Joe Dimaggio, Eva Gabor and others stopped in at this popular East Rochester restaurant
Alan Morrell
4 min read
ER Sweetland was a popular East Rochester restaurant where teens hung out before and after football and basketball games and school and retirees gathered for their breakfast roundtables.
Sweetland’s old-fashioned soda fountain and jukebox created an atmosphere that drew comparisons to Arnold’s on "Happy Days". It was called East Rochester’s unofficial town hall, a place where the phone number always was unlisted, but that was OK because “everyone knows where Sweetland’s is.”
The owner, Mario Pataccoli, was nicknamed “Hippie” (sometimes spelled “Hippy.”) Good luck finding out why, as theories abound.
A baseball legend once visited Sweetland as payback for a favor, packing the diner when word got out. Hollywood stars stopped by on a few occasions. “Tuna on Italian” was a specialty of the house, and the cutoff time for breakfast was never, ever extended.
Pataccoli opened the West Commercial Street business with his brothers in 1946. The place was known for ice cream and homemade candy before the format switched to sandwiches. The brothers, Lou and Pete, got out by 1971 and Mario continued on with his wife, Joyce. Sweetland quickly became an East Rochester institution and visits became part of traditions.
“I remember (Sweetland) as the middle portion of the Saturday high school football ritual,” Brian Masetta of Irvine, California, posted on Facebook. “Church at St. Jerome’s followed by breakfast at Sweetland and then on to play the game.”
Pataccoli had a display board where he posted football players’ names and listed their accomplishments from that week’s game, Anthony Marcoccia wrote on Facebook. Pataccoli also kept track of all the other high school game scores. East Rochester Historian Jim Burlingame said Sweetland had competition for a while as the area hotspot.
“During the ‘50s, there were two places in town — one was the Candy Kitchen and the other was Sweetland,” he said. “The kids would head to both of those places after high school. For basketball games, we would send ‘delegates’ to reserve places. You could not push your way into those places (after games).”
Frank Verni of Fairport posted Facebook memories of Sweetland’s black-and-white checkered floor, the vinyl-covered booth benches and the “full contingent of syrups, sodas and ice creams stocked to true malt-shop standards.” Verni and a group of friends went daily from school to Sweetland for lunch, he added. “Every day was truly the real small-town embodiment of 'Happy Days',” Verni wrote.
ER Sweetland reminded readers of Arnold's in the 1970s sitcome 'Happy Days'. The place closed in 2005.
Pataccoli and his “cronies” would get together and “solve the problems of the world,” Burlingame added. As to how Pataccoli got the nickname “Hippie,” well, that’s open to debate.
He didn’t look or really act like the proverbial hippie (think long hair, tie-dye T-shirt and jeans), although one news story said he once had curly hair. Let the debate begin. June Sebaste Ross of Rochester posted that “Hippy was a pretty hip guy in those days, thus the name…In our day, it stood for cool and really in the know.”
John Sebaste of Rochester posted, “From what I am told, the name ‘Hippy’ came from a football term, to ‘hip’ the ball, which Hippy was known for.” Leslie Messerino wrote, perhaps uncertainly, “I heard it was because of the way he walked? He walked with his hips?”
Regardless, Hippie was strict with his breakfast times and everyone knew it. A news story said the deadline was 11:30 a.m. Brian Pyfrom remembered a slightly earlier time, posting on Facebook, “I remember my dad telling me that the Pope himself could not get an order of scrambled eggs after the 11 a.m. breakfast cutoff.”
The baseball legend who visited was Joe DiMaggio, who stopped by Sweetland in 1973. At the request of a friend of DiMaggio, Pataccoli had helped with lodging arrangements for a young golfer who was in town. The only thing Pataccoli wanted in return was a visit.
“The joint was mobbed,” Pataccoli told Jim Memmott in a 1999 Democrat and Chronicle story, just after DiMaggio died. “People got wind of it and the line was going out the door.” The notoriously recluse DiMaggio reportedly had tea and toast. The get-together was particularly important in the strongly Italian American enclave of East Rochester, Memmott noted. “Given the community’s admiration for DiMaggio, it’s no surprise that Sweetland has a small shrine to the former baseball great,” he wrote.
Mario (Hippie) Patacolli and his wife, Joyce
DiMaggio was not the only famous customer. Greg Boeck wrote in a 1989 story that stars like Eva Gabor, Burgess Meredith and James Whitmore stopped by Sweetland when they were in town for performances at a one-time dinner theater in East Rochester.
Sweetland closed for good in 2005. Frank Bilovsky wrote a story for the Democrat and Chronicle in which longtime customers waxed nostalgically. One made yet another comparison to the ABC sitcom, saying “You ever watch 'Happy Days'? That’s the type of atmosphere they had.”
The jukebox had long since been stored in the basement, Bilovsky wrote, its impact intact. “For many past customers, it was their first experience with Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and the Rolling Stones,” Bilovsky wrote.
Pataccoli died in 2010 at age 85.
His legend lives on, along with his hard-to-explain nickname.
Alan Morrell is a Rochester-area freelance writer.
This story was originally published in June 2017 as part of the "Whatever Happened To" series.
