EAST GREENBUSH — A Rensselaer County restaurateur who blamed hostile comments on social media and unreliable employees for causing him to close his business earlier this month was operating without a liquor license in his final weeks and left behind a string of unpaid debts to employees, purveyors and a former landlord, according to records and people familiar with the matter.

Jeffrey Puppolo, who shuttered the Italian restaurant P. Brillo’s in East Greenbush on Nov. 11 with only a few hours’ notice to employees after less than a year in business, has a troubled financial history dating back more than 20 years — including filing for bankruptcy three times and multiple liens and civil judgments against him and his businesses, records show.

During a brief phone interview, Puppolo at first said he was willing to address questions about the business and his financial history. But after the first question, he became angry. “I can’t do this,” he said. “I’m not going back and forth with trash. I’m done. OK, these guys already closed my business down. OK, I gotta go. This is ridiculous.” He hung up.

Puppolo’s first Capital Region dining spot, called Papa Brillo’s Family Ristorante, was open in the Sterup Square commercial plaza in Pittstown from January 2022 until late last fall, when he broke the lease to relocate to a former Friendly’s building in East Greenbush. Sterup Square owner Ian Glasgow said he received a $5,000 judgment against Puppolo in Small Claims Court — the maximum allowed in that system — for back rent that has not been paid.

Glasgow alleges that Puppolo removed property he did not own from the Sterup Square restaurant, including barstools, door handles and other equipment, that he refused to give back until the county sheriff’s department intervened. A text from Puppolo to Glasgow, which mentions the stools would be returned and the sheriff would be notified, appears to confirm Glasgow’s allegation.

More than 10 people and businesses contacted by the Times Union for this article said they were owed money by Puppolo but refused to be named because they fear retribution from him and/or believe that speaking out would lessen the likelihood they would receive what they’re owed.

Others were willing to talk.

“Everything was always somebody else’s fault — why we didn’t get paid, why (employees) had to go get things from the store, why there wasn’t enough staff,” said Ella DiPietro, who worked as a server at P. Brillo’s for 10 to 12 shifts over a few weeks from late October until the afternoon of Nov. 11, when she was told the restaurant would not open that night and was likely permanently closed. She said she was owed about $400 in hourly pay and tips for her final shifts and that the paychecks she did receive were at least a week past due, always accompanied by multiple excuses. It was paid earlier this week, she said.

“Whenever he was stressed he’d say things like, ‘Why does everybody hate me? Everybody’s out to get me.’ It was always drama caused by somebody else,” DiPietro said. When the restaurant was busy, she said, “He’d get angry and tell us not to put in orders that we’d already taken from customers, to just wait, because he couldn’t handle it.”

DiPietro said money seemed so short, and suppliers so reluctant to deliver, that food was sometimes bought on a daily basis and staff purchased cake from Walmart to include in takeout packages that promised dessert of some sort. Glasgow said when another restaurant took over the Sterup Square restaurant space after Papa Brillo’s left, he had to provide a landlord’s letter attesting the new tenant was unaffiliated with Puppolo and Papa Brillo’s before food and alcohol suppliers would deliver to it, as a result of alleged nonpayment by Papa Brillo’s.

Brandy Martone was a manager for P. Brillo’s until late October. After she quit, she posted a question on a private East Greenbush Facebook group asking about strategies to receive what she was owed. Although Martone said she did not mention the restaurant or Puppolo by name, group members made the association and began commenting negatively and in abundance about Puppolo and P. Brillo’s. Martone and Puppolo confirmed to the Times Union that he would not pay her a final check until she took down her original question, which removed associated comments. Martone shared with the Times Union a text message from an employee whom she said acted as Puppolo’s assistant.

“(Puppolo) wants all the negative stuff down now,” the assistant wrote, including a photo of a bank check. Martone said the check, in the amount of $1,765, is less than what she was owed. “That’s what I agreed to take, just to get something out of all this,” she said.

Martone’s final paycheck was also contingent on her returning a set of restaurant keys, she and Puppolo told the Times Union.

“I had to make sure I got them back,” Puppolo said last week. His actions may violate federal labor laws, which generally prohibit employers from withholding final paychecks even if the employee is still in possession of company equipment or other property.

“It was the most toxic restaurant I’ve ever been in,” said Rob Allen, who said he has been a server for 23 years at 10 places, from the former Butcher Block in Colonie to Michelin-starred restaurants in Manhattan and Miami.

“I have never in my life seen someone treat others in such a godawful fashion,” Allen said. He said he worked at P. Brillo’s for three shifts in the spring, during which he witnessed Puppolo allegedly fire five people without cause. He was fired, too, he said, by a person he was told had been named the new general manager that morning. (Allen said he was paid for his shifts.)

Speaking last week, in his only substantive interview with the Times Union, Puppolo described negativity about him and his restaurants as “a smear campaign — constantly more and more slander.”

Multiple comments on social media allege that Puppolo and/or Papa Brillo’s and P. Brillo’s were reported to labor authorities. Glasgow, the Sterup Square owner, said a former employee of the Pittstown location told him “six or seven” staffers there filed a joint complaint. Representatives of the New York and federal departments of labor, however, said they have no active cases or complaints against Puppolo or either restaurant. A federal database of settled labor cases does not include Puppolo or the Brillo name.

In contrast, public records apparently show that P. Brillo’s sold alcohol without a valid liquor license for its final two and a half weeks in business.

Because of lengthy backlogs at the State Liquor Authority, P. Brillo’s operated with renewable temporary liquor licenses since it applied a year ago. Though the full license did not make it to the SLA’s licensing bureau for 10 months after being filed, P. Brillo’s had a temporary license until Oct. 25, according to the agency’s database. That license was not renewed by the restaurant, an SLA spokesman confirmed, and the authority received information that P. Brillo’s was selling alcohol without a license in the weeks after the expiration. If the business had not closed, the SLA would have denied a full license and refused to renew another temporary, the spokesman said.

Multiple P. Brillo’s employees and customers confirmed alcohol was served, consumed and paid for during the period after its most recent temporary license expired. DiPietro, the former server, said she was told Puppolo and staff bought alcohol at liquor stores because suppliers would not deliver to the restaurant, apparently for lack of payment.

Other public records reveal that Puppolo filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2002, 2005 and 2018. The first case was dismissed, for reasons that are unclear. The latter two are listed as discharged, or settled. The 2018 bankruptcy was filed jointly with Robert Engel, who is listed in records as sharing a Brunswick address with Puppolo.

The bankruptcy filing lists $500,000 in assets and $500,000 to $1 million in liabilities to about 30 creditors. Past civil judgments and tax liens against Puppolo, all in Massachusetts, total nearly $50,000 from 2004 to 2012. Under Puppolo’s company, JNR Restaurant Group, P. Brillo’s is currently listed in court records as owing $1,185 on a state tax warrant filed Nov. 2 and, from December of last year, an unspecified amount to Performance Food Group of Springfield, Mass.

The address given for Puppolo and Engel on the latter document has the same house number and street name as their Brunswick residence but uses Portland, Maine, as the city. (There appears to be no such street in Portland.)

When Puppolo opened Papa Brillo’s, he described it as a chance to revive a brand he has been associated with for four decades. During the 1970s and ’80s, his family had an ownership stake in a small New England Italian seafood chain with the Brillo’s name, and he started working there at 14, he said.  Online reviews show Puppolo ran a Papa Brillo’s in North Attleboro, Mass., in 2010 that also changed locations after a few months and precedes several civil judgments and tax liens against him.

Last week, Pupplo said he was closing in East Greenbush because of online vitriol, including a death threat that he said he reported to Facebook but not to law enforcement. He said he also wanted to focus on trying to franchise the P. Brillo’s brand elsewhere and perhaps open another location himself. A Facebook page for a P. Brillo’s of North Attleboro — with a different address than the 2010 restaurant — has been reserved, but the link is unavailable at present. Puppolo declined to comment last week about whether he was hoping to open a P. Brillo’s in that city again.

The East Greenbush P. Brillo’s, at 9 Troy Road/Route 4, is for sale for $85,000, including all fixtures, furniture, restaurant equipment and assumption of the remainder of a five-year lease. Last week, the asking price was $175,000.