As a younger man, Amiel J. Mokhiber dreamed of changing into a millionaire.
The son of immigrants, he achieved that aim by center age, however not the best way he anticipated. And he discovered that the reward wasn’t the cash itself however what it enabled him to do: present for his household and make a distinction in his neighborhood.
Mr. Mokhiber, founding father of Amiel’s Authentic Submarines, a Rochester-area staple since 1963, died Nov. 1, 2023, at age 94, surrounded by family members on the Pittsford house of his son, Amiel J. Mokhiber Jr.
Just lately, Mr. Mokhiber Sr. had rallied from pneumonia and was steady, his son mentioned.
However, “He was drained. He saved saying, ‘I’m drained.’”
He had come to the tip an extended and productive life. “And he did it his approach,” his son mentioned. “Like Frank Sinatra, he did it his approach.”
Mr. Mokhiber was born in Niagara Falls, New York, on June 2, 1929.
It was there that his dad and mom — James A. Mokhiber, who got here to the US from Lebanon when he was 13, and Ethel Hessney Mokhiber, who had arrived right here from Syria as an toddler — based wholesale fruit and vegetable enterprise the Niagara Fruit Firm.
As a teen, Mr. Mokhiber swept flooring and constructed excellent pyramids of produce at a cousin’s retail operation.
“Again then it was all about show, which is the place Dad discovered to promote the sizzle. You recognize, it’s all about consuming along with your eyes,” Amiel Mokhiber Jr. mentioned. “Then he went to work with my grandfather, engaged on the wholesale aspect. He was driving the truck, promoting, taking orders, going to eating places and resorts.”
In 1976, Mr. Mokhiber informed the Rochester Instances-Union that the job was “lengthy on hours, brief on pay.” And at 31, by which level the household had relocated to Albany, he was able to attempt one thing totally different — and on his personal.
The Albany Excessive College graduate moved to Rochester to promote bonds and mutual funds for an funding agency. Two years in, battered by a bear market, he wasn’t simply broke however $40,000 in debt.
Mr. Mokhiber went house and requested his dad if he might choose up the place he left off in his outdated job, however James Mokihber wouldn’t hear of it, telling his son he wanted to return to Rochester and discover a technique to turn into profitable.
He received in his automotive, and on the drive again he received an thought, he informed the T-U: “Simply out of a transparent blue sky, I mentioned, ‘Submarine sandwiches!’”
He searched town for a spot to place a sandwich store and located it in a vacant constructing on West Foremost Road reverse Bull’s Head Plaza.
“He had nothing,” Amiel Mokhiber Jr. mentioned. “He informed the constructing proprietor, ‘Look, I’m from Albany, New York. I got here up right here, I’ve an thought, I’m going to do a sandwich store. I don’t have any cash.’ The gentleman needed, like, $250 a month. Dad mentioned, ‘I’ll pay $500 a month in case you give the primary six months free.’”
The constructing proprietor agreed.
Mentioned Ethel Mokhiber Duble, one among Mr. Mokhiber’s two daughters: “I believe the best way my father did it was whenever you met him, you sensed a person of integrity, a hardworking man and a person with a goal and a imaginative and prescient, and it simply comes throughout. So, you needed to make the cope with him.”
Folks began pouring within the door of his enterprise on the very first day. Mr. Mokhiber saved lengthy hours and even slept on a cot there.
After grossing $150,000, he felt assured sufficient to rent some assist. He then opened a second restaurant and a 3rd and a fourth. By the mid-Seventies, there have been two dozen Amiel’s outlets within the Rochester space, and the corporate had taken its roast beef sandwich and different specialties into space Large N shops, a part of the Neisner’s chain. (Amiel’s additionally opened a location in London’s Piccadilly Circus.)
An ebullient determine, Mr. Mokhiber usually was seen chatting with prospects, asking them how they had been doing and whether or not they had been having fun with their meals, mentioned Jeff Hetrick, a pal and former territory supervisor for Kentucky Fried Hen. “He was simply actually personable,” he mentioned.
His mod garments, fastidiously managed hair type and gold chain round his neck projected a picture of success, as did a house in an costly tract off Clover Road in Pittsford, the T-U reported.
“However,” daughter Ethel mentioned final week, “it wasn’t about that stuff, and it by no means was to any of us. It was about household. That home was stuffed with cousins that wanted a spot to remain for the summer season, or — I can’t let you know the variety of those that lived with us from the household as they had been getting their begin or they got here on laborious instances.”
He additionally cared for his neighbors, together with throughout these early days by giving free sandwiches and cartons of milk to the neighborhood children in Bull’s Head and later by stepping as much as assist charitable causes, his son mentioned.
“At any time when there was a fundraiser, they all the time went to my dad,” Amiel Mokhiber Jr. mentioned. “He would both give them cash or give them meals” — or restaurant house for occasions. “He by no means mentioned no.”
Nonetheless, Ethel mentioned of her father, “He had his downs. Enterprise downs, private downs.”
A type of downs occurred in 1977, when Neisner’s declared chapter, dealing a blow to the Amiel’s chain. After that, Mr. Mohiber battled some severe well being issues. And by the tip of the Nineteen Eighties, all his eating places had shuttered.
Amiel Mokhiber Jr., who had been dwelling in Chicago, moved again to Rochester and collectively, he and his dad reopened the Amiel’s at 3047 West Henrietta Highway and opened an Amiel’s within the Cobblestone Court docket improvement throughout from Eastview Mall in Victor, the place Diana Lewis has labored for greater than 20 years.
“I’m not from Rochester, however I in a short time discovered how vital he was to the neighborhood,” she mentioned, choking up. “It’s simply unhappy. Everyone has a narrative. Like, ‘Each Sunday, my dad took me to Amiel’s to get the tuna sub on our approach house from Sunday college or the best way house from church.’ It makes me really feel a part of one thing actually huge.”
Throughout one among Mr. Mokhiber’s current hospitalizations, his son informed him he had lived a superb life and requested him, what had been his finest instances?
“He mentioned, ‘Having you kids, and making sandwiches for my prospects. I liked my prospects.’”
Reporter Marcia Greenwood covers common assignments. Ship story tricks to mgreenwo@rocheste.gannett.com. Comply with her on Twitter @MarciaGreenwood.
This text initially appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Amiel Mokhiber, founder of Amiel’s Original Submarines, dies at age 94
