Bocce Club restaurant appears to be up for sale
Real estate sites list family-style dining hall as on the market
WOONSOCKET – The Bocce Club, a rugged survivor of the city’s restaurant industry with roots that reach back nearly a century, may be on the cusp of retirement.
Jose Gaspar, the owner, has put the iconic restaurant and banquet hall in East Woonsocket up for sale, asking $895,000 for the turnkey operation.
The offering is listed on Loopnet and other commercial websites, but neither Gaspar nor his sales agent, Marc Cote of Boucher Real Estate, would take questions about it.
“Joe prefers keeping the marketing of the property and business confined to my traditional marketing platforms for commercial property...” Cote said via email.
Gaspar is the only person who’s ever operated the Bocce Club other than members of its founding family – the Taverniers – who established the business in the late 1920s, according to the Call’s records.
Located at 226 St. Louis Ave., the Taverniers and the Bocce are often credited with pioneering a dish – chicken family style – that was later copied by many other restaurants and remains a Rhode Island staple.
As family members often told the story, the restaurant began when Mary Tavernier opened a little dining room in her parents’ home, where friends often gathered to play bocce – a game of Italian origin often described as a kind of lawn bowling. It may not seem so now, but in the early 1900s, East Woonsocket was a haven for Italian immigrants, and the Bocce was one of several ethnic-flavored fraternal organizations, social clubs and dining rooms that sprang up in the area.
After the bocce games on the family property, Tavernier would invite the players in for supper, which often included roasted chicken seasoned with rosemary and olive oil – the essentials of what evolved into chicken family style.
Mary Tavernier and other members of her family ran the Bocce Club continuously for many years, and they were confident enough to try branching out.
Unfortunately, they tethered all their assets, including another restaurant in Massachusetts that wasn’t doing so well, to a single financial instrument.
In 1997, their lender called in the mortgage. Ted Tavernier, the proprietor at the time, was unable to renegotiate the terms, and the property was reclaimed by the lender at a foreclosure auction.
The restaurant closed and dozens of kitchen workers and wait-staff were laid off.
The restaurant remained closed for
only a few months, however. In May of that year, Gaspar announced that he had purchased the restaurant. The sales price, according to city records, was $459,000.
On social media, where the Loopnet listing has been shared, many area residents fondly recall the Bocce as a place where they celebrated weddings, graduations and other milestone occasions in the lives.
“Many functions that I attended there were always memorable,” one man wrote. “Good food family style. I wish the family good wishes in their retirement.”
With a seating capacity of 453 peo
ple, including the banquet hall, the Bocce Club has about 15,288 square feet of usable space, including an attached residential unit that generates rental income, according to the Loopnet listing.
“Long-established Bocce Club Restaurant and banquet facility for the enterprising entrepreneur,” it says. “Turnkey opportunity includes all restaurant furniture, fixtures and equipment.”
The price also includes about 1.7 acres of land and sufficient parking for about 90 motor vehicles.