SOUTH DEERFIELD — Husband and wife Jerry and Patricia Dagrosa’s popular downtown restaurant, Jerry’s Place, is celebrating its 25th anniversary today.
To celebrate the occasion on Saturday, customers will get a 25 percent discount all day, from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. There will also be a cake and a $25 gift card raffle.
“It was a Wednesday, we served roast turkey dinner. That was our lunch special,” Patricia Dagrosa recalled about the restaurant’s opening day, seated at a breakfast bar Friday morning. Around her, the usual crowd of a half-dozen customers talked over eggs and pancakes.
“It’s the town meeting place. If you’re going to meet somewhere, you meet at Jerry’s Place,” said local resident Bette Schmitt, also seated at the breakfast bar. “My grandkids love it here when they’re in town. The pancakes are great!”
At the register, another customer, Ann Benoni, commented “this is the place to go to. I’ve been coming as long as he’s been open.”
From behind the counter, in between pancake flips, Jerry Dagrosa said his favorite experience as a business owner has been “watching kids grow up. Deerfield has changed a lot. Through the ups and downs of the economy, we’re still here.”
Before opening at the corner of Elm and North Main streets on April 1, 1992, Jerry Dagrosa worked for his father, owner of the former Lobster Pot on Routes 5 and 10 in Whately. “My father always told me ‘don’t open on a Monday.’ Another thing he told me, ‘if you’re going to open a restaurant, put it on the corner,’” he said.
“At first, it was hard for us. We were open seven days a week. Jerry went in at 3 a.m., and came home at 7 p.m.,” Patricia Dagrosa said, noting the menu hasn’t changed much. “People who come here really like what we serve.”
Over the years, she continued, Jerry’s Place has served everyone from state Department of Transportation workers on the recent Interstate 91 bridge project, to crews from the “Edge of Darkness,” a 2010 Mel Gibson movie.
As for notable events in the restaurant’s 25-year history, Jerry Dagrosa remembered when a car drove through a front window on Oct. 30, 2014, “the day before Halloween, five minutes before six in the morning. They figured she came in about 70 miles per hour.”
Patricia Dagrosa recalled when they had to close for a few months last year when her husband was sick. In those months, the couple received an outpouring of support from customers who wanted to see the restaurant’s doors reopen.
“We’ve had our business ups and downs, we’ve had our husband and wife fights; but it’s been great, I can’t imagine what we would have done without this,” she said.