The happiest host in town

After 40 years behind the counter at Happy Hostess, Jay Post is thinking it might be time to hang up his apron.

Happy Hostess was created by Post’s father 70 years ago, in 1945. It started as a raw poultry business, but evolved over the years to sell mainly prepared foods (although you can still go there and buy raw chicken).

Post started at Happy Hostess about 40 years ago, planning on helping his father for a while after two people quit. “I came in the business to help [my father] and never got out,” Post said.

The switch from raw to prepared foods, Post said, was a necessity. “The supermarkets started selling raw poultry,” he said. “You could get it in the supermarket, you didn’t have to go to a specialty store. [My father] saw the writing on the wall.”

The start to selling prepared foods came in the mid-1940s, when Happy Hostess purchased a chicken rotisserie — one of the first stores on Long Island to do so. The first prepared foods they sold were rotisserie chicken.

From there, things took off. Today, Happy Hostess offers mostly prepared meals and catering, although they do takeout and delivery as well.

Post has spent his life behind the counter and in the kitchen of Happy Hostess. He works every holiday: cooking turkeys for Thanksgiving and hams for Christmas. He and his staff prepare big meals for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. His family even comes and works on the holidays.

“They all take time off,” he said. “My wife is a child birth educator and a doula, and she even takes time off to be with us here to help. So it’s a family thing during the holidays.”

But things have changed for Post over the years. More and more restaurants keep coming to town, and parking gets more and more scarce. It makes it hard for his customers to park, so Post has started doing curbside service and free delivery.

Post said he’s ready to retire, but not to see Happy Hostess go away. None of his children are set to inherit the business (and he doesn’t want them working retail), so there’s no one to immediately take it over. Post said he’s open to selling the store, but it would have to be to the right person.

“There’s been people in who want it, but they don’t know what they’re doing,” he said. “I’ve worked too hard to just say goodbye.”

Post said he’s looking for someone to take over the business who has vision, but wants to preserve the Happy Hostess history. His ideal buyer, he said, would probably be a chef.

Whoever would take over for Post, they would have big shoes to fill. Happy Hostess has been a Rockville Centre institution for 70 years, and people know they can trust Post and his team.

“When people want something special and they want it to be right,” he said, “they call us.”