This is a little outside Broadway-Fillmore, but I know a lot of you have memories of going to Bocce’s on Clinton Street. I do. The good news is that the pizzeria, which closed in 2011 after Rudy Sacco’s death, will reopen in 2018.
Bocce Club is returning to its Buffalo roots.
Some seven years after its location at 624 Clinton Street was closed, Bocce leaders want to re-open the pizzeria by the end of the year — if not sooner.
“It’s like coming home again,” said Jim Pacciotti, Bocce president.
Pacciotti’s uncle Rudy Sacco operated the Bocce pizzeria there from approximately 1957 until his death in 2011. The 2,000-square-foot building, located at the corner of Clinton and Adams street, has been vacant since then.
To clear the way for Bocce, the Buffalo Planning Board recommended the city’s Common Council approve a minor zoning change. The council is expected to approve the request when it meets on May 29.
“We want it to run just like Bailey (Avenue) or Hopkins (Road), as a high volume, in-and-out pizzeria,” Pacciotti said.
Architect Michael Berger from Sutton Architects, who is working on the project, said the intent is to bring something back to the East Side that has been missing.
“Our goal is to bring it up to ‘Bocce standards’,” Berger said.
Pacciotti said it may take six months, or less, to get the site ready.
“The building is in good shape,” Pacciotti said.
Bocce Club began in Buffalo before expanding to its Bailey Avenue location in Amherst in the early 1960s and later opening on Hopkins Road in the late 1970s.
This is great news for fans of Bocce Pizza and the East Side.
