OK, so who out there remembers this Mario’s location? This is at Tecumseh and Ouellettte, in the X-Ray clinic that can’t keep a restaurant open. If we were to peel away all the layers is this underneath? This is from the 1948 Visitor’s Guide. The location is still featured in the 1954 guide book as well.
Tomorrow, we’ll look at the Ouellette Ave. location.
Wow, what a great shot…does anyone actually remember dining at this place? It was way before my time….
Do you think it’s the location that can’t keep a restaurant, or the business owners>? Is this not prime location?
Oh…the only name I remember this building having was Crabby Dicks?…Anyone else care to add to that?…When was that 6-7 years ago?
I am 54 years old and remember eating there a number of times. The owners later moved to a restaurant downtown. I believe it was next to the Windsor Utilities office. Might have been the Bentley’s location.
Next door was the Colonial Tavern owned by Rob Katzman’s father. Rob is the owner of the strip clubs. ( Cheeteh’s )
The restaurant was best known as being the Hecienda. It had 2 railroad cars in front. It was not well received by certain ethnic groups with the box cars as many jokes were made because of the use of box cars in WW2 to transport people to death camps.
It was a greek place in its last incarnation I beleve, before that it was Mr. Bar-B-Q or something, going back farther Crabby Dick’s, Last Harry’s, O’Tooles… That’s just since about 1990…
Right after Mario’s moved to another location it was called Nero’s for awhile. That was in the 60″s.
We used to go there for breakfast on Sunday, but my father did not their dinners so we stopped going.
What I remember most about Mario’s was there spaghetti and meatballs.
Great topic.
Andrew, Mr. BBQ was further east up Tecumseh on the north side of the road; it closed a few years ago. The gentleman that operated it had a nice small menu of well prepared dishes and had a small but loyal customer base but the business floundered.
But yeah, there must have been a dozen different restaurants/bars in the old Marios location over the years, and all eventually failed. My reasoning is that it is a poor location to get in/out of by car – still is. If you are coming from South Windsor – unless you thought ahead and came up by way of Dougall, you can’t make a left into there from Ouellette. After your left onto Tecumseh, daytime traffic is often backed up so that you can’t get in from that side either unless a kind motorist leaves space. The next two streets, Pelissier and Victoria, and “no left turn” from 3-6, dinner hours, which sends the driver up to Dougall for the trip around the horn. Anyone attempting to approach from that way will be disappointed again if they make the mistake of trying to use Pelissier which is one-way going south. It’s not impossible to get in/out of, don’t get me wrong, but I can see diners getting fed up.
I actually grew up down the street on Pelissier, so the this corner is fairly well burned into my memory, including the Colonial House that burned out in a spectacular fire in the late ’70s. They boarded it up by the neighbourhood kids had no problem getting in and exploring it before it was finally torn down. 😉 Very creepy.
The Hacienda was not well-received by the neighbourhood as some felt the box cars were ugly. I thought it was a novel idea. I have never heard of the ethnic-related complaints though.
Around 1989-90 it was hugely successful for a few years as a kiddie bar, O’Toole’s, introducing to the neighbourhood for the first time what it must feel like living downtown in the shadow of these type places. As with all kiddie bars the novelty wore off and it eventually closed too, followed by all sorts of different restaurants, sports bars, etc. with some not lasting more than a month or two.
Mario’s was at the current Bentley’s location but recall that after Mario’s left that site, it was Pit Martin’s for quite a while prior to becoming Bentley’s. I have a few memories of both. Back in the day, Fiddler on the Roof played at the Fisher Theatre and my parents wanted to introduce a little culture into my life as well as my brother’s ‘cept I forgot all about it and was out playing. When my brother finally found me, he said my Dad was ready to crown me and we would be late. We rushed off to Mario’s, ate as quick as we could…and got to the Fisher Theatre. Of course we were the first one’s there…..
As for Pit Martin’s (after Mario’s left), my best friend and I went there and ordered two bottles of beer at the bar (probably Blue) and a short little man was sitting next to us. Turn’s out it was this guy named Jimmy Devallano and he was just hired by the Red Wing’s as General Manager. The Wings were awful, bascially the doormats of the league but P…. said to Devallano, that he felt the Wings would turn around and that Devallano would do a good job. Jimmy basically grunted and returned to drinking his beer. I laughed. I figured the Wings would continue to suck. Who knew?
Gary – as you will see tomorrow, they had both locations for a while…
John – it was some kind of BBQ place after Crabby Dick’s but before the Greek Place… I remeber eating there…
I always wondered why that building was so close to the corner of the street but now I know it wasn’t originally like that.
Did the Hacienda expand it to it’s current size and shape? What a nightmare for pedestrians and the building owner considering that the corner of the building gets marred every 6 months or so from trucks trying to turn on that corner.
Interesting you brought up Pit Martin AllenParkPete. In the late ’90s I was able to fly one of the planes he used to own. When the current owner told me it was Pit Martin’s I thought it was kind of neat.
Andrew – Yep, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was some sort of BBQ place at one point. I think it’s been about everything from soup to nuts since the Hacienda closed. I remember the seafood angle too. Just wanted to differentiate between the actual Mr BBQ and whatever was in there, much as I am at a loss to remember what it was, specifically. I did not eat in during that part of the building’s history. BTW, you can see part of the original building from the south side, last time I was snooping around there. There is a large chimney and brick wall. Who knows maybe there was a brick oven inside there at one time for the pizzas? And yes, I remember my parents mentioning two locations, with each being a somewhat different type of restaurant – the one that is the subject of this post being a diner/pizzaria and the other more of a formal sit-down restaurant, I believe.
Any chance on digging up anything on the old Colonial House at all??? Gary is the first person I’ve seen mention it on this site, I thought it was otherwise completely forgotten. On a recent postcard auction on eBay you could see the C.H. poking up in the background behind Marios.
I remember Mario’s at Ouellette & Tecumseh as well as the one further up Ouellette . The old Colonial was a tavern long before that and it was commonly known as Bull Fielding’s owned by the Gilbault (Gilbeau) family. One side of the facility was men only, the other for the mixed crowd! Thanks for the memories. I ,too, grew up in that area.
Oh yes! I definitely remember eating at Mario’s when I was a teenager. I can still see the coin-operated juke boxes at each table. I actually seem to recall going there with my boyfriend, now my husband, in 1972 but I think it had changed it’s name to Nero’s by then.
It was a typical diner with typical diner food and I walked passed it several times each week on my way to Jackson Park. Sometimes my older sister and I sat there drinking a Coke when we were supposed to be attending mass at St. Clare’s Church wich was just west of Ouellette. Don’t tell my Mom that!!!
Gerry, are you talking about the spot Bull Fielding’s) that Meme P. used to tell us about when we were young?
All of Windsor West seems to have changed so much over the years, hasn’t it???
I can remember eating there numerous times with my old friend Hogarth during the mid-sixties, when we were in our early-teens. Like Susan, I recall feeding the juke box at the table and flipping the pages to decide what tune to invest in. Ted in Toronto
As a kid riding in the backseat, I remember begging to eat there. My brothers and I loved the box cars and were curious about the interior. My parents, to our dismay, were not as curious.
A lot of names have been mentioned but the last time I went there, besides for an x-ray, it was named something “thrifty” and you had to go to the kitchen and get your own food. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name, but it was two words and gave the impression of a discount. It was a nick name, like Cheapo Philpo’s and Bargain Harolds.
Anyone remember? It’s on the tip of my tongue!
Yeah, that’s the BBQ place I am thinking of…
Maybe Mr. Cheap or something? I swear there was a Mr. in the name…
I believe the Tecumseh Road Mario’s may have been the first restaurant to serve pizza in Windsor. In any case, my introduction to pizza was there in 1956 or 1957.
During the late sixties , everyone from Kennedy ate at the Tecumseh and Ouellette Marios. They served cherry coke, fires and gravy and let us teenagers sit forever. It was the place to go.
The other Marios was where Bentleys is currently. It was a fancy tablecloth restaurant and reserved for special occasions. A notch below the Elmwood but not much!!!!
Mario’s was myfirst introduction to paying for lunch with my own funds…..usually hard earned by babysitting. I have fond memories of the place although for the life of me, I can not remember what kind of food they served. I think it may be the first place I ate a dreadful concoction called a pizza burger. When visiting Windsor with my husband and daughter , I tried to relive the good old memories, but whichever of the many establishments it had become, served food that made that pizza burger seem like gourmet food!
Mario’s was myfirst introduction to paying for lunch with my own funds…..usually hard earned by babysitting. I have fond memories of the place although for the life of me, I can not remember what kind of food they served. I think it may be the first place I ate a dreadful concoction called a pizza burger. When visiting Windsor with my husband and daughter , I tried to relive the good old memories, but whichever of the many establishments it had become, served food that made that pizza burger seem like gourmet food!
Does anyone know if there is a link between the Mario’s Pizza currently out on Walker road and these two original Mario’s that were on Ouellette avenue?
The Juke Box cost 10 cents a tune or 3 for 25 cents!
Something else that has come to mind from those times so long ago are the ice cream cones that were available in all the corner stores…like Red & White on Bruce St. that came in two parts…the ice cream was kept in the freezer and was wrapped in paper…shaped like a cone, and the actual cone was behind the counter…remember “grab bags”? I think they were 5 cents. Boy, how times have changed! Popcicles were 5 cents!
Andrew, it was Joe Bone’s Bar-B-Q!
That’s been buggin’ me ALL DAY. 🙂
That’s it Scotty! Thanks, it was bugging me too…
Hey T in T O who’se car were you drivin’ or did the folks take you there.
RWS and I have the same memory as Mario’s was the first pizza I had ever tasted. My folks took me there, and I swear there has never been a tastier pizza ever since. I have tried for decades to find that original taste, and have never found a pizza so good.
And to Allenparkpete, the Wings were 26th out of 26 teams, & you couldn’t GIVE Red Wings tickets away.On any other team Jimmy Rutherford could have gone to the Cup, but with the team he had in front of him, fuggitaboutit He would stop 40 out of 43 shots.
You could never get a Jewish person to eat at the Hacienda, as I was told
Andrew. According to my father they raced their 2 grey hounds ( Jack Benny & Sandy ) for 2 years at Devonshire. It was a dog track between 43 and 45. He also told me that Man O War raced there when it was a horse track.
As an FYI ,he grew up in your old neighbourhood at the corner of Cataraqui and Louis. Across the street from the Modern Cleaners.
As for Mario’s location at Tec and Ouellette and being hard to get to from south Windsor. Ouellette stopped at Tec. The overpass went up in the 60’s. They extended Ouellette to meet up with Dougall. That was because it was to hard to get to south Windsor from the city center and it was becoming the suburb of choice back then.
Thanks Gary, I’ll have to dig around and see what I can find about the dog years…
As for Man O’ War, he actually raced across the street at Kenilworth in 1920.
I’ve been meaning to post about that for a long while now, I actually have a bunch of material about it. Look for that one soon…
I am looking forward to it. As usual
cpike, I know that Hacienda joke. go easy! as for that Jimmy D. meet up, that must’ve been around 1981 or 1982. I never recalled going to Pit Martin’s being of the proper drinking age! Then again, my brother was a busboy there and all the other workers were his friends so they let it slide. Those were the days.
Just thought of something else too. Didn’t former city councillors Don Clark and Roy Battagello have a fistfight at the old Mario’s/Hacienda site back in the day? Seems to me they settled things the old fashioned way rather than e-mails, video and bleating to the media as we have today.
Given how many name changes this spot has gone through over the years (the only incarnation I dimly remember going to was the Hacienda as a kid, my family usually made fun of the other names the place bore), I’ve often wondered what the most cursed spot for a restaurant in Windsor is/was. The southwest corner of Howard and Cabana had a steady turnover in the 80s and early 90s…
the northeast corner of erie street and parent seems cursed too. this week its the Howard Diner. note: get rid of that white furniture…..’specially those chairs.
Howard Diner appears to be to related to the Howard Diner on Howard ave. (formerly Kim’s Diner). I dined in the new Erie/Parent location a few weeks ago. The owner appears to have put a lot of money into the place, and I was impressed with the food, service, etc.
Allenparkpete, my wife is Jewish so I always go easy. It’s just somethin I heard from a very right wing individual.
For Susan
The ice cream cone in two parts were called Mallo rolls, available in only chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. I remember my grandfather taking me for one when I visited. I can still taste those ice cream cones. They were awesome, cold and full of rich flavour.
Another cursed corner in the West End is the north-east corner of Randolph & Wyandotte. In the last 15 years it’s probably been about 5 or 6 different restaurants/bars. It lasted a few years as “Buzz’s” back in the early/mid 90s.
The Jewish Centre/old folks home is right across the street from the Hacienda, non? Perhaps that’s why such a rumour/saying was more easily spread around — and all it takes is one or two vocal folks to start a sort of urban myth/urban truth (they are interesting things to follow — how these things get spread around). There are lots of box-car type restaurants that don’t have that reputation, so it could be the location.
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In the late 1980s early 1990s, just as I was beginning to get a handle on culture and such, I recall associated O’Toole’s with the polo/button down crowd — I think a few people who left Windsor to go to Western, and when they returned to Windsor would go here, gave me this impression.
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Pit Martins — early to mid 1980s memory — my dad telling me somebody was stabbed in the bar (first association of a violent act with a specific location that I knew). My mom had worked next door at the WUC, and it was one of those places we would visit on downtown trips. Why was it called Pit Martins? Was he a hockey player?
Also I recall on labour day they would have spaghetti dinners and the proceeds would go to the Jerry Lewis telethon. There was a back room with a red-and-white striped ceiling, like a parachute.
For the poster who mentioned Man O War racing at Devonshire–indeed he did. If you go to the Chapters location at the mall there is a painting depicting that race hanging over the fireplace at the back of the store.
I know someone who has ticket stubs from the Man O’ War race at Devonshire. They’re in perfect condition. At some point in the past they were trying to sell them, I’m not sure about the status now.
Yes shawn, Pit is retired NHL player.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_Martin
cool, i was just wondering about this place yesterday morning on my way home from work!
andrew, do we know if that original structure is still in there? i was looking at the chiminey on the south side of the building and it looked rather old…and the peak on the roof got me thinking. but if this is the original structure, then i’m alittle disappointed. that building is great, don’t get me wrong, i just thought it was ALOT older.
Under what you see today is the original structure, Aaron + years of cruel renos.
that’s a shame john…a real shame. on the plus side, the one time i remember going there to eat, it was in thenorth east coner of the building….that’s original lol
AAron,
My father, Nick Trofin, was a chef at Mario’s at Tecumseh and Ouellette from 1946 to 1958. This was his first job upon returning from the war with his military chef’s certificate. He spent many a fine year at Mario’s and it was like a “family” to everyone. As a youngster, I recall going to the restaurant to visit my Dad and my favourite waitress, Nina. I would ask her, “What’s cooking Nina?” and she would reply “Chicken, wanna’ neck?” or “Bacon, wanna’ strip?”. For a young 8-9 year old this was really something. Nina Pohlman passed away just this past month and I was fortunate enough to meet the family and relate the stories of a fine woman. I also discovered I had been going to Walkerville Collegiate with Wayne Pohlman in the late 50’s never knowing that his mother was my “girlfriend”.
In the mid fifties, Dad was involved in a large explosion at Mario’s. The change room, located in the basement near the storage area and furnace, was where the staff changed into their uniforms. One day my Dad went downstairs to change and the furnace blew up. He was injured and rushed to the hospital. The fire department did all the research as to the cause of the explosion. What the results were, I do not know.
Mario’s was the first pizza place in Windsor and I am proud to say my Dad was one of the first chefs to make pizza in Windsor. He had been sent to Chicago for a week-end to learn the technique of making pizza and purchased the pizza ovens and equipment for Mario’s while there. A few weeks later, pizza was being made in Windsor…….for the first time. When I asked my Dad how much water he used to make the batter, he replied, “Just a few mouth fulls.” Sure hope it wasn’t true.
Frank Cundari, Mr. Mario, Gino Gaultieri were all names and faces I remember. Mr. Cundari’s daughter, Emili, became an opera singer in Europe. Mr. Gaultieri eventually opened GINO’s on Riverside Drive in the old Norwich Block. His son, Tony, has many more memories of Mario’s as I do. I sure hope he reads this web page. I have some photo’s of some of the staff from Mario’s and have more to tell if needed. Let’s hear from other Mario’s followers.
Emily Cundari was in my class all thru St. Mary’s grade school thru HS. She sang at every occasion. I never knew her father was a chef at Mario’s where I first ate pizza in the 1950s. That was the first place my father ever took us to eat out. Middle class families didn’t eat out in those days. I think we went there for my graduation from St. Mary’s in 1949.