Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go! My dad knows the way to fix the sleigh, when the radiator decides to blow, OH! When I was a kid, my favorite part of the holiday season was the road trips. We have family all over northern New York and Canada, and my parents were adamant about…
3.11.2026
’Tis the season! The holidays are stressful—wholesome, but stressful. And one of the easiest ways to break the ice with Mom’s second cousin once removed whom you last saw when you were six, is to have a great cocktail in hand. Ryan Dooling runs The Classic alongside owners Drew and Marie Nye and has been in the hospitality business for…
3.11.2026
The Long Island with warm garlic butter The shores of Lake Ontario might not be brimming with lobster, but it’s not hard to find a top-tier, fresh, juicy roll right in the (585). I like a lot of foods, but seafood is my favorite, and I don’t think that will ever change. East Coast and West Coast, I’ve had it…
3.11.2026
Pasta Bolognese The cheese tray at the brewery was built for four people, not the crowd of us circling it like vultures fifteen minutes into a two-hour panel discussion. We stood there staring at what looked like a Polly Pocket accessory, doing the math on how a roomful of thirty adults were supposed to split eleven cubes of pepper jack. …
3.11.2026
Lynne Hooker It was 1967, and Monroe County was still gun shy, especially in my neck of the woods in the northeastern corner of Chili. Just six months earlier, my friends George-Ann Formicola and Kathy Bernhard had disappeared. They remained missing for a month and were found brutally murdered. So there was an immediate shudder of horror when word came…
2.11.2026
Six mornings a week, long before the lunch line begins to form, the staff and volunteers at St. Peter’s Kitchen tie on their aprons and get to work preparing lunch for the 300-plus guests who will walk through its doors midday. Outside, the aroma drifting from the kitchen evokes Thanksgiving dinner. Inside, it’s even more inviting as team members move…
2.11.2026
Growing up in Webster, Bill Polito heard all about the town’s annual Turkey Trot, a running event held each Thanksgiving morning. In 1988, he moved to a house on Holt Road, a mile from the starting line, and decided to join in the fun. “I ran in high school and decided to give the Turkey Trot a try,” he says.…
2.11.2026
Ashley Cross is a third-generation foster parent who has devoted her life to her community, providing free programs and services to Rochester youth and families through HOPE585, a relationship-centered community where marginalized youth and their families can hope, heal, and thrive. While living in Oklahoma, Cross started the first professional foster home for young ladies preparing to age out of…
2.11.2026
You may have had pie from Special Touch Bakery without even knowing it. “When you go to Wegmans and see the pies that have the hearts on them? We help make those for them,” says Jillian Nalivyko, marketing and public relations manager at the School of the Holy Childhood. Special Touch Bakery has an integrated workforce. Its mission is “Purpose…
2.11.2026
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Good ol’ beer and then some—poured by Wayne

The year is 1978. There’s disco glam, Grease playing at the drive-in, Jimmy Carter in the White House, Sony Walkmans blasting “Stayin’ Alive,” and nineteen-year-old Wayne Coyle serving drinks at the Ontario Center Hotel. “I drove my ten-speed to work,” Coyle says. Now sixty-seven, Coyle’s been a friendly face behind the bar for nearly fifty …

Rochester’s oldest neighborhood pub brings out the best

Black skinny jeans with home-cut holes in the knees, my mom’s vintage Levi’s jean jacket, and a pair of tattered Vans stomped me up the cement steps of Dicky’s Corner Pub on the night of my twenty-first birthday. It had to be the first stop—my best friend loved going there, and she was on a …

Inn on Broadway introduces swanky speakeasy Vanni’s

Asking your boss out for drinks is risky. Inviting them to a speakeasy with a secret bookshelf entrance? Now that’s just good career strategy. At least, that was my gamble visiting Vanni’s, the new jazz lounge inside the Inn on Broadway.  With two kids, visiting a bar that’s open only three days a week requires …

The glue gun trenches

I’ve been painting wooden bunnies for so long that I can’t feel my fingertips. My little sister is right beside me at the kids’ table, running sandpaper across wood in a frenzy; beads of sweat hang off her nose. At the big table behind me, my aunt uses a miniature paint brush to dot the …

Gavel-to-gavel TV trial coverage changed Rochester forever

In 1990, Monroe County’s daytime television viewing habits were disrupted by a TV first: the live broadcast of The People v. Arthur J. Shawcross. Never before had home viewers anywhere been given access to gavel-to-gavel coverage of a sordid murder trial. The show lasted eleven weeks, September to December. Viewers who normally followed daytime dramas …

Project Restouration gives new life to downtown theater

When the Rochester Broadway Theatre League (RBTL) embarked on a multi-year revitalization of the West Herr Performing Arts Center, the goal was never a simple face-lift. Known as Project Restouration, the effort seeks to preserve one of Rochester’s most architecturally significant buildings while also reimagining how it serves performers, patrons, and the city’s arts community …

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