Star Confectionery

4 East Main Street

1882

Narrator: Anthony Meras

Welcome to the Star Confectionary. I am Anthony Meras. My grandfather Nicholas Meras bought this place over a century ago and we are still here today. He had just come to this country from Greece. I think than makes us the oldest business still operating on Main Street today.

The building wasn’t new when grandpa bought it. It began life in 1882 as Brown and Jackson’s general store. The steeply sloped “mansard” roof with its multicolored slates mark this as Second Empire style – a Riverhead imitation of the fashionable buildings that Baron Haussmann erected along the boulevards of Paris during the reign of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870. However, the mansard roof style actually dates back another two centuries to architect Francois Mansard’s design for Louis XIV’s palace at Versailles.

In 1917 a Greek immigrant moved his recently established confectionary store into the structure. He called it the “Star Confectionary” because of the cast iron stars that anchor the retaining rods on the façade. A year later, my family bought the business. We were recent Greek immigrants too.

Take a look at our recessed entrance and look at those leaded-glass fanlights over the display windows.

Back then this was called Papa Nick’s, after my grandfather. One old-timer was telling me he was a football player and after every home game the fans and the team would come down here. They would fill the restaurant with all the kids from the team and their friends and they would close the doors and have their own little party here.

And we’ve had lots of famous guests. The anchorman Peter Jennings loved our chicken salad and Marvin Hamlisch, the composer and pianist, favored our homemade pistachio ice cream. You know we still make everything right here, even our famous chocolates.

Although building is from 1882; the interior is from 1911. My grandfather’s cousin built this, the interior, the floor, the ceiling, the doors and the windows are all original 1911. And people come in and say, “Oh my, what a great job you’ve done redoing this!” and I say, “No, no; it’s all original.”

My grandfather Nicholas came out in the late teens. The story goes that his cousin was a gambler and he owed someone a debt. So my grandfather came out and paid the debt and said, “Hey, I kinda like it out here, can I stay? I like to work.” He worked for about a year and then sent for my grandmother in Greece. Then he bought the restaurant about 1920. My father Anthony, my uncle Pete, and my mom Kitty – they all were here for the better part of 50 to 60 years.

Anyway, won’t you come in for some of our famous homemade chicken salad or an old-fashioned egg cream?