As Time Goes By For Rye’s Longtime Merchants

What we started in January — a salute to the many local businesses that have provided us with fine and pleasurable retail, dining, and service experiences for over a decade — we believe is complete with this issue.

 

 

What we started in January — a salute to the many local businesses that have provided us with fine and pleasurable retail, dining, and service experiences for over a decade — we believe is complete with this issue.

This isn’t the Final Four, but the last of 47. Quite an achievement.

 

For those merchants who were wondering when we’d get to them, third time’s a charm.

 

Here’s to decades more for all of you from all of us.

 

 

Rockridge Deli & Flower Shop

The Lagana family has nourished us and provided us with floral arrangements and Christmas trees for a very long time. Rocco and Gemma began with a fruit stand and garden center on North Purchase Street. They added a deli in 1985. They knew the business well as Rocco’s parents had a convenience store in Calabria, Italy.

 

Son Lorenzo took over the helm in 1995, after he got married. He and his wife Valerie have two children. His sister Brigit is his right-hand helpmate.
What keeps him going is the change of scenery, seasons, and holidays. People come for the annuals in the spring, the corn and tomatoes in summer, the all-natural firewood and indoor plants in winter, and the RCD, a sandwich named after the school up the hill, all year long. “And it helps that so many of our customers are like family,” says Lorenzo.

 

Brigit adds, “In here, we have the ‘Cheers’ thing going — everyone knows your name, and how you take your coffee.”

 

 

June & Ho

 

Emigrating from Korea, June and Ho Park got into the food business. “It was one of our only choices,” she says. They started off working for a grocer in Manhattan. In 1982, after falling in love with downtown Rye, they opened their own business. They moved into their current Purchase Street location in 2002, and bought a house in Greenhaven five years later.

 

Customers come for June’s bread, the prepared foods, and the fresh fish. They leave with any and all of those, as well as seasonal fruits and vegetables, recipe tips, nuts, sushi, soups and sandwiches of the day, fine oils and spices, and flowers — their orchids sell out as fast as they come in.

 

June and Ho say they love what they do, and “what would we do in retirement?” As a matter of fact, in the coming months they plan to reconfigure the store and open on Sundays.  

 

 

Parkers

 

Catherine Parker opened her travel and lifestyle store in 1996, right before Christmas. She credits her mother for inspiring a desire in her to spread her wings early.

 

“My mother, who was a schoolteacher, taught me that the world was the best classroom. She took me to Europe for the first time when I was 7.  I saw “Godspell” in London’s West End and “Aida” in Rome, as well as a ‘Bataan Death March’ (my words, not hers) of churches and museums.

 

“Cut to December 1994…”

 

A friend asked Parker to help out at the travel bookstore she managed during the holiday. “Sounded good considering I was a poor student at the time. I loved it from day one, but thought it would be so great to combine all the other travel essentials besides books. Truly an instance of the proverbial light bulb over the head.” She adds, “Interesting factoid, one of the three other part-timers, was none other than Elizabeth Gilbert, who later wrote ‘Eat, Pray, Love’.”

 

What keeps her going, she says, is being blessed to have found something she loves to do. “Very simple, but not so easily attainable. I also never see Parkers as ‘done’. It is always a work-in-progress. I’m always thinking what else can I do to make it a store that people will want to come back to visit time and time again.”

 

Her most memorable day? “In my world, people are what’s memorable. I sometimes worry that I scare them with my memory for names and purchases.”

 

 

Joan Contemporary and Estate Jewelry

 

For Joan Sansone, who’s a worker, running a business is “almost recreational — I enjoy doing what I do.”

 

She has a great eye and a wide clientele. From week to week, her charming front window is a collage of vintage and recent treasures — Louis Vuitton hand luggage, striking silver picture frames, antique mirrors, costume and important jewelry.

 

A dog lover, Sansone always has a water bowl outside and a photo or two of a pup in one or more of the well-polished frames.

 

She got into the business because her grandmother encouraged her interest in jewelry. “My grandmother enjoyed sharing her collection and we designed rings together at a jewelry store in Harrison. I have such fond memories.”

 

 

Town & Country Hairdressers

Rocco Briganti learned the tools of the trade as a young man in Italy, and eventually took his superlative hairdressing skills stateside. He worked in New York City for some time, but soon made his way to Westchester.

 

“I was employed here for the original owner, Alice Levinia, who asked me if I wanted to buy the business,” said Briganti. “I thought I was way too young, but she thought of me as a hard worker and told me to think about it.”

 

Briganti agreed, and his former boss stayed on for another ten years to assist the young stylist in managing the business.

 

“Now, I’ve seen three or four generations come through these doors,” says Briganti, wistfully. Town and Country specializes in hair coloring and corrections, and is a full-service salon.

 

“Doing a good job is what keeps me happy,” he adds. “I’ve done big weddings and jobs for many celebrities. It’s a nice life.”

 

When asked why he didn’t want to have his picture taken, Briganti’s answer was, “They all know me already.”

 

 

Blush Beauty Bar

 

Ana Sobalvarro managed Blush before buying the business from Shari Hochberg in 2009. She’d worked in retail in her native Nicaragua before immigrating to the United States in the late ’90s.

 

Customers come for a facial — Blush offers five different kinds — and leave with gifts and accessories.

 

“It’s great to be able to pamper customers, make them feel prettier, and have them leave feeling relaxed,” says Sobalvarro.  

 

What keeps her going is using her creativity to draw people in — with new products and services — and receiving lots of positive feedback.

 

 

Woodrow Jewelers

 

Robert and Michael Woodrow grew up in the business; one of their grandfathers was a jeweler. When an existing jewelry store was for sale on Purchase Street, they didn’t think twice before buying it.

 

The brothers are very close, “so it’s not difficult to work together.” What keeps them going is the town, wonderful customers, and a staff that’s as close as family.

 

“We have so few complaints,” the Woodrows note. “After Christmas, when business slows down — until a few weeks before Valentine’s Day — we talk about the fact that we have remarkably few returns or unhappy customers. It’s great to be on Purchase Street.”

 

 

Piazza Pizzeria

 

Ross Barone left Madison Avenue — he worked on sports sponsorships then moved to the account side at Wells Rich Greene and Doyle Dane Bernbach — to own his own deli. “I always loved to cook, and had worked in restaurants, so it wasn’t as crazy idea an idea as it sounds,” he says with his hearty laugh. The deli idea didn’t play out the way he’d hoped, so he considered a bagel shop, which Rye didn’t have at the time, but then he realized that meant “getting up at 3 in the morning every day!”

 

When he fixed on the right business — a pizza restaurant, which Rye didn’t have a plethora of in those days either — he chose a great location on the southern end of Milton Road. “The space had been a tanning salon which had been vacant for six months. It’s ideal because it’s in a residential neighborhood and has lots of parking,” he notes.

 

After two weeks of training and a few more to renovate the place, Barone opened Piazza Pizzeria.

 

What keeps him going is the college kids who come straight there when they are home for vacation, the younger ones who rush over after school, and all the families.

 

What keeps all ages coming back is the “happy trio: Grandma Pie, the Chicken Scarpariello, and the Penne a la Vodka.”

 

Barone has had his share of excitement over the years, especially when the Rangers were in town. “When Doug Lidster lived here, he rode his bike over all the time. In 1994, the year they won the Stanley Cup, he’d bring me a signed photograph after every playoff game they won.” The walls of the pizzeria are lined with photos of local athletes, both pros and young hopefuls, of which Rye has more than its fair share of the pie.

 

 

Paw-Pourri

 

Jody Ritter cites her longtime location — across from Milton Harbor — as one of the little things that keeps her going in the pet grooming business, along with a burning passion for four-legged furry friends.  

 

Ritter got an early start in the pet care business. When she was 12, she asked for and was given her first job at a parlor near her childhood home in Kansas. She has been in the business for 40 years and shows no signs of slowing down.

 

One of the great parts of her job, says Ritter, is developing a close relationship with both the dogs and their owners. In several cases, she’s now grooming pets of her first clients’ grandchildren.

 

What is her favorite thing about Rye? “The large variety of dogs. Most small-town groomers don’t see as many exotic or rare breeds as I do on a regular basis.”

 

The day she opened her shop was her most memorable day, and recalling it brings tears to her eyes.

 

 

Arcade Books

 

Patrick Corcoran was looking for a job when he learned that a bookstore business was being sold.  He’s a musician at heart and plays in three different groups at gigs from Wainwright House’s recent jazz brunch to the Roadhouse.

 

“I did whatever had to be done to stay in the bookstore business all these years,” explains Corcoran. He says the last ten to 12 have been better than the first few.

 

He is quick to promote local authors — “Lucia Greenhouse’s memoir, ‘fathermother god’, was one of my best sellers last year.” And when the Rye Free Reading Room or Historical Society hosts an author talk, you can be sure he’ll be there with dozens of books for signing.

 

His favorite year? “Before 2008, when the recession hit and the business changed.”

 

Corcoran plans on being here for years to come, notwithstanding iPads, Kindles, and Nooks. “Rye has so many book clubs and I have so many loyal customers who love coming in and searching for just the right book.” If he doesn’t have it, he can get it for you the next day. Faster than Amazon and much more personable.

 

 

Best Cleaners

 

It’s hard to beat Josephine Kim’s commute to work. She simply steps out of her door each morning, and walks a few paces down the sidewalk to Best Cleaner’s 224 Purchase Street address.

 

When the space became available a decade ago, Kim swooped in. She’s been doing great business ever since.

 

“I love this town,” she says. “And the best part of living here is that my three children get to attend Rye schools.”

 

While not having to hop in a car and deal with traffic is nice, the reason she keeps coming back are her “wonderful customers”.

 

“Everybody is so nice to me, and I work hard to make sure they stay happy. I’m proud of my work – no accidents in ten years!”