Rosey's Italian Cafe to exit East Ave.; other restaurateurs eye space

Thomas Adams//January 28, 2011//

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Rosey’s Italian Cafe, a fixture downtown for 15 years, is moving to the suburbs because its owners could not agree on terms of a new lease.

Rosey’s is a tenant in a five-story building at 316-350 E. Main St. managed by the Cabot Group Inc., which last year spent $500,000 on renovations and upgrades, Cabot vice president Daniel Saperstone said.

The restaurant’s owners will pull up stakes in April or May and relocate to Five Mile Line Road in Penfield. The move comes after 10 years at 350 E. Main St. Before that, the restaurant was in the Temple Building on Franklin Street for five years.

Restaurant owners Richard and Roseanna Vitale live in Penfield. Richard is the cook, Roseanna the hostess. Rosey’s has as many as 12 part-time employees.

"It’s sad for my wife and I because we know so many people down here," Richard said this week. "We like to think we’re a good part of the community and have a good reputation for all the years we’ve been down here. It pulls our heartstrings."

Rosey’s is on the southeast corner of the building at street level. The upper floors contain 86 one- and two-room studio apartments, rented primarily to East-man School of Music students.

"The building is always 100 percent full," Saperstone said. "All 86 units are always rented. It takes the car out of play for lots of these kids. They’ve recently been remodeled."

Cabot, which is based at the Linden Oaks Office Park in Pittsford, ranks second behind Buckingham Properties LLC on the Rochester Business Journal’s list of property management firms, overseeing nearly 6.9 million square feet of property.

"We visualize something bright and new and cool and hip that would be a great addition to Main Street," Saperstone said of the restaurant space.

"We’re near the Gibbs Street corridor and the East End, and there’s lots going on down there, and we have what we believe is a wonderfully placed property. We’d like to see something slick and cool and new on that corner."

Several restaurateurs have expressed interest in the space, he said.

"They have developed interesting concepts and would agree to be open for lunch and dinner at least, if not breakfast," Saperstone said. "We’re visualizing something modern and bright, perhaps some sidewalk eating.

"We have a small parking lot that we control adjacent to our space, which would be quite an amenity for valet parking for an evening crowd. We’re well-positioned with Eastman kitty-corner and everything on Gibbs Street very close to us."

Vitale said he had been told by Saperstone that Max of Eastman Place will move to the site to replace Rosey’s. Saperstone said chef Anthony Gullace, who owns four Max Rochester restaurants in the city, is interested, but nothing has been finalized.

"Tony Gullace is looking at that property," Saperstone said. "He’s very interested in that space. I can’t confirm because it ain’t soup. There is no lease in place with anybody."

Max of Eastman Place, which opened in 2002, is at 387 E. Main St. Gullace did not return a midweek phone call seeking comment.

Rosey’s was welcome to stay, Saperstone said, if the owners were willing to expand their hours and menu. Rosey’s serves lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays. It is closed weekends.

"I met with Rick at Rosey’s and said, ‘As a condition of any renewal, you’re just going to have to freshen up this place,’" Saperstone said.

"We spent all this money. He’s got a nice little luncheon business, but we’d like it to be remodeled because it’s been a long time, and we’d like a restaurant in here that’s open for dinner."

Vitale said he cannot afford to remodel and it does not make business sense to serve dinner.

"Downtown gets quite quiet around here after 5 if there’s not an event or something going on," he said. "I’ve done dinners on and off here through the years, unsuccessfully."

In addition to longer hours and adding dinner, the Vitales were told, they would have to pay for parking in a lot across Stillson Street from the restaurant. The city owns the lot, which is leased to Cabot.

"When I leased this space (10 years ago), it came with parking for myself and my staff," Vitale said. "(Cabot) told me the city raised the rent on the lot 200 percent and they had to pass that on to me, which comes down to a 20 percent raise to me per month.

"That’s really a hefty chunk. They weren’t going to raise my actual rent, but they were going to start charging me for parking. I’ve been operating here for nearly a decade, with (parking) included. Then all of a sudden, when times aren’t the greatest, you have a 20 percent increase monthly. That’s hard to swallow."

Rosey’s has struggled to survive the recent economic crisis, Vitale said.

"The past couple of years during this recession have been hard," he said. "There’s been a lot of layoffs downtown and businesses relocating and people tightening up their pocketbooks. It’s been pretty much break-even."

The lease expires May 1, Vitale said. The Penfield restaurant could be open within two weeks, he said. The East Main Street eatery will remain open until about a month before the lease expires.

The Penfield restaurant will be open seven days a week, until 9 p.m. weekdays and 10 p.m. weekends, Vitale said.

"It has a nice village feel, similar to what we have here, where it’s kind of a sidewalk cafe," he said. "It’s in a little strip plaza. It doesn’t have near the seats that I have here now, but it has nice parking, and nice entry and exit."

The Penfield location has 1,900 square feet, compared to 1,300 square feet on East Main.

"We’re sad," Vitale said. "We have a nice clientele base here. We had looked around a bit down here to try to find a substitute location, but we couldn’t find a spot that met our needs, with our parking and seating capacity and budget."

The East Main Street building formerly was owned by the Farash Corp. and is now owned by an entity of the Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation, Saperstone said.

"We spent a considerable amount of money in the past year redoing the fascia of the building," he said. "We added a beautiful tenant lounge of 3,000 square feet.

"Most of the tenants in the building are Eastman School of Music students. … We developed a lounge area with a performance stage, private practice rooms and a gym."

Renovations began last June and were completed by September, Saperstone said. The building now is called University Place after previously being Chestnut Square. The lounge is in space formerly occupied by Monroe Savings Bank FSB, he said.

"It is very cool," he said. "It’s open all day to our tenants. There’s a big-screen TV. On weekends the kids can come down and play in front of their mates. It’s a place to hang out in the building.

"We’re looking at it as a possible small venue for the Jazz Festival because it will seat 80 to 100 people."

Constructed in 1928, the building has 101,247 feet of floor space.

"This place sat vacant for over a year’s time before I took it," Vitale said. "Apparently now it’s an in-demand location.

"They’ve done some good renovations to this building over the last year or so. They want to put an image on this corner that I don’t think I fit into."