Alan Morrell | Rochester

Buckman's was a longtime and well-loved dairy in Greece at the corner of what became perhaps the busiest part of the biggest town in Monroe County.

The place is best remembered for its ice cream and doughnuts and over-the-top concoctions like the Kitchen Sink and the Cow Trough. In the old days, Buckman's delivered milk and was the Rochester-area's largest milk distributor.

Teenagers went to Buckman's on first dates and Little Leaguers headed there for postgame treats. In its later years, Buckman's added an old-fashioned ice cream parlor with a Wurlitzer jukebox.

Homer Buckman started it all in 1911 when he bought a farm at the northwest corner of West Ridge and Long Pond roads. He added a barn (that became part of the longtime store) and a dozen cows and started bottling milk that he sold to farmers and friends. By 1931, the dairy was bottling 300 quarts of milk daily.

Buckman added a retail store in 1933 that sold ice cream. Ralph P. DeStephano, who already owned Bonnybrook Dairy on Lyell Avenue, bought Buckman's in 1950. The area was still quite rural then, as Ed Lopez recounted in a 1987 Democrat and Chronicle story.

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"In those days, a turkey farm stood on the land that is now Greece Towne Mall," Lopez wrote. "A fruit orchard was on the acreage now occupied by Ridgemont Plaza."

(Greece Towne Mall, which was featured in a recent "Whatever Happened To…" story, has since become part of The Mall at Greece Ridge.)

DeStephano expanded the milk-processing plant and expanded the product line to include milkshakes and sundaes. He began selling doughnuts, originally from distributors and by 1959 made on-site. He added a coffee bar in 1961 and the ice cream parlor in late 1975.

Provided by Alan Mueller, Greece historian

As Kathy Lindsley wrote in a 1990 Times-Union story, "Buckman's grew along with the town of Greece … Buckman's property became a plaza, with the Ice Cream Village as centerpiece."

Keith Bennett, who grew up on nearby Fetzner Road, worked at Buckman's in the 1970s. Although the business attracted customers from all over, Buckman's was, at heart, a neighborhood place, he said.

"I don't think any other ice cream place was as well put together," said Bennett, 55, who now lives in Dayton, Ohio. "Everybody who worked there went from high school and stuck around through when they went to college. (The owners) always found something for them to do."

Bennett remembered the infamous "Kitchen Sink" offering — which had eight scoops of four flavors of ice cream topped with sauces, nuts, cherries, whipped cream and sprinkles and served in an authentic miniature sink. Those who finished the humongous treat got a certificate and their name on a Wall of Fame.

"I didn't have the stomach to eat it all," he said with a laugh. (The "Cow Trough" was even bigger.)

DeStephano became heavily involved in the Greece community. He was involved in groups that established the Greece Ambulance Service, the town's chamber of commerce and Park Ridge Hospital (now called Unity Hospital). DeStephano sold Bonnybrook Dairy in 1981, and sold the Buckman's business in 1987 to his son, Ralph A. DeStephano. The son recalled in news stories how he started working at Buckman's as a 7-year-old making ice cream on Saturdays.

The ice cream parlor was expanded to add more seating. A second, smaller Buckman's store opened in Henrietta in 1988. Ice cream continued to be made the old-fashioned way, as the younger DeStephano recalled in a 1990 Times-Union story.

"(My father) learned how to make ice cream from an old, old ice cream maker in the '40s, then carried these recipes to Buckman's," he said. "I'm still using them. Some of these recipes are 70, 80 years old."

The younger DeStephano oversaw a business that he helped grow into Buckman's Enterprise, which includes the still-existing Buckmans Car Wash. He sold the original Buckman's Dairy and Doughnut Shop in 1993; the business continued under different ownership for several more years.

By 2005, the lure of big-buck retailers led to the end of Buckman's. As Greece historian Alan Mueller noted in a Democrat and Chronicle article, Walgreen Drug Co. announced that it had signed a lease to build a store at the site where Homer Buckman started the enterprise so many years earlier.

Buckman's closed in 2006, but wasn't torn down for three more years. A Walgreen store is now on the site.

"It's the end of an era," DeStephano said in a 2009 news story. Countless customers and employees would agree.

Morrell is a Rochester-area freelance writer.

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