Longtime owner of Rudy’s Bar & Grill in McKees Rocks
Rudy’s Bar & Grill, a fixture in McKees Rocks for more than 80 years, anchors a prominent corner on Island Avenue where for decades, railroad and mill workers lined up three deep at the bar for a shot and a beer early in the morning after the midnight shift.
For more than half the time it has been opened, the bar’s owner wasn’t Rudy, the founder whose name is still on the big red-and-white sign above the door.
Rudy Gerger sold it in the 1970s to Frank “Gus” Aiello, who spent most of his adult life overseeing the bar, serving up its acclaimed handcarved ham sandwiches, and getting a kick out of customers who mistakenly called him Rudy.
Mr. Aiello, who retired and sold the bar in August, died Saturday from complications of a fall. He was 82 and lived in Upper St. Clair.
His wife, Cathie Hecht, said she had never stepped foot in a gritty neighborhood joint that catered mainly to blue-collar workers until she walked into Rudy’s in 1982 for a business meeting.
She was a senior agent at American National Insurance and was training a new agent, Roy Gerela, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ star placekicker on its 1970s Super Bowl teams.
Mr. Gerela, then retired from professional football, wanted to sell a policy to Mr. Aiello, who was his golf buddy, but needed a supervisor to oversee the transaction, Ms. Hecht said.
“I was never in a bar like that,” she said. “I was a from a strict Catholic family in Bentleyville, Washington County. But Frank asked me out and he became my Prince Charming.”
The couple married 19 years ago in Lake Tahoe, Nev.
Mr. Aiello grew up in McKees Rocks and after graduating from St. Francis de Sales High School, served in the Army. When he returned to his hometown, he worked for Mr. Gerger at Rudy’s and the two became especially close after Mr. Gerger’s son died.
It never occurred to Mr. Aiello to change the name when he acquired the bar, Ms. Hecht said.
“He loved the business and he loved the people who came in,” she said.
By the time she met Mr. Aiello, business at Rudy’s was starting to fall off because of the decline of heavy industry in McKees Rocks and other river towns near Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad had shuttered its large operation in McKees Rocks, and the mills along the Ohio River had downsized dramatically from their former round-theclocks shifts.
In recent years, many of Mr. Aiello’s regular customers retired, moved to Florida, or weren’t healthy enough to keep coming to Rudy’s, Ms. Hecht said.
When the bar traffic slowed to the point he didn’t need full-time employees any longer, he kept it going on his own during the week and hired a part-time employee for weekends.
Even after two battles with cancer, he went in every morning and continued the daily tradition of preparing the popular sandwiches featuring ham piled high on bread from nearby Mancini’s Bakery.
“They were skyscrapers,” Ms. Hecht said. “There was enough ham on them for three sandwiches. And it wasn’t skinny slices.”
Rudy’s also took orders for baked hams to sell at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, funerals and for other special occasions. After Easter this year, Mr. Aiello told his wife it was finally time to quit.
She put a sign in the window advertising Rudy’s for sale. Jerry Fabiszewski and his wife, Jackie, saw it as they drove by one Sunday this summer.
They closed on the sale Aug. 25 and that day, Mr. Aiello made ham sandwiches for Ms. Fabiszewski and their attorney.
“I’m a vegetarian,” said Mr. Fabiszewski, who plans to keep the item on the menu.
When the Fabiszewskis closed Rudy’s for three weeks to renovate it, Mr. Aiello came around often to check out the new floor, fresh paint and new appliances. When they reopened, he stopped in almost daily until the week before he died.
Though the sign is still the same, the Fabiszewskis have renamed it “Rudy’s Dive Bar” and hope to market it as such.
“We thought that was a good thing,” Mr. Fabiszewski said. “Everyone likes a dive bar.”
They hope to benefit from some of the ongoing revitalization in McKees Rocks, including the $9 million rehab of the Roxian Theatre on Chartiers Avenue, and word-of-mouth that is already generating new customers from small businesses in town.
Said Ms. Fabiszewski, “This is still a beer and a shot place. We’re not serving martinis here.”
In addition to his wife, Mr. Aiello is survived by a son, Francisco Aiello of Canonsburg; a brother, Joseph Aiello of Moon; a sister, Robin Lemons of Las Vegas; and stepsons Daniel Molchen of Washington, Pa., and William Molchen of Denton, Texas.
Visitation is from 4-8 p.m. Tuesday at BeinhauerFryer Funeral & Cremation Service, 430 Washington Ave., Bridgeville. The funeral Mass is at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. John Capistran Church, 1610 McMillan Road, Upper St. Clair.