Our article on “Athens’ Oldest Restaurants” promised future posts about beloved Athens restaurants no longer in business, making use of materials found in the Heritage Room vertical files. The series begins with one of four local restaurants established by Bob Russo, an Athens fixture remembered for his outsized personality and his role in the local debate over restaurant outdoor seating.
Russo’s first Athens restaurant opened in early 1979, named simply Russo’s Gyro (later, around 1983, it became Gyro Wrap). Reading through old local newspapers, one finds that Russo quickly became a vocal presence around town. Early advertisements for Russo’s Gyro bore the mysterious message, “Develop solar energy.” On February 1st, 1980, the Red and Black reported that Russo had a large Canadian flag on display outside the restaurant, to show appreciation for the support the Canadian government had expressed in response to the Iranian hostage crisis.
Next up was the Grill. When it opened in 1981 at its original location on Broad Street, the restaurant struggled to find customers. It began to prosper, according to Russo, when Howard Cossell, while interviewing Herschel Walker on television, praised the Grill’s hamburgers. Is this true or merely Russo’s contribution to local legend? Who knows?
Two years later, he opened Chow Goldstein’s, a combination of a Chinese restaurant and a Jewish deli. Unlike his first two restaurants, this one proved a hard sell, though it is remembered for one of its advertising methods: hiring people to wear sandwich-board signs and walk the nearby sidewalks. Among those who accepted the gig was local newspaper columnist Ed Tant.
Russo got more attention, sometimes negative, for his support of restaurants being allowed to have outdoor seating. You can read the protracted coverage that the debate received in the Red and Black (if you have a lot of time on your hands); suffice to say that the City Council ultimately decided to continue allowing “sidewalk cafes” provided that enough space was allowed for pedestrians, as reported on February 8th, 1984.
Within a few months, Russo had closed Chow Goldstein’s and opened Rocky’s in its place. Named after his father, who had moved south from New York to help Bob, the pizzeria would become a fixture of downtown as much as Gyro Wrap or the Grill. Its defining features gave the restaurant a distinctive feel that few of its customers have forgotten, including: cheap lunch specials, the mural that adorned an interior wall, and a model train that ran on a track set up near the ceiling (first installed by the proprietors of Tony’s Restaurant, Chow Goldstein’s predecessor in that building; and for decades one of Athens’ most popular restaurants). The Athens Observer of April 19th, 1984, reported on the switch from Chow to Rocky’s, as seen below.
One can follow Russo’s story during these years in a series of profiles that the Red and Black published. An article on May 11th, 1979, introduced readers to Russo’s Gyro. An article on November 10th, 1981, came in the wake of the restaurant’s success. The November 15th, 1983, edition, updates us with information about the Grill’s and Chow Goldstein’s early development. The latter restaurant’s quick demise was covered in “Change in Chow Is on the Way,” dated April 25th, 1984, with Russo having almost completed its transformation into Rocky’s.
Russo sold Gyro Wrap and The Grill within a few years of establishing them. While he held on to Rocky’s longer, he soon enough moved on to Atlanta, setting up Rocky’s Brick Oven Pizzeria on Peachtree Road. A brief note in the Atlanta Constitution lets us know that the Atlanta Rocky’s opened in early 1987, and that Bob’s dad, the namesake Rocky, was again helping out. The new restaurant, as any Athenian at the time could have guessed, got attention both for its food and Russo’s attention-getting activities, such as posting intriguing messages on the restaurant’s outdoor sign or personally delivering pizzas to Hollywood stars making a movie in… Wetumpka, Alabama? Perhaps we should not be surprised, as the Atlanta Constitution had reported, 15 years prior, how Russo’s Gyro had became a favorite hang-out spot for the cast of the television series Breaking Away, which was filmed in Athens.
The featured item from the Heritage Room vertical files for this post is a Rocky’s menu, found by one of our intrepid staff members at an estate sale. The menu is of course undated (would it be excessive for archivists to beg restaurateurs to date their menus?) but perhaps a former employee or loyal customer could provide a rough guess based on the items offered and their prices.
While the menu may date from the period after Russo sold Rocky’s, the spirited text introducing the restaurant to new customers definitely suggests Russo’s influence. For more insight into the life of this much-missed Athenian, one should read Flagpole editor Pete McCommons’ tribute to him, published in 2003 after Russo’s untimely death, a suicide apparently prompted by health concerns.
To follow the stories of Gyro Wrap, the Grill, and Rocky’s, one can continue to peruse back issues of the Red and Black, which covered these and other downtown eateries so popular among students; after its founding in 1987, Flagpole also offers plenty of information for local history buffs. For example, on May 24th, 1990, the Red and Black profiled Steve Sgarlato, who purchased the Grill from Russo. An article in the February 28th, 1992, edition, discussing pizza options in the Classic City, makes note of the Athens Rocky’s new owner, George Matta, who later went on to helm the popular Mexican restaurant and hang-out spot Compadres. The Flagpole of March 7th, 2001, discusses Matta’s temporary purchase of two large buildings downtown, the Michael Brothers (where Compadres was located) and the Morris, to help save them from redevelopment.
–Justin J. Kau
Athens: In Time 