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The Como next week

By Frank Parlato

In his usual spot at the head of the table, Don Stefano celebrates with Charlie Montana and the rest of the boys in this late Forties shot. Como Restaurant owner Mario Antonacci standing on chair, right.

There are some places in every town that are so much identified with that town that they can rightly be called institutions.
They may be a business, an entertainment venue, a not for profit organization, a club or a civic group.

Of all the businesses in Niagara Falls, there is one that transcends its role as a business and takes on the characteristics of an institution.

This is the Como Restaurant.

It more than the anchor of all of Pine Avenue, the bedrock of Little Italy. It represents all that Niagara Falls was once, what it is and what it still could be.

I can hardly imagine a place called Niagara Falls without the Como.

If I heard that any other restaurant closed and went away I would say to myself, “well, that is the way of business. It is the vicissitudes of fortune.” But were I to learn that the Como were to close, I would think it would portend the closing of the city itself. That the bricks of our building are falling.

The Como is Niagara Falls.

Next week, the Reporter plans to delve into this restaurant’s amazing history, its present and its future.

 

 

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Oct 23, 2012