Hungarian native behind Jozsa Corner in Hazelwood
There was singing. Music. Storytelling. Gut-busting, back- slapping laughter aided by gallons of wine. And there was food. So, so much rich Hungarian food — langos, halus, kolbasz, gulyas, nokedli and chicken paprikash. All served in a beautifully shabby and tiny dining room packed with artwork, ethnic tchotchkes and vintage bottles.
A trip to Alex Jozsa Bodnar’s Jozsa Corner restaurant in Hazelwood was like dinner and a show, with him as the chef and host and guests as both his audience and co-stars.
“He was such a good character,” said Rick Sebak, a longtime friend and WQEDTV documentarian and historian. “It was always packed. And just amazing. He cooked all the bread, he made all the food, and he brought it out in these mismatched bowls, and that kind of stuff. It was just a unique dining experience that was so Pittsburgh. That’s part of its charm.”
Mr. Bodnar, of Hazelwood, died Feb. 26 after a yearlong fight with pancreatic cancer. He was 79.
Born in Budapest, he fled Hungary after participating in the 1956 revolt against Soviet rule.
“He was caught on a train trying to leave, and sent back, so he hopped off of that train and left,” said his friend of 50 years, Jim Monteleone. “When you flirt with death at an early age, you learn how to enjoy life. He loved life. He was in the moment, all the time.”
He was reunited with his family in England and ended up in Pittsburgh a year later, going on to graduate from Penn Hills High School and the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, then start an advertising and marketing company, AJB Communications.
That’s where a young Jennifer Vickers met him, in the mid-1980s. She started working for him, and an office romance eventually bloomed.
“He was dating someone, and I was dating someone else at the time,” she recalled. “And we all went out to dinner together. And when the night was over, we realized we liked each other better.”
After a seven-year courtship, the couple married and had a daughter, Alexis Jessica, now 29, of Shadyside.
Much of the Bodnars’ work at AJB was based on typesetting, which was quickly becoming obsolete, and so in 1988, Alex Bodnar took a leap of faith on a second career and opened Jozsa Corner, on a corner of Second and Hazelwood avenues and overlooking the hulking J&L steel mill, serving the Hungarian fare of his homeland.
“He always cooked for me. And it was amazing food. So he just decided to give it a try and do the restaurant. That’s how it started,” Mrs. Vickers-Bodnar said. “I used to tease him that I only married him for his food.”
The business was initially more of a traditional restaurant, and Mr. Bodnar would even hawk sandwiches outside on Second Avenue. But then he really leaned into his own gregarious personality and passion for the homeland he was forced to leave as a teen.
“His intent was always to have the concept of entertainment, and the history of Hungary kind of incorporated all into the whole idea of the restaurant,” she said.
“A crazy Hungarian with a big dream,” is how he described himself in a May 1989 Pittsburgh Press article about him.
Mr. Sebak, whose parents grew up in Hazelwood, featured Jozsa Corner numerous times in his work for WQED, including in the 2006 special, “What makes Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh.”
Bourdain’s TV show
But it was in 2017 that the world got a glimpse into the joy of an evening at Jozsa, as it was one of the filming locations for the Pittsburgh episode of the late Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown” on CNN.
Over dinner there, Mr. Bourdain conversed with one of Pittsburgh’s insightful young gun chefs, Jamilka Borges, a transplant from Puerto Rico. The segment was a perfect juxtaposition of old Pittsburgh and new.
Mr. Bourdain described it as “not a restaurant in the classic sense, but a house party with food.”
“This is a funny story, because when Anthony Bourdain and his crew came, they got everything set up in the restaurant and did the filming. And I think they were done around eight o’clock at night,” Mrs. Vickers-Bodnar said.
But Mr. Bodnar was only just getting that house party started.
“He was like, you can’t go yet,” she said.
Musicians played. Mr. Bodnar sang. And the crew, the guests, and both stars — Mr. Bodnar and Mr. Bourdain — hung out for hours into the night con-versing, drinking and storytelling on the corner outside the restaurant.
“He was a one of a kind — I’ve never known anyone like him. It shows in that show,” Mr. Monteleone said. “We were jumping around, he was jumping around, the crew was jumping around.”
A passionate gardener who grew plants from seed, Mr. Bodnar was very active in Hazelwood and the local Hungarian community. He was a past president of the 15th Ward Chamber of Commerce, and served on the Hazelwood Greenway Committee.
He served as a member and past president of the Hungarian Ethnic Group of Western Pennsylvania, and was instrumental in arranging prominent choreographers to teach the Hungarian folk dances performed at the Pittsburgh Folk Festival. He was also a member of the First Hungarian Reformed Church for over 30 years, and was a council member and trustee.
On July 1, 2019, Pittsburgh City Council honored Mr. Bodnar with a proclamation for his commitment to Hungarian Culture in Pittsburgh and declared the date Jozsa Corner Day in the city of Pittsburgh.
“It was a special place. For sure,” Mrs. Vickers-Bodnar said. “And he was a special guy. He was a character.”
“He lived a good life,” she said. “He lived the life that he wanted to. In the end, he felt that he did good. That’s how I think most people would want to feel, when it’s time to check out.”
In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Bodnar is survived by two children from a previous marriage, Gen Wentz, of Oklahoma, and Peter Kenneth Darcy, of Indiana; his mother Ari Bodnar, of Pittsburgh, and a brother, Peter Bodnar, of Tucson, Ariz.
Memorial donations can be sent to the First Hungarian Reformed Church of Pittsburgh, 221 Johnston Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15207.
A public viewing will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday at William Slater II Funeral Home, 1650 Greentree Road, Green Tree. The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at the First Hungarian Reformed Church of Pittsburgh. It is also open to the public, and those unable to attend in person can be part of the services through a Zoom meeting broadcast.