David Gonzales, a longtime employee at Frank Restaurant on Second Avenue, died on Saturday from complications due to COVID-19. He was 55.
He had been on a ventilator at Albany Medical Center since April 4.
Gonzales started nearly 15 years ago as a maintenance manager at the restaurant between Fifth Street and Sixth Street.
In an Instagram post, chef-owner Frank Prisinzano paid tribute to Gonzales:
I don’t know what we are going to do without David. Before this pandemic I would never have imagined it even possible to not have David. He was another of my sons
My entire restaurant family is crushed. He was really a savior they called for help. We feel a huge hole in our hearts.
He is survived by his wife and six children as well as his mother. The restaurant has a GoFundMe account to help pay for his funeral expenses.
Gonzales is the second member of the Frank-Supper-Lil' Frankies family to die from COVID-19. Miguel Grande, known as the Pasta King at Supper on Second Street, died in late April at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens.
