Danny, Tim and Terry Flaherty (left to right front) and far right in picture are Danny’s wife Mary and Tim’s wife Tonya. Photo by Kelly Schnupp
BY DEB AND TIM SMITH
Welcome to Flaherty’s Three Flags Inn, located at 60 West Main Street in Honeoye Falls. We’ll kick off this salute with a timeline that shows the progression of this location as it transformed from the Village’s grocery store to the community’s local restaurant, tavern and gathering spot.
IGA (1950’s-1974), Sherwood Manor (1977-1994), Sherwood Restaurant and Lounge (1994-2001), Portico South (2001-2003), Norton Grille (2003-2009), and Flaherty’s (2011-present)
The September 30, 1976 Honeoye Falls Times reported that, “Members of the planning board had an opportunity to view the architects’ sketch for the proposed restaurant on West Main St. Applications for building permits for renovation of the old IGA building will be submitted soon.”
It definitely made for a change of the landscape in HF. That was the building which the villagers had seen as their go-to grocery store for a couple decades. For the record, let’s recap the timeline for 60 West Main St.
Local restaurateur Kevin Reilly offered the following notes on the earliest days of the building saying, “It started as Yorks Foundry, then Francis Collins’ (farm implements, sold John Deere tractors) before the IGA.”
Village and Town Historian Diane Ham submitted contributions to the topic in two separate nuggets, telling us it “was originally the Yorks Foundry [a factory that melts and produces metal castings] which burned in 1923.” Diane then added, “It was rebuilt in 1923 as an auto sales and repair garage. It was enlarged in the 1940’s and 50’s as a farm implement dealership; then enlarged again as a supermarket.”
The writing was on the wall for the IGA when the newer larger Star Market opened up in 1973 in the current location of the Honeoye Falls Marketplace. The last ads in the HF Times for the IGA appear in 1974 and after that it’s checkout time at the grocery store.
SHERWOOD MANOR
SHERWOOD RESTAURANT & LOUNGE
We led off this component with a reference to the Village plannin board assessing the conversion of the grocery store into a restaurant in September of 1976. Things came together over the course of the next year with the December 1, 1977 issue of the HF Times featuring a celebratory photo spread announcing, “Sherwood Manor Opens Today”.
Owner Andy Carafos, along with his brother Stan, would use their Greek mystique to effectively guide the Sherwood through a nice 17-year run covering much of the rest of the century. Later in our research for this project, Kevin Reilly filled us in on the fact that, “Andy Carafos sold to Dick and Bill Young who took over the Sherwood on November 1, 1994.”
The Youngs opted to make a slight alteration to the name game. While maintaining the key word, this establishment officially became the Sherwood Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge.
PORTICO SOUTH
The November 9, 2001 issue of the Rochester Business Journal featured an article on the opening of Portico South. The article mentions that Portico South was replacing the Sherwood Restaurant & Cocktail Lounge which had previously been Sherwood Manor. The Sherwood had been open until May of 2001.
Portico South was owned and operated by Phil Fucilli who was also the owner of the Portico Restaurant on St. Paul Boulevard in Rochester. So that establishment would essentially be your “Portico North”.
The November 1, 2001 Sentinel announced that, “Christmas will come early to Honeoye Falls this year. [The Village] will once again have a fine dining facility when Portico South opens in December at the site of the old Sherwood Manor.” Fucilli said, “We will be offering everything from Italian food, prime rib and seafood to frogs’ legs and chicken French.”
Perhaps those frogs’ legs didn’t jump off the menu as successfully as they had hoped because the Portico ship did not sail for long. According to Kevin, “Phil Fucilli ran Portico South from December 2001 to January 2003.”
Please allow us to go sideways for one quick nuance on this storyline. Between the closing of Portico South in January 2003, and the opening of the Norton Grille in summer 2003, the status of the building was in a little limbo. In the Sentinel issue of February 13, 2003, town board meeting minutes state that Supervisor Jeanne Loberg mentions the building as a possible location for a new library. That possibility obviously does not come to fruition.
NORTON GRILLE
By the summer of 2003, the next attempt to bring upscale dining to the Falls begins under the moniker of the Norton Grille. In the July 17th issue of the Sentinel there is an ad and an article on the opening. In the ad, two new host couples Kevin & Glenda Reilly and Maureen & Dave Sproull promise to “…offer the best of both worlds, a casual & elegant atmosphere to dine with family and friends.” We couldn’t help but notice how their language foreshadows what, during the next decade, would become the catch phrase of the Mendon 64 restaurant which promotes its “casually elegant dining”.
Kevin Reilly is not a name unfamiliar to the annals of local restaurant lore. Note how the article accompanying the ad leads off by saying, “Kevin Reilly grew up in Honeoye Falls, once called Norton Mills. He lived on Norton Street, right around the corner from the Mill Restaurant where he started his culinary career in 1975.”
“In 1981 Kevin joined the cooking staff at the Sherwood Manor where he served as chef. Fourteen years later he opened a restaurant [Crossroads] in Lima. And now, sixteen years have passed and Kevin is home again.”
If you were wondering why the wife of the second couple was listed first in the ad we quoted above, there is a solid reason for that – Maureen was the half of that couple with the restaurant experience. About her, the Sentinel wrote, “As a member of the O’Connor family, as in Ye Mendon Tavern in Mendon, Maureen Sproull comes to the partnership with many years’ experience in the service end of the restaurant business. In addition to the Mendon Tavern, she has worked for The Distillery, Cobblestone Creek, Crossroads, and Portico South.”
The Norton Grille was in business from July of 2003 till October of 2009, that closing date indicated in the RocWiki website (The People’s Guide to Rochester), which was the first date that turned up in our research. Later, Kevin Reilly was able to provide significantly more details sharing with us that, “The Norton Grille ended due to a number of factors. Our lease and liquor license were due for renewal, the economy sucked and it just didn’t make good financial sense for us to continue. My health was declining and it was getting more difficult for me to work the long hours necessary to keep it going. Little did I know at the time that 6 months later I’d be diagnosed with leukemia. We owned the business with Maureen and Dave until January 2006, then we were on our own. Andy Carafos still owned the building.”
FLAHERTY’S
Last June 5th we sat down with Tim Flaherty for a great conversation in the dining room of Flaherty’s Three Flags Inn, Honeoye Falls. We have had multiple conversations with Tim and his wife Tonya over the years, and worked with Flaherty’s on various articles for the paper, so we were looking forward to the interview.
Tim has often told us about how much he loves the Sentinel and our articles, so his support has been appreciated. Many of the aspects of this story we had covered previously, but we’d never broached the subject from the perspective of planning to write an article specifically about the history of Flaherty’s.
So why don’t we get down to it. We need a little bit of backstory to frame this thing up. Tim and his brothers Terry and Dan are the second generation of Flaherty owners. Their father bought the original 1200 Bay Road, Webster location in 1971 but that was originally more of a bar than a restaurant.
In 1979 the Flaherty brothers bought out their father and began to put more of a focus on food. The expansion to a second location on Pittsford-Palmyra Road occurred in 1987, but the original Webster location is still referred to as “The Mothership.”
By the time the next millennium rolled around, the decision had been made that a third restaurant would make the perfect target for expansion. Three Flags, Three Brothers, Three Flaherty’s… gotta love the symmetry, don’t ya!?
So while the goal was in place there was no rush, and a lot of time went into the decision-making process. Multiple locations were considered in Rochester and Henrietta and we appreciated Tim’s perspective on why those considerations were abandoned. Tim said, “I thought the success of the Webster and Macedon locations was largely due to the fact that they managed to take on the feel of a hometown neighborhood bar.”
“The places we looked at in the city and the other suburbs just didn’t seem to have that potential. It wasn’t until we came across this scenario in Honeoye Falls where there was a collective consensus of ‘This is the spot.’”
The previous restaurant at their location, the Norton Grille, had been closed for a year when Flaherty’s came in and the building itself was still owned by Andy Carafos who debuted in this storyline when the Sherwood Manor replaced the IGA. The Flahertys were not interested in just renting a space to run a business, and subsequently they bought the building and the property which perhaps surprisingly entails 17 acres. One Flaherty’s fun fact that most people would never know is that at the end of the parking lot they own the Honeoye Creek bank all the way to the Livingston County line.
Let’s talk layout. We mentioned that Flaherty’s bought the building from Carafos. And when Carafos had bought the building as the old IGA grocery store they obviously had to remodel the inside to turn it into a restaurant, but they had not done a thing to the outside structure of the building.
When we were kids going to the IGA, the entryway was in the front corner of the building and it had never been changed. As new owners planning out their third Flaherty’s Three Flags Inn, they knew they were looking at a total gutting and overhaul of the building from its days as a grocery store.
That entire front wall closest to West Main Street, which is now all glass, used to be a solid wall. Think about it; in any grocery store that front wall just beyond the check-out registers is a solid wall filled with shelves stocked with items intended for impulse purchasing.
At a grocery store they don’t want the people cashing out to be looking out the window to enjoy the view; they want those people looking at merchandise they might potentially buy. So to do it right, which Flaherty’s was definitely out to do, that solid wall had to come out and be replaced by windows because at a restaurant you do want the people looking out to enjoy the view.
Other inside changes would be that the bar at the restaurants before Flaherty’s was horseshoe-shaped and located in what is now the dining area at Flaherty’s. So one way to look at it would be to say that the functionality of the two primary rooms at Flaherty’s has flipped from the previous restaurants there.
When you walk in what is now the front door, the area to the left has the bar as well as some dining tables and booths with the area to the right being totally devoted to dining, the opposite of what it used to be. Logistically that arrangement made sense in the previous configuration where the entry door was closest to West Main Street. You’d rather have people walking through the bar to get to the dining area rather than trapsing through the dining area to get to the bar.
Certainly the most striking structural improvement on the outside was the wrap-around deck. It looks beautiful, takes advantage of the view and ambiance, and adds considerable additional seating.
Finally, they defaulted to the sage advice bestowed upon the Flaherty brothers by their father which was, “You can never have too much parking.” Hence, they doubled the size of the parking lot and, trust us, we’ve been there on busy nights where almost all of those spots were filled. Wise decision.
Finally, let’s close with the story on the “three flags” in the restaurant’s name. If you think you have the three flags story pretty much in hand based upon what you’ve driven past so many times, we actually have a little surprise for you.
When Tim’s father started the first Flaherty’s Three Flags Inn in Webster in 1971, he had a partner named Tony Grabowski, who was Polish. So in brainstorming for a name someone suggested they take the Irish (Flaherty) the Polish (Grabowski) and add the American flag to round out the Three Flags concept. Those involved were on board with the idea so the first Inn flew three flags which were from Ireland, Poland and the U.S.
Tim’s father bought out Grabowski just a few years into the venture, so at that point the Polish flag became a moot point. Furthermore, the flag of Poland is not really an eyecatcher. On the scale of creativity it comes up a little flat, consisting of just a red rectangle on the upper half and a white rectangle on the bottom. That one is now replaced with the flag of New York State.
When we told Tim that our favorite phone call to field is the one where someone says, “Let’s go to Flaherty’s!” he pointed out a little name nuance in play with his franchise. In Webster, everyone says, “Let’s go to Flags!”
Whatever you call it, if someone asks you if you want to go there, you should shout “Yes” as quickly as possible. Tim Flaherty’s dream of creating an upscale dining opportunity that manages to take on the feel of a hometown neighborhood bar has definitely been realized in the Village of Honeoye Falls.
You actually don’t even have to call us next time you go. We’ll probably be there already.
