top of page

Tony's Coney

LiPuma's Coney Island is tasty reminder of old Rochester, Michigan 

Photos and story by: Anthony Spak 

By: Anthony Spak
Owner Tony LiPuma chats with a customer on Saturday, March 5, 2016 in Rochester, Michigan.

Owner Tony LiPuma chats with customers on Saturday, March 5, 2016 in Rochester, Michigan.

It’s 11:30 a.m. on a chilly Friday in March as the smell of chili sauce, fresh-cut white onion and French fries wafts over LiPuma’s Coney Island in downtown Rochester, Michigan.

 

The cold weather slows business and only five customers sit in the restaurant – not exactly a lunch rush.

 

“It’s not my busiest time of the year,” Tony LiPuma, owners says, while preparing a baby Greek on the salad line.

 

I step up to the counter and order a small order of French fries, a Coney dog with everything and a taco for $6.84. I reach for my debit card but am reminded by the sign behind the counter – Cash Only. Not to worry, there’s an ATM machine on the back patio.

 

Mr. LiPuma sits towards the back counter of the restaurant, talking to an older customer eating a Coney by himself. The men are talking about the hardware stores of yesteryear, looking back fondly on a time when mom-and-pop businesses and their personable business practices thrived. These kinds of small businesses, including LiPuma’s, aren’t as common anymore as restaurant chains and their rigid corporate company policies continue to grow.

 

LiPuma’s father, Bill, started the business in 1969, his seventh Coney Island at the time. Forty-seven years later, Tony is now the owner but the Rochester restaurant carries the same name and much of the same menu.

 

“It’s the people’s place,” LiPuma says, referring to the lack of change in the restaurant over the years.

 

The restaurant is tiny – a little over 1,000 square feet. Mr. LiPuma is always visible, greeting customers who walk in with a grin. His voice is loud but you can always hear his smile.

 

“Bye, have a happy Easter!” LiPuma says to an exiting customer with a brown bag of take-out tucked under his arm.

The Restaurant

The food is nothing too fancy but it’s clean, cheap and fresh. You can tell it was made today.

 

Mr. LiPuma’s personal favorites include the Chicago Dog (a dog covered with a tomato slice, a pickle, a pepper, diced onion, relish and mustard), the Mexican (a Coney wrapped in a cheesy flour tortilla) and the original Coney Dog.

 

“We make 20 pounds of burger a day,” Reggie, an employee, tells me in between orders. The hamburger meat is used in the two kinds of chili (bean and no bean) as well as for the Coney burgers.

 

Three employees usually work the line. One works the fryer and taco station, putting together tacos, chicken nugget meals and French fry orders; another takes orders from a line that forms near the front door, cooking hot dogs and sausages and putting them together with buns to order; a third workers the register and drink station, collecting cash from customers and filling up pops from the Pepsi machine.

 

As noon approaches, a small line starts to form at the front of the restaurant. LiPuma wraps up his conversation with the customers who have already been served, ties an apron around his waist and steps up to the line, making salads and answering the phone.

 

 

About Me

 

Anthony Spak has worked in the food service industry since the age of fifteen when he started at Diehl’s Orchard and Cider Mill in 2010, filling up jugs of cider for $6 an hour. Other kitchen jobs at Hungry Howie’s Pizza, the bar and banquet hall at Fountains Golf and Banquet and a part-time line cook job at The Union in Clarkston, Michigan have given Spak a broader look into the world of restaurants. His lifelong appreciation for good food, affordable pricing and local community lead Spak to LiPuma’s for these qualities. Through this project, Spak hopes to shed light on a business that embodies the best qualities of a small restaurant with an irresistible hometown charm.

The Food

Kevin Walok Sr. (left), serves customers up with fresh Coney dogs on Saturday, March 5, 2016 in Rochester, Michigan. Walok, a veteran has worked at LiPuma's for over fifteen years.

Some owners visit their restaurants a few times a year; others stop in a few times a week and have casual relationships with a few of their long-tenured employees.

 

LiPuma is not your typical owner.

 

When the employees get slammed, he steps up and helps to bang out orders. When the trashcan is full, he grabs a bag and replaces it, hauling the full one to the dumpster out back.

 

“I love the hustle,” LiPuma says. “You never see that anywhere.”

 

LiPuma’s combination of quality comfort food, small town familiarity and an omnipresent owner is what brings customers back for more.

 

“I’m 46 next month and I’ve been coming here since I was five,” says Jeremy Smith, a Rochester native who now lives in nearby Auburn Hills. “We used to float down the [Clinton] river, dock and come in for Coney dogs and fries.”

 

There is also a nostalgic sensibility about LiPuma’s that reminds customers of the past.

 

“I come back for the food but also because it feels like home,” Smith says. “A lot has changed in Rochester, but this is the place that doesn’t change.”

 

LiPuma’s Coney Island is located at 621 N. Main St. in Rochester, MI. The restaurant is open Monday-Saturday from 10:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m. and on Sundays from 11:00 a.m.-7 p.m.

The Owner
bottom of page