Casselberry’s Palma Maria closes after the sudden death of restaurant’s ‘ultimate host’
The mixer in the kitchen of Casselberry’s Palma Maria restaurant was 80 years old, Palma Yatsko (née Rosinola) estimates. And no one worked magic at its helm like her brother, Peter Rosinola Jr.
“Pete was the Palma Maria,” Yatsko, 73, said of her brother, who passed away suddenly from heart failure on Jan. 4. He was 65. “He made the sauce, the meatballs, he signed all the checks … He just did everything. And he baked the bread and made all the desserts everyone loved.”
Indeed, the fresh-baked Italian bread — made first back home in Tamaqua, a small burg about 40 miles north of Allentown, Pennsylvania, where their father, Pete Sr., opened the original Palma Maria — was one of the things its new customers seized upon when the family moved to Casselberry in 1981.
But most of all, she says, Pete Jr. was wonderful with the people.
“He’d go to the tables, pour the wine, talk,” she said. “He was very well-liked.”
To be sure, when the family — Palma and her sisters Anna and Mary Ann, along with brothersin-law Robert Yatsko and William Forster (all of whom worked in the family business) announced that the Palma Maria would be closing in the wake of Rosinola Jr.’s passing — condolences, cards, prayers and well wishes poured in by the hundreds.
Judi Sanborn’s post was among them. Both she and her husband, Chuck Wohlust, have been going to the Palma Maria since before they even met in 1994. Over the years it became a staple for dates and dinners with Sanborn’s
brother and his wife.
“Back in the day, Peter Sr. was the one out in front at the restaurant,” Wohlust remembers with a warm laugh. “We always wondered who was cooking in the kitchen because he was always going from table to table, spending 15 minutes, then moving on to the next. When he passed away, Pete Jr. took over, and the tradition continued.”
Pete and his family, say longtime customers Karen and Bob McRainey “were the true meaning of ‘tradition.” Karen describes Rosinola Jr. as “the ultimate host — cheerful, with a slightly sardonic sense of humor.”
Regulars since 1990, the McRaineys say the Palma Maria’s recipes, décor and warm Italian hospitality all remained the same from the day they opened. They’d run a business in the same Casselberry plaza and grew to know the Rosinola family well.
“When we got married in 1997,” said Karen McRainey, “our wonderful friends, the Blaiwes family, hosted our little reception at their home. Our wedding gift from Pete and his family was two huge trays of lasagna and meatballs and lots
of their famous, homemade Italian bread. It was the best gift ever!”
“It was like ‘Cheers’ when you walked in,” says Wohlust of the enthusiastic greetings customers would receive. He will miss these moments, along with the Palma Maria’s signature banana cream pie.
“It’s what started me going there in the ‘80s,” he says. “Pete’s sister, Anna, made a banana cream pie better than any I have had in the world.”
Years passed. Anna’s work in the family business slowed. But she passed the
banana cream pie skills, among others, along to her baby brother.
“Pete loved making the banana cream pie,” says Palma Yatsko, whose husband, Robert, worked in the kitchen alongside his brother-in-law, “that and his cheesecake, which was probably his favorite thing of all to make.”
Jane Watrel, whom Orlando residents might remember (as did Pete Jr.) from her eight-plus years as a reporter for WFTV, would often call in advance to have them hold a slice if she was coming in.
“Or you’d ask at the beginning of the meal,” Watrel recalls fondly. “‘Did he make the cheesecake today? Save us a slice!’ Because it would go fast.”
Rosinola Jr. called it “his almost-famous cheesecake!” sister Palma says, laughing. “He was very proud of it. Everybody loved it. It was just the best.”
Her younger brother was just like their dad, she says. “A people person. A true restaurant man. If someone wasn’t happy, he would always make it right.”
But that seldom happened. In fact, so many people loved the Palma Maria, its Tamaqua legacy stayed strong to the end, decades after its departure from Pennsylvania.
“People would still call us when they were coming to Florida,” says Palma, who was in her 30s when the family relocated. “‘And we want the Tamaqua table when we get there!’ they’d say.”
It’s where they’d sit, talking old times and old friends with Pete Sr.’s portrait taking it all in.
“My brother had an album he kept, and everyone who came in would sign it,” Palma says. “He’d tell jokes. We’d all sit around the table and laugh.”
Though the restaurant made it through COVID19 — customers came out regularly, once a week for Sanborn, Wohlust and many others — things were still tight and relations with the landlord tenuous. Times have been stressful.
“Pete had a lot on his shoulders,” Palma says, noting that her brother had a college degree. “He could have been a teacher. He sometimes said, ‘I could be retired by now and have a pension,’ but I’d tell him that’s how things were back then. Dad wanted you to follow in his footsteps and the restaurant has been very good to us.’ ”
And ultimately, she knows — they all knew — he loved the business.
“He wanted to keep going a little longer before retiring,” Palma said. “He loved to connect with the people.”
“Palma Maria was Pete, and Pete was Palma Maria.”Jane Watrel
It was a connection guests like Watrel, now the communications manager for Orange County Government, all noted. She’d see the same faces, time and again, on her visits. Her last was on Jan. 2, a dinner with her sister two days before Rosinola’s passing.
He greeted them as always and thanked them for coming.
“He was such a very warm person. It was almost like going to your uncle’s house,” Watrel says. “There was an affection from Pete when you walked in the door and you really felt it.”
It was a beautiful night, she recalls. And she is grateful she went. And that she had the eggplant Florentine, one of her favorites.
Palma said she asked God for a sign after her brother’s passing. “I wanted peace of mind.”
She got one not long after when a cardinal visited her kitchen window, but she says they’ll miss the customers very much.
“We were there 40 years,” she notes. “You get to know them like you do family.”
The regulars feel the loss similarly. No one — family or friend — could imagine the restaurant without Rosinola Jr. at the door, in the kitchen and at that age-old mixer.
“I was hoping against hope they would reopen,” Watrel said. “But he was the heart and soul of that restaurant. Palma Maria was Pete, and Pete was Palma Maria.”