ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A group of University of Rochester alumni have put together a fundraising effort to not only help an iconic city eatery battered by the pandemic, but to also thank frontline workers.

Nick Tahou’s has been in Rochester for more than 100 years, and is considered by many to be an institution of the city.

What You Need To Know

  • Nick Tahou’s has been in Rochester for more than 100 years

  • A group of University of Rochester alumni have started fundraising to help the restaurant and to thank frontline workers

  • Alex Tahou appreciates the help, but he loves being able to give back even more, especially since he’s retiring and selling the building

“If you look around, there are pictures on the walls of our customers and their kids that have come in over the years,” owner Alex Tahou said. “A lot of them still come in, go to the picture and show us how grown up they are now.”

It’s a place U of R alumni Mark Zaid remembers fondly.

“I loved this place,” Zaid said. “I lived at this place, especially my senior year.”

And though he’s in Washington, D.C. now, he still visits the restaurant three or four times a year.

“Whenever I go back to U of R, or Rochester, I cannot be there without having a garbage plate,” Zaid said.

So when he heard Nick Tahou’s was struggling during the pandemic, he wanted to help.

“It’s tough," Tahou said. "Two hundred people a day we’ve lost due to the office people not working downtown anymore."

So he and a couple fellow alumni came up with an idea: a fundraiser to purchase garbage plates for first responders.

“People who are having to go in and do their jobs, during the pandemic in particular, at great risk to themselves,” Zaid said, “but don’t have a choice because they need to help everyone in the community.”

Lieutenant Robert Long with the Gates Police Department was able to get 14 plates for his officers during a lengthy investigation.

“From my days as a firefighter, my days as a police officer, it’s awesome when members of the community appreciate some of the things you do,” Long said.

And Kathy Costello of the nonprofit Christopher’s Challenge was able to treat the patients and nurses at the bone marrow unit of U of R’s Wilmot Cancer Institute.

“I think everybody especially needed something positive going on, and just that meal is a positive,” Costello said.

Tahou appreciates the help, but he loves being able to give back even more, especially since he’s retiring and selling the building.

“They’re going to people that could use the plates and should be rewarded,” Tahou said. “Many people are staying home and getting rewarded for staying home. How about rewarding the people who are working out there hard every day and protecting us?”

But don’t worry. He says the garbage plate will still be around.

“We have somebody in position to be licensed to sell our products, so we won’t disappear from the face of the earth,” Tahou said. “But I’m going to be 23 for the third time this December, as I say. And it’s time to enjoy family and let that work go to somebody else.”

Any first responder interested in receiving a plate can just ask the restaurant.