Wading River Café a Success Amid Bittersweet Memories

Inside the Grind Café, a corner bench with cozy purple and black cushions is at times empty. Owner and bakery chef Maryann Iacono believes it is the very spot where her late husband would have sat, had he survived his cancer last July.

“That would have been Michael’s spot, no doubt about it,” she said.

Iacono, 56, and her two daughters, Carla, 33, and Raffaela, 21, feel strongly that he is guiding them in business as they enter their second successful month of operating the café, a breakfast, lunch and ice cream nook nestled in the former post office building across from the duck ponds in Wading River.

“He’s here, he’s with us,” said Raffaela Iacono. “I can still hear his advice in my ear.”

It took a year for the family to relocate their tiny 300-square-foot café from C.K. Auto on North Country Road, but word-of-mouth, delicious food and the use of Facebook has created a strong customer base for the Grind. Carla Iacono had encouraged her mother to relocate to the old post office, given its location on the “thoroughfare” of Wading River on North Wading River Road.

“It’s been five weeks, and, honestly, I couldn’t imagine it going any better than it has,” said Maryann Iacono.

Perhaps that is partly due to Michael Iacono’s knack for leading his family in business, including a clothing factory that he operated with his father. Even though he did not live to see the Grind open its doors, he had a role in its conception, offering his wife and daughters advice as they developed the café.

Understandably, Michael's death on July 10, 2010 slowed the family’s plans for a time. Eventually it was Maryann Iacono's daughters who rallied her through her grief. 

"We needed to push her out of it," Raffaela Iacono said.  
 
Iacono said that she still seeks his advice. In fact, she went to a psychic after the café’s grand opening.

“I felt that he was saying practical things like, ‘Push the catering more. Start making late-night deliveries. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Focus on your winners. Give your customers a reason to come back for that special item,’” she said. “He was a brilliant businessman, so it made sense that he would give me sound advice.”

It appears the advice is paying off. Customers have flocked in and out of the retro café, ordering coffee and sandwiches or buying boxes of cookies and pastries.

For two years, Maryann Iacono struggled to bake her brownies, breads and scones, using only a toaster oven and a griddle in the makeshift café at C.K. Auto. She would whip together batter while, just inches away, her staff sold goods.

Now, Iacono said she cried when she first used her new Hobart mixer machine by simply pushing a button.

“I could make 30 batches of cookies if I wanted to,” she said.

There is no skimping on locally grown produce and ingredients. A pecan-raisin scone tasted buttery and fresh, with a hint of sweetness; it was a good accompaniment to a pumpkin spice latte. Breakfast items such as The Grind’s Benedict, featuring Iacono’s homemade English muffins, maple syrup-doused ham, and over-easy eggs, or pretzel-roll sandwiches on the lunch menu, are staples, as is coffee from Aldo’s, in Greenport.

“We tried others, but there’s no comparison,” Iacono said, of the coffee.

While Iacono’s sons, Michael, 34, and Patrick, 27, do occasionally help out, she and her daughters run the café, Tuesday through Sunday. Iacono says the focus will always be the quality of the food, but she also envisions turning the café into a community meeting place of sorts, with music, poetry and book readings, and open mike nights.

“We don’t have a place like that here [in Wading River], and we feel the community deserves it,” she said.