Corner Café Proves to be a Heavyweight
By Chris Seymour | Correspondent at April 7, 2024 | 5:48 pm | Print
Willie Pep’s Corner Café, 366 Farmington Ave., celebrated one-year in business earlier this year, and in that time, has proven itself to be a heavyweight in the city’s restaurant scene.
“It’s been fantastic; we have been very successful,” said owner April Miller, who named the restaurant in honor of her stepfather, Connecticut native and professional boxer Guglielmo “Willie Pep” Papaleo, who passed away in 2006 at age 84.
Miller said naming the restaurant after Willie Pep was done as a tribute to her stepfather. “My mother [Barbara Papaleo] was married to him and was with him for 21 years—she is his widow and she works alongside me,” said Miller.
The various sandwiches on the café’s menu—with names like “The Jab,” “The Brawler,” and “The Neutral Corner”—draw their inspiration from the sport Miller’s stepfather, a World Featherweight champion, excelled in.
The café’s menu—which also features soups, salads, and even breakfast sandwiches—features “something for everyone,” according to Miller. “We have pork, steak, chicken, fish, turkey, and pastrami; in the beginning, everyone wanted to come in for The Jab, a meatball sandwich, which is still very popular,” she explained.
“But now we just have so many different customers from so many different walks of life with a lot of different dietetic needs, and they do love our salads and they love our protein, including our pork, chicken, and fish, because everything comes in fresh daily,” she added. “We use a distributor who brings us food every day in a refrigerated truck so therefore the quality is amazing.”
Another popular sandwich is “The Heavyweight,” which features seasoned steak, mozzarella and white cheddar cheeses, with sautéed peppers and onions on a Portuguese roll.
“We probably sell over 400 Heavyweights a week—we cannot keep steak in stock,” said Miller. “We sell a lot of steaks and we sell a lot of chicken sandwiches. The Neutral Corner is a huge seller.”
The Neutral Corner is a chicken breast sandwich that has mozzarella cheese, romaine lettuce, tomatoes and herbed mayo on a hard roll.
Pep’s salads also feature fun, boxing-inspired names, such as The Welterweight, The TKO and The Featherweight.
“We are at a year now and most people take things off the menu at this point, but we honestly have not done any of that—we actually had to add a couple of fish dishes, like the crab cake sandwich, because it is so popular,” detailed Miller.
Pep’s has also become a place that is well known for a delicious breakfast sandwich at a great value. “We do egg and cheese sandwiches for $2.50—you get two eggs, two pieces of cheese,” said Miller. “And it’s all natural cheese; it’s not cheese that is made with powder or anything like that.”
An egg and cheese sandwich with ham, bacon or sausage is just 50 cents more ($3). “We have a line out the door right now,” observed Miller one recent Friday morning.
Miller stressed the importance of calling ahead with one’s order. “We have a lot of call-ins, because if you don’t call your order in, it gets so busy in here that you’re going to most likely be waiting a long time for food,” she stated.
“When they call in, the order is correct, they know exactly what time to get it, and they don’t have to sit and wait,” added Miller. “We do call ahead seating too; you can call in your whole lunch order and come in and sit down. That’ll help you out on your lunch break; you can sit down and relax, because your order will be ready for you at the table waiting for you. That’s a huge thing for people who have a half hour for lunch.”
While she didn’t know her stepfather while he was a professional boxer, Miller remembers Willie Pep as being a person who had strong character.
“For me I didn’t know him during his boxing years; he was already in his 60s by the time he and my mom were married, so I just know him as being incredibly witty, funny, smart and just a very loving, giving individual—he would give you the last $2 out of his pocket,” she recalled.
Willie Pep’s is open Monday-Friday from 7 a.m.-4 p.m. Call 860-223-PEPS (7377) to place your order or to find out about weekly specials. The café can be found online at williepepscornercafe.com.
