ELMIRA, N.Y. (WENY) -- Seneca Beverage Corporation ended its long and storied run conducting business in the Twin Tiers with the announcement of its sale to another beverage company, Saratoga Sales and Service. The over 53-year-old company has sold over 100 million cases of beer to bars, restaurants, and grocery stores throughout six counties in New York. John Potter and Betsy Potter-Knapp, siblings and co-owners of the company sat down early Tuesday with WENY, sharing their reasoning behind the sale.

All locations owned and operated by Seneca Beverage Company are expected to continue running. As the Potter's step away from their positions, Saratoga Sales and Service have promised to keep SBC's 64 full-time workers employed.

Read the Potter's full interview (edited for clarity and redundancy) below.

QUESTION: How did the decision come about to sell after over 50 years of being here?

JOHN POTTER: Well, the businesses gotten about being big and if you're not doing so much dollar revenue a year, it's - the number is in the larger tens of millions to the hundred million dollar mark - you can't stay. You can't afford with all the additional costs to stay in the business. And, with New York being a zero growth state and specifically our area, it's not like we're having people move to the area. It's gotten tough to continue to do business. In order for us to stay, it would have taken a lot of debt. If we had taken the debt and business had gone down, we would have put the company and all the employees at risk. So we didn't figure, we didn't feel it was fair to gamble with all that. The company that we're selling to is nine times our size. They have the wherewithal to be able to do the things that we haven't been able to do.

BETSY POTTER-KNAPP: We wanted to do what was best for our employees in the long run.

Q: Were you struggling financially? 

POTTER-KNAPP: No.

POTTER: It wasn't, it wasn't a matter of struggling financially. We were trying to make the best business decision for the time. I mean, there are people that try to time markets and things like that, for this business, now was the time to get out. There are all sorts of implications for next year that have been talked about. There are things where... we just felt that now is... now is it. It's, it's going to be that much tougher. I mean, business, for the last 10 years, business has gotten tougher and tougher and tougher. If we continue at this pace, it puts everybody out there [employees of SBC] at risk, and we don't want to see that happen. We were fortunate. The people that are coming in, the Vukelic family, are going to keep just about everybody. Like my sister said, that's what we wanted. I mean, they were, and I think that the Vukelic's would agree with us. They were what we told them is our most important part of the business. It's our people. A lot of them have grown up here all along, along with she and I. We have a lot of great memories with them. The last thing you want to do, especially when you have a big family, like we do here... we don't want to hurt anybody. If we can do this as softly as possible, then that's what's important to us.

POTTER-KNAPP: It's kind of a market where it's either, grow and get bigger and buy other wholesaler-ships or it's okay, and it's time to go, to summarize what John just said. And, like John said, our people are our number one asset. They're the best part about this company. And, they're all going to have jobs. It's another wonderful family business. They've been in business for over 90 years. So, they're going to get taken care of, and that makes us feel a lot better.

Q: So, the other company is able to expand?

POTTER: They're able to spread the expense of the business out amongst all the companies. When you get to a certain size, you can do that. You can just spread that expense out. It's not all on Seneca's shoulders. These guys [Saratoga Sales and Service] go from the Eastern side of the state from the Canadian border to a newly purchased wholesaler and Oneonta, with Erie and Niagara county. Now, with our five counties and the beautiful town of Waverly... and they [Saratoga Sales and Service] also have the red bull franchise, which they take from Jamestown to Syracuse, down to Binghamton and through the Southern tier. They're able to spread this business out, where we're in our area, you know, they can, they can feed different areas with the business. When one's prosperous, the other one might be suffering a little bit. And our business has been flat for the last 10 years. I mean, we've had some ups and downs. COVID was... there were a lot of people that were stuck home. The bars and restaurants suffered and some of our best friends are the restaurant and bar owners. To see them suffer was painful and to see all that business go to the stores. There are a lot of great stores out there that picked up the slack.

Q: Do you guys have a position in this new company?

POTTER-KNAPP: We were not part of the deal, unfortunately.

POTTER: We're out.

POTTER-KNAPP: But, the world is our oyster and we'll be on to our next adventure.

Q: How does it feel to be out of a business that you've spent, spent your whole life doing?

POTTER: Awful. Awful. This has been the hardest thing we've ever had to do. This decision was not come to easily. This is second generation - I was hoping for the third generation, with my kids - it's not going to happen. Not having that opportunity to continue to grow the legacy that our father has built, has been difficult. And, it is, uh, yeah... it has not been easy.

POTTER-KNAPP: It's been tough. Like John said, we've grown up with everybody here. We have the most wonderful people that you get to come to work with every single day. And, you stop and have coffee, you talk and find out everything that's been going on and you get to see all the different people that make this place tick. To not have that anymore is very, very hard. We're going to miss everybody here. That's going to be tough. It's not an easy thing to go through.

Q: Any favorite memories from your time here?

POTTER-KNAPP: That we can talk about?

POTTER: Nothing that I want to talk about on camera. *laughter*

POTTER-KNAPP: Just being able to grow up here. When one of our guys, Gordy, retired five years ago, he said the first day he ever came into the old Seneca Beverage, which is now the food bank, he said: "Here's this toddler doing cartwheels down the hall." I got to him and I said; "Hi." And then I turned around and [left]. I was one of the first people he ever met at Seneca on his first day. I just happened to be in the office. So, you know, it's somewhere where we've grown up. In both buildings. Being that we moved in here in 2010 and, you know, in the old building from 1972, when this one [John Potter] came into the world and then me several years later. We've... whether it's been the old Bud at the Glen, whether it's been beer festivals that we've gotten to work with, whether it's been - we've got several veterans that work here and they got to take our Budweiser Serving the Heroes truck through the Memorial Day parade - this year we got to participate with Mic Ultra with the Wineglass Marathon. There have been some really wonderful things that have happened over the years. There are a lot of old stories that unfortunately stay within the walls of Seneca Beverage that still get talked about. I know with my dad and the fact that he's getting a little bit older, he loves telling old stories of when he first started, when he first came to Elmira and the people that he got to know, and it's been wonderful learning that much more of the old stories that maybe he hadn't talked about back then, that now he's, you know, smiling and laughing and reminiscing about. And, all the people that we've been in business with forever. The places we hang out, the places we go to eat.

POTTER: Let me ask you a question. What were you doing at 22 years old?

KURT MARTONE: I'm not 22 yet.

POTTER: So, at 22 years old, our father moved to town, hadn't married our mother yet and had bought this company, which was the old beer division from Empire Foods. They used to pull-start the trucks to get them started the morning. As soon as I got one started, they would pull the rest of them. And, it's incredible when you think, you know, at 22 years old, you had the wherewithal, to continue moving forward. If anything, it teaches you what you're capable of. That's probably my favorite Seneca story. I was drinking beer, not selling beer at 22. And, here he is, with people looking at him like, "who is this kid?", and, "how was he going to pay us?". It's probably my favorite one. That's probably the one I'm most proud of.

POTTER: 17 employees, and a two by four that held up the first cooler in the first warehouse that they had. The kids in the neighborhood used to punch out all the back windows, and they used to steal all the cans of beer from all the cases that they could reach. Then, his joke was when we built the new building - that's [now] the food bank - they made sure there weren't any windows in the warehouse.

Q: Will, the name, Seneca Beverage Corporation still stay, even as it's absorbed by this new company?

POTTER: We haven't heard for certain yet. We'd certainly like them to stay... to keep the name, but, if they choose not to that's their right. The building will be here. The people will be here. That's Seneca Beverage.

POTTER-KNAPP: Yeah.

POTTER: It doesn't matter what you turn the name to. If you decide to turn the name, that's still Seneca Beverage. Like Betsy said about Bud at the Glen, they don't call any of the races up there, they still call it Bud at the Glen. When people drive by here, they'll still say, "Hey, there's Seneca Beverage". That's what's important.

Q: When is your last day?

POTTER: We're going through that right now. We're trying to figure out closings and all that stuff.

POTTER-KNAPP: It could be the end of the year. It could be the next couple of days. It could be until the first of the year. But, it won't be very long.

POTTER: I was cleaning out my office this weekend. And, that's... you want to talk about miserable. Yeah. a lot of memories. And, a lot of good times... selling beer. Somebody said once, you know, there are a lot of things that you could be selling. We sell fun. Going out and selling beer. This isn't going out and being a drug rep, being a machine rep, being a, whatever rep. You go out and sell beer. You want people to go out and enjoy themselves and be with other people. That's what it means. It used to be, uh, you know, I'm the bud guy.

POTTER-KNAPP: Making friends is our business.

POTTER: Yeah.

POTTER-KNAPP: That was always Anheuser-Busch. That was the making friends is our business. That's how we looked at it. Every time you got to walk into a new account, meet someone new. There's your opportunity for a new friend to go out and have a beer with.

Q: What's next? Are you staying in the community?

POTTER: Staying.

POTTER-KNAPP: Staying, yeah. We'll still be in the community.

POTTER: Got kids going to be around for awhile. I don't want to uproot them. There are a lot of good people here that we'd like to see - we think Elmira can turn and start moving forward again. We'd rather be part of the change than those that run away and don't want to be part of the change.

POTTER-KNAPP: We want to think everybody that has been a part of our team throughout this. For me, I know for you [John] too.

POTTER: Thank, the community. We have been very fortunate. When our father started the business, he was just some kid, they didn't know who he was, but people gave him a chance. I think that we have to go back to giving people chances to make a difference in the community. If we can get back to that, we can get Elmira going again, instead of the doom and gloom, that seems to pervade.