GENEVA — Want to know whether FLX Table is the Best New Restaurant in the nation by way of an online reader poll conducted by USA Today?
You’ll have to wait until Friday. So will FLX Table.
Voting closed Monday afternoon, but the results won’t be announced until Friday, according to USA Today 10 Best.
“Sorry! The leaderboard is closed for the final days of voting,” the site stated Monday. “Come back on Friday, Jan. 6th at 12 p.m. EST to see the results!”
FLX Table, a trendy restaurant at 22 Linden St., was hoping it would be celebrating a victory Monday in a poll it has been leading in recent weeks. Its surge was fueled by a number of news stories, including one in the Finger Lakes Times.
FLX Table manager Isabel Bogadtke said the eatery, which she runs with husband, chef Christopher Bates, was planning a brief January hiatus after the holidays, but thought they’d open for a bit Monday in anticipation of the winner of the poll being announced.
“We had plans on having a breakfast thing or lunch thing (Monday),” she said.
When they learned results wouldn’t be known until Friday, plans changed, Bogadtke said. She added that if they do learn they’re the winners on Friday, it will be happening with friends and family: The couple is hosting many out-of-town guests for a belated Christmas celebration.
“We would love to be open,” she said, “(but) we’ll have a full house of people.”
In recent weeks FLX Table, which opened in July, was leading Butchertown Grocery; the Louisville, Ky., held the lead prior to a series of news stories about the Geneva restaurant.
Just being in the running is impressive, considering FLX Table hails from such a small city. Other restaurants in the running came from places like San Diego; Chicago; Minneapolis; Nashville, Tenn.; Philadelphia; New York; and Atlanta.
The restaurant’s farm-to-table concept, featuring groups of 12 sit down to a five-course gourmet meal for $49 a person, is grabbing attention in foodie circles regionally and nationally.
Bates is a Master Sommelier, and he fashions the restaurant as an intimate dinner party event with the chef cooking the creations right in front of diners.
His status as a sommelier ensures folks will find their gourmet foods matched with outstanding wines, said food and wine aficionado Michael Warren Thomas, who hosts radio shows on WYSL 1040 AM and 92.1 FM, including “The Grapevine” and “For the Love of Food.”
“They don’t ever come together,” Thomas said last month. “That’s why we’re lucky to have him.”
Bogadtke said the restaurant, which had a busy holiday season, will reopen Jan. 21. The couple said they needed a breather and figured that January, typically a slow month in the restaurant business, would be a good opportunity to get some much-needed time off.
