By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- After 36 years of operation, Ponderosa will close on Oct. 6.

“It’s a sad day for Ponderosa and a sad day for a lot of people in the Massena area,” said president and CEO of Homestyle Dining LLC Thomas Sacco, which owns the restaurant. He said the Potsdam restaurant will remain open.

Sacco said his company decided to close the location, which employs 46 people, because they couldn’t reach an agreement with the building’s owners, American Realty Corporation (ARC).

“We tried to negotiate a five-year term … and the landlord doesn’t want to negotiate with us,” Sacco said.

He declined to go into specifics about the current or proposed lease rate, but did say they wanted $50,000 more than what they are now paying at the 341 Main St. building.

He said he contacted ARC on Friday to see if they were more amenable to Homestyle Dining’s offer, and a company representative told him they weren’t going to negotiate and the Ponderosa needed to “be vacated and … broom-swept clean by Oct. 14.”

Sacco said they tried to use as leverage renovations that Homestyle Dining made to the restaurant last year, and they still wouldn’t budge.

“This is just one among thousands of pieces of property they (ARC) just bought,” Sacco said. “Their not interested in … the impact (on) that community.”

Sacco said the 46 employees at Massena’s Ponderosa have been offered jobs at their other restaurants throughout the North Country.

Sacco says he’s been receiving some feedback from community members who aren’t happy about the restaurant getting shuttered.

“I’ve been getting crying phone calls from guests,” he said.

He said as a thank you for the decades of support, they will offer their buffet at its 1997 price, $6.99.

“It’s to say ‘thank you Massena for all the support,’” according to Sacco.