Up From The Underground

Leo Dodd and Louis Miller, co-proprietors of Munich Restaurant on Thurston Road in Rochester, New York
Leo Dodd and Louis Miller, co-proprietors of Munich Restaurant on Thurston Road in Rochester, New York

My family, on my father’s side, was in the bootlegging business. Nothing to be ashamed of, the laws changed and they carried on legally. My father’s father, shown above on the right, ran the Munich Restaurant on Chili Avenue near Thurston. His partner must have been of German descent, a good portion of the city was. When World War II broke out though, they quickly changed the name of their place to the the Dodd Miller Tavern.

My grandfather retired the year I was born so I never saw the place. My dad worked there as a kid. The brick building is still there and it’s still a bar. We stopped in there in the early eighties when my brother, Mark, was up from New York. I think it was a black dance club at that time.

2 Comments

2 Replies to “Up From The Underground”

  1. thats literally around the corner from where I grew up in the 70s. I googled it to see the bldg and it became a mob pizza joint if memory serves…

  2. We had the exact same experience! We still talk about how our Animas Traders Chiminea radiated heat! We used to light it up in the winter and drink wine while the snow was falling!!

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