Start spreading the news. New Yorkers have resurrected a landmark and dining destination in Warren County’s rural Boyce community.

Boyce General Store, first opened in 1869 as a grocery store and post office and most recently owned and operated as a restaurant by Brad and Brie Golliher until the COVID-19 pandemic put the brakes on the popular eatery, re-opened on a limited basis last month.

Thanks to Derek and Janette Ostrom, a couple from western New York near Buffalo, Boyce General Store and its blend of rustic furnishings and to-die-for desserts and burgers is now open Wednesday through Saturday.

The little restaurant in the middle of farm country at the intersection of Woodburn Allen Springs Road and Boyce Fairview Road seems an unlikely investment for an Empire State couple.

For the Ostroms, though, this new venture is as natural as snow in Buffalo.

“It was our destiny to be here,” said Janette Ostrom, 49, who has a background as owner of sandwich shops and pizzerias. “We loved this place even before we moved here.”

Derek Ostrom, whose job with General Motors brought him to Bowling Green five years ago, agrees with his wife that fate played a role in making them restaurant owners in their new Kentucky home.

“We ate here four years before we moved here,” Derek Ostrom, 50, recalled. “I was on a list to transfer here for seven years, and we would come down to check out the area.

“Somehow, we found Boyce. I drank my first Ale-8-One here (Boyce General Store). It’s a Kentucky product that I used to take back to New York.”

The Ostroms’ love of the Boyce community and its historic restaurant was such that they dreamed of owning the store before they even imagined that was possible.

“We’d always say that we’d like to buy this place, but everybody said she (Brie Golliher) would never sell it,” Janette Ostrom said.

Once the store was closed as a restaurant and operated only as a bakery for Brie Golliher’s “Pie Queen” business, Janette Ostrom’s interest in owning it grew.

“We would drive by it, and I would say it needs to be open,” she said.

Last New Year’s Eve, the Ostroms finally got their chance – and pounced on it.

Brie Golliher posted on social media about looking for a buyer for the store, and Derek Ostrom got in touch with her that night.

“I texted her on New Year’s Day asking if we could take a look at it,” he said. “We made a deal on Jan. 2.”

The Ostroms closed on the property in March, then spent five months renovating, adding a bathroom and extra seating before opening in mid-August.

“This is something I prayed for a long time,” Janette Ostrom said. “When God wanted us to come, he opened the door. Brie said she knew we were the ones. We both knew we would be a good fit.”

Brie Golliher, who with her husband bought the Boyce store in 2012 and turned it into a destination with her pies and cakes and with special events like live music on weekends, agrees that the Ostroms are a good fit in the community she still calls home.

“They are the right kind of family to run the place,” she said. “I’m still part of the community, and I want the restaurant to succeed.

“I think it has been a good transition, and I think Derek and Janette will be good for the community.”

For now, the Ostroms are opening the restaurant for lunch and dinner Wednesday through Friday and for breakfast, lunch and dinner on Saturdays.

They have kept some Boyce staples such as the Pigmento Burger, catfish, and tenderloin sandwiches and have added New York-style pizza and a Yankee sandwich called beef on weck (roast beef on a German roll).

Janette Ostrom said the menu and hours are subject to change as she and her husband learn what the community wants.

“This is pretty much all we can handle for now,” she said. “Next summer, maybe we’ll open for breakfast.”

Derek Ostrom said he is already considering bringing back the weekend live music events, but not right away.

“We plan on doing live music, and people want to bring back the car shows and craft shows,” he said. “We’re just trying to get everything smoothed out.”