After almost 20 years, Rocco’s closes its doors

While the surge of economic growth in Republic has led to the opening of several businesses in the city, one beloved business recently closed its doors. Rocco’s Italian Kitchen, 250 East U.S. Highway 60, served its customers for the last time on Saturday, May 31.
Rocco’s served pizza, pasta, salad, and other Italian foods in Republic for almost 20 years. It was opened in 2006 as Rocco’s Pizza by John Palazzolo, son of Rocco Palazzolo, for whom the restaurant is named. Later, it was purchased in 2010 by Tim McKee, who continued to own and operate the business as Rocco’s Italian Kitchen until its recent closing.
As to why he chose to close Rocco’s, McKee said his reasons were fairly simple.
“I’m just tired of doing it; that’s all,” he said.
McKee recently sold the building that houses Rocco to another restaurant. He said that the new owners wanted to take possession of the building, but he asked them to wait a month so his employees would have time to find new jobs.
“The people who are coming in … wanted me out right away, (but) I said, ‘Well, I’ve got to give my staff at least 30 days to see if they even want to stick around for 30 days,” he said. “And they did so.”
A source of memories
Looking back over the last 15 years, McKee said that even though he no longer wanted to run the restaurant, he has many fond memories of his time as the owner of Rocco’s.
“There’s a lot,” he said. “I mean, when we remodeled and added 40 seats in 2012, that was a big, big thing. We changed the name from Rocco’s Pizza to Rocco’s Italian Kitchen to give it a separation from the other Rocco’s Pizzas.”
McKee said he has also met a lot of people while running the restaurant. Over the last 15 years, about 400 people have worked at Rocco’s, and he said he’s made a lot of friends by having his restaurant participate in community events.
“(There was interacting) with the schools (and) the city, and certain events that we did. We used to do the parade. It’s just stuff like that (which I’ll miss).”
McKee said he plans to start a new business, though he’s keeping most of his plans under wraps for the moment. He did say, however, that he expects it will be a major time investment.
“It’s going to take a little while to get that going,” he said. “That’s what I’d be focused on.”
Strangely, the restaurant’s impending closure proved to be good for business. McKee said that he saw more people come into Rocco’s in its last 30 days than had been there for some time.
“This has probably been the busiest month we’ve ever had,” he said. “A lot of people just wanted to come in and eat one last time, I guess.”