The busy life of Troy restaurant couple

With 2 kids and soon to be 3 eateries, Joe and Kelly Proctor find a balance

Next month, almost exactly three years after the pandemic shutdown upended their world, Joe and Kelly Proctor will open another restaurant, their third. If asked in February 2020, this might be where they would have said they’d be: a new restaurant to complement two that were well established, two young kids, a house in the suburbs with a lawn, even a dog.

But if asked in April 2020, as the extent of the pandemic’s effect on the restaurant industry was starting to become apparent, the answer might have been different. And yet here they are. Kids? Check. Third restaurant imminent? Check. House, lawn, dog? Check, check, check.

Three years ago, the Proctors were happy with the life they’d been building. Their thriving contemporary restaurant in Cohoes, called Caskade Kitchen & Bar, was about two years old, and five months before they’d launched The Daisy Bar +

Tacos in Troy. Kelly was pregnant with their first child.

“It cannot be overstated how extreme a change (the pandemic) was for us, like everyone in the industry,” she said. “Everything was ripped out from under us.”

By June, they’d turned Caskade into a second location of The Daisy. Tacos were easier for takeout, still the rule of the land. Caskade, with small plates delivered in cycles and food often shared around the table, proved incompatible with requirements and recommendations put forth by the state regarding physical distancing for tables and employee stations, single-use menus and napkins, cleaning and sanitizing, etc.

The two tacos shops, less than 4 miles apart, did well in their respective cities. But as the pandemic eased, Troy became a taco hotbed, with three more taquerias opening, including two on the same street as The Daisy. Pivoting yet again, the Proctors last month turned the diminutive restaurant space into Frankie Bird, specializing in fried chicken.

They were also finishing the development of their third restaurant, with an eye toward debuting it in mid- to late March.

Called Finn's at 40 River, it is located at the eponymous River Street address in

Troy, about five blocks from The Daisy. Joe described it as bringing back some of the cooking style of Caskade, with contemporary American fare and influences

Will Waldron / Times Union Kelly and Joe Proctor, restaurateurs and a life couple with two kids under 3 years old, stand in one of their restaurants, Frankie Bird, in Troy (formerly The Daisy Bar + Tacos).