

Besides his own performances with Sacred Oath, Volpintesta’s wife, Erin, was often a featured vocalist there – often performing duets with Billy Michael. Widespread audience participation made these performances especially heartwarming – though that, too, has changed in recent years. Michael pointed out that in prior decades, Bethel had its own Columbus Day parade. Participants gathered after the parade at the Sycamore sing Italian tunes.

“We’d even have an accordion player,” he recalled. That ended about 15 years ago when the holiday was renamed and the parades stopped.

Interviewed after the reopening announcement broke, Michael said he was heartened to hear the news. “Like most everybody I know in Bethel, I’m comforted to know that the Sycamore will live on,” he said. “It’s a town icon, and it’s great that it will continue to be part of our lives here in Bethel.”