Whatever Happened to ... Locust Lawn Restaurant?

Locust Lawn was a restaurant just outside of Monroe County known for its tasty “secret recipe” hamburgers and for a majestic buffalo herd that roamed the vast property.

The restaurant was at the corner of Route 64 and Strong Road in the Ontario County hamlet of Ionia, a few miles south of Mendon. At various times, Locust Lawn also had an African lion as a “resident attraction” and critters like mink and foxes.

Locust Lawn was a seasonal restaurant that was closed in winter for all but its last years. The business grew from a small roadside stand to a popular Sunday-drive landmark restaurant also noted for its homemade pies, chicken dinners and more.

An enormous fire destroyed Locust Lawn, ending its decades-long run. Compounding the tragedy, the trademark herd of buffalo that remained died a year later.

Harry and Mary Sanders started the business in 1920 with a stand outside their farmhouse where they sold hot dogs and homemade ice cream. The business flourished beyond their expectations, and the Sanders put on additions and added items to the menu. The husband-and-wife couple eventually hired workers to take over the farm operations and devoted their time to the restaurant.

A 1938 Democrat and Chronicle story said thousands of hungry motorists regularly headed to Locust Lawn.

“There’s no style about the place, no super-deluxe sort of service, not even cloths on the white glass-topped tables,” the article stated. “But there’s good old-fashioned home-cooked food and plenty of it. And the Sanders…have suddenly found the world at their door.”

Even with all the food offerings, “it is the hamburgers which still ‘pack ‘em in,’” the story noted. The beef was trimmed of “every vestige of sinew and gristle” and the burgers included “secret ingredients” that the Sanders would not disclose.

The Sanders closed Locust Lawn in 1941. Howard and Nancy Smallridge reopened the place seven years later, expanding the restaurant operations and retaining the hamburger recipe (which was passed on to succeeding owners). The crowds returned. Ads touted the burgers, the “home-made pastry like Grandma used to make” and the “beautiful drive” to rural Ionia. The Smallridges added the Locust Lodge party house next door to Locust Lawn.

The Bennett family bought the business in 1969. Soon, the critters arrived: a 1970 ad mentioned: “Ten different-colored live mink,” including a “real pink mink” on display at Locust Lawn. Soon after, the Bennetts added the buffalo herd as a tourist attraction. The large animals were confined behind fences to sprawling, forested pastureland.

“I had them on another farm, but nobody could see them there,” Keith Bennett, one of the owners of Locust Lawn, said in a 1980 Upstate magazine article. “I figured people would like to see them. I do.”

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That they did. Bennett also took in Boy, the African lion, who was boarded in a barn with an attached outside cage across Strong Road from Locust Lawn. The mighty cat was owned by a Hilton man, Dr. Joseph Barra, who got him from an animal dealer in Westchester County. The dealer had purchased Boy as a lion cub from the Seneca Park Zoo in the early 1970s.

While with Barra, Boy “grew up with a couple of dogs, so he was just like a family pet,” Keith Bennett said in a 1983 Democrat and Chronicle story. “He just got too big for the house.” And so, he went to Locust Lawn.

A state Department of Environmental Conservation official said that special permits were not required for lions but warned that they are considered an “injurious species.” Bennett said that Barra regularly came out to see Boy and wrestle with him. “Boy’s ear-splitting roars can be heard quite a distance…but no one seems to mind,” Dan Bowerman wrote in that 1983 story. “Mostly, Boy just lounges around his pen.”

Boy was moved in 1988 to a zoo in South Carolina. The buffalo herd remained, and crowds continued to flock to Locust Lawn to dine and to see them.

The Bennetts sold Locust Lawn in the early 1990s to Peter Tamoutselis, who leased the business to the Kitrinos family, who operated it. Breaking from tradition, Locust Lawn began being open year-round. A 1993 newspaper review said the family restaurant had seating for 270 and described the place as “old-fashioned and comfortable.”

The fire occurred in August 1993, while Locust Lawn was closed. News stories said flames soared up to 75 feet and that more than 100 firefighters were unable to save the place. The blaze started in the basement, amid a “maze” of hot water heaters and other electrical equipment.

A fire official said that Locust Lawn had long been known as “the burger place.” “People didn’t know where Ionia is, but they knew Locust Lawn,” he said.

The buffalo remained, but a year later, they were dead. Jack Jones wrote in a 1994 Democrat and Chronicle column that the 10-member herd died, apparently of dehydration after a pump that supplied water to a trough failed. A necropsy confirmed the cause of death, and Tamoutselis was charged with 10 counts of animal cruelty.

“Some of us who regularly travel the back roads into Rochester had come to expect that the pastoral herd would always be grazing the hillside off Route 64,” Jones wrote wistfully.

It was a disastrous denouement to a longtime popular place.

Alan Morrell is a Rochester-based freelance writer.

About this feature

“Whatever Happened To? ...” is a feature that explores favorite haunts of the past and revisits the headlines of yesteryear.

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