Buffalo Rising Online

Jun 27th 2007, 8:28am By Rev. Fred Jensen

A year ago, Larry Mattison and Shelly Reed bought a restaurant and built a time machine. “We want to recreate the 1940’s Supper Club,” Larry says. The 1905 restaurant they are revitalizing is located on Tonawanda Street, just across from the historic Riverside Park.

Supper clubs, I read on Wikipedia, are a special type of restaurant native to the U.S. The first supper clubs appeared in the 1930s and 1940s. As their name suggests, supper clubs are primarily open at “supper” time, between four and ten. Fortunato’s On the Park keeps evening hours Wednesday through Sunday and intends to cater lunches for area businesses. In addition to serving supper, “supper clubs” have a special atmosphere that is formal but not snooty. Supper club food is typically casual American, at Fortunato’s surf and turf is at the top of the menu.

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of a supper club is its entertainment. In keeping with, and reviving, this tradition, (resuming this Fall) Larry and Shelly provide their patrons with a “Dine, Dancing and Singles Party by Johnny Dee” on Wednesdays, “Jazz-Nite plus a Polish Buffet,” on Thursdays, music and comedy from Samuel Gambino on Saturdays, and karaoke on Sundays. After dining, patrons are welcome to stay and enjoy the show. The night my wife and I visited, Samuel Gambino entertained the guests with old time favorites from Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, and Dean Martin. Between the songs, the playfully self-deprecating Gambino interacted with the diners, inviting requests and telling wholesome jokes.

Larry and Shelly are new to the restaurant business, and practically stumbled into it. “We had fantasized about being restaurant owners,” Shelly relates, “but never really seriously considered it.” Larry had been selling real estate in the Black Rock area, and came upon the old restaurant which the Fortunatos were selling (at that time, the restaurant was simply called, “Fortunato's”, Larry and Shelly would add the locale, On The Park). Larry fell in love with the restaurant right away, and invited Shelly, still skeptical, out to see the place. “I didn’t believe it at first,” Shelly says, “but when I walked in the door it just felt right.”

When they purchased the restaurant, it was far from suitable for family dining. “We had to do a lot of, shall we say, cleaning up?” Shelly says, tactfully. “People had been smoking in here, and well, everything.” The main dining floor in the restaurant is now comfortable and family-friendly. With red plank walls and soft lighting cast by candlestick-style chandeliers, Fortunato’s has a quiet dignity about it, far surpassing the atmosphere of your average family-style restaurant. The upstairs is fit for receptions of up to 120 people, with a splendid view of Riverside Park. Larry hopes to provide a dinner theatre there soon. Downstairs, the work of remodeling continues. Larry showed me this space, and I saw boards, boxes and old pictures lying around. Yet Larry sees beyond the disarray, “There will be great parties here one day,” he told me. Outside, the work has begun on a new doorway which will lead to an outdoor dining area.

In the 1940’s, the restaurant was named Nuchereno’s, and before then, the Blue Eagle Bar. In venturing to revive this venerable restaurant, Larry and Shelly are balancing entrepreneurial initiative with deference for tradition. They feel that they are starting something new and preserving something old. “The building has been here as a dining establishment since 1905,” Shelly says, “But it is one of the best kept secrets in Buffalo. We want to change this.” Indeed, Fortunato's On the Park is all about something old, something new. Wednesdays one can dance ballroom style, Sundays one can sing Karaoke. A box grand piano, built in 1870, sits next to the stage area with a modern sound system. Vintage music plays on their website.

What sort of challenges do they face? “We don’t have a whole lot of competition in this area,” Larry says, “But on the other hand; it’s tough to get people to come to the Black-Rock/Riverside area for dining and entertainment.” Larry and Shelly accept these challenges out of the love they have for their neighborhood. “We are givers, not takers,” Larry says. They are overcoming the hurdles by starting a V.I.P. club, called, naturally, the Buffalo Supper Club, and by expanding their services to include receptions, dinner theatre, and corporate catering. Furthermore, relying on the historic nature of the restaurant and the location, Larry and Shelly have made arrangements to accommodate bus tours to Buffalo/Niagara Falls and Senior citizen group events.

“We want to bring back that old Nuchereno’s charm, and also bring new life to our neighborhood,” Larry says. Fortunato’s is about good food, good entertainment, and the Riverside area's rich heritage.

Fortunato's On the Park, Riverside Park, 1083 Tonawanda, 14207, 877.4700, call for hourswww.fortunatosonthepark.com

Reverend Fred Jensen is a writer and the minister at Saint John's UCC in Black Rock