Stepping into Star Confectionery in Riverhead feels like taking a journey back in time — to a simpler era when everybody knew one another, the owners ran the place and the cook knew what you’d order before you placed it. Generations of families have sat in its booths for breakfast and lunch, devoured its famous Easter chocolates, and relished a scoop of ice cream served in an old-fashioned metal dish.
After more than a century in business, the beloved luncheonette and candy store — affectionately known by locals as ‘Papa Nick’s’ — will close its doors on Aug. 27, said third-generation owner Anthony Meras.
Star Confectionery’s roots in Riverhead date back to 1917 as a soda fountain and candy store; the Meras family took ownership in 1921.
Meras, 58, who serves as the restaurant’s cook as well as its ice cream and chocolate maker, cited his health as the reason for the decision to close the business and sell the building. He has suffered four heart attacks over the past few years, and the demands of working long, busy days behind the grill and running the business have taken a toll.
“I showed pride for my family. I showed pride for Riverhead. I did the best I could with the cards I was dealt and, unfortunately, it’s time for me to go,” Meras said in an interview on Monday.
Last summer, Meras decided to try selling both the restaurant and the building. He posted an advertisement, hoping to find a buyer interested in continuing the business — but no dice.
The building at 4 East Main Street has been sold to a Southampton builder who, according to Meras, has no plans to continue the restaurant. The buyer, Felix De Los Santos, did not return a call or respond to emailed questions sent through his attorney before this article was published.
“I think he’s going to do right by the building,” Meras said. The structure is a contributing resource to Riverhead’s nationally registered Main Street historic district.
For generations, the Meras family has served meals, fountain drinks and ice cream to Riverhead residents and businesspeople alike, and was a favorite source of holiday sweets. While other businesses on Main Street closed during recessions and pandemics, Star Confectionery remained an enduring icon.
Albie Reichert, 63, of Westhampton Beach — a regular at Star Confectionery — said the announcement of the closing was “a culture shock.”
“The last time I felt like this, Johnny Carson retired,” he said, likening Meras to the legendary late night talk show host.
The building originally housed a Brown and Jackson’s general store in 1882 and its interior was remodeled in 1911. In 1917, Greek immigrant Peter Prontzos moved his recently established confectionary store from East Hampton to Riverhead.
Meras’ grandfather, Nicholas — later known as “Papa Nick” — moved from Manhattan to the East End. Eventually, he purchased Star Confectionery from Pronztos, a cousin, in partnership with his brother Anthony and another cousin, Gus Meras, who were also Greek immigrants.
By 1932, the County Review newspaper called it “one of the finest stores of its kind on Eastern Long Island.”
In September 1950, the store expanded into a full-blown restaurant, with the Long Island Traveler-Mattituck Watchman newspaper announcing a grand reopening featuring new renovations and a grill.
Locally, many people know the restaurant as “Papa Nick’s,” a nickname coined by high school students in the 1950s and ’60s who would “pack the place” after games for ice cream and sodas, Meras said.
Papa Nick passed the business to his sons, Tony and Pete. Tony’s wife Kitty joined the business as a waitress. Their wits and humor made the restaurant truly one of a kind.
Meras and his brother, also named Nicholas, grew up working in the restaurant. They were frequently “fired” by their mother, and ordered to ride their bikes home, Meras recalled with a laugh.
“I always took a liking to it,” Meras said.
He fondly remembers opening the restaurant with his father in the morning. “There were a bunch of guys — they called themselves The Breakfast Club, and they were all the local shop owners [and] bankers,” he said. “At 10-12 years old, I could barely look over the counter. Bringing the coffee over to them, that was fun to me.”
After graduating Riverhead High School, Meras went to college and worked in Manhattan as a salesman. He nearly moved to San Diego, where a friend from college was buying a house, but promised his father he’d help at the restaurant for one summer.
“I had no intention of staying. I was going to go back to the city,” he said.
That was in 1990. Meras stayed beyond the summer, joined full-time and took over cooking duties after his uncle retired later that year.
His brother Nicholas asked him to stick it out for 10 years, after which they planned to sell the business when their father retired. But tragedy struck in 1996 when Nicholas died in a car crash.
“My mom never recovered. My dad never recovered. And I don’t know that I ever recovered, too,” he said of his brother’s death. “It still bothers me.”
“He was everything to me. And I knew, once he was gone, that [10 year] plan was gone,” he said.
The Meras’ community of regulars embraced the family in their grief, helping in any way they could. “That’s why we love this town as much as we do my family. The love that they showed my family was unbelievable,” Meras said.
Meras remained behind the grill and took over the business after his parents retired. Kitty died in 2016, Tony in 2021. The stress of working six days a week, from breakfast through prep for the next day, has weighed heavily on him — especially over the past decade.
The stress of busy days can trigger chest pains, Meras said. And when it’s especially busy, he misses the thing he loves most: connecting with customers. Meras has a special talent that allows him to recall customers’ names and orders from weeks prior — if they made an impression.
“I always wanted to greet every customer. I always wanted to say thank you to every customer. I always wanted to say goodbye to every customer. I always wanted to give every kid that was good and ate their food a lollipop,” he said.
“I love goofing with the kids. I love making faces at them. I love hiding on them and popping up and they’re laughing at me,” Meras said.
“Over the years, I’ve had certain kids that we just clicked and connected with, and they were constant customers,” he said. To that younger generation, the store is not Papa Nick’s — it is “Anthony’s.”
“The regulars that come in every day — I’ll obviously miss them,” he said. “Whether it’s goofing with each other or talking about baseball or what’s going on in my life or their life — we’re a fabric of the community. You get involved with people.”
What Meras says he will miss the most is cooking at the restaurant for his three kids — whether it’s when they come in with a group of friends, or just the four of them together after the restaurant has closed for the day. Them working at the restaurant has “always been a kick for me,” Meras added. “Just like when I worked here with my parents and my brother.”
The Meras family forged lasting friendships with their customers. People came for the food — French toast, cheeseburgers, hard ice cream — but stayed for the stories and laughter. Meras’ warmth and charm, a gift from his parents, helped make Star Confectionery what it is.
Bernie Bobinski, 59, of Baiting Hollow said visiting Star Confectionery is “like going back in time, to me, to a much simpler place.” Sporting its original tile floor and tin ceiling from the early 20th century, it is serving the same food with the “same perfection” as when he was growing up with Meras in Riverhead.
“You can’t get a breakfast like that place anywhere else in town, let alone the East End,” he said.
“They have the best hard ice cream on the East End. I don’t care what anybody says — I love it,” he said.
The atmosphere is “like Cheers,” Bobinski said, referencing the TV sitcom where, he said, “everybody knows everybody.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in there without not knowing someone,” said Brian Stark of Jamesport. “It’s a great town place because it’s 100% Riverhead and it’s 100% unique.”
Stark, 64, grew up going to Star Confectionery with his parents, who were friends with the Meras family. Stark described the restaurant as the “socioeconomic vortex of Riverhead” — a place where a variety of powerful men would gather in the morning for breakfast and talk about town happenings.
Years later, it’s become part of his own routine as a businessman. “If I ever had to meet a business contact, they probably knew Papa Nicks. So I said, just meet me at Papa Nicks; we’ll get a hamburger,” he said. “So it just became kind of like a second nature to go to Anthony’s.”
“Anthony’s like a brother to me and he always will be,” Stark said. “And I think that the store closing is sad, personally and for the town, and I think that people understand. And I hope when they see him, they’ll remember him fondly, because he’s touched a lot of lives.”
Albie Reichert, the regular, can recall his first lunch at Star Confectionery. He remembered being won over when Kitty brought him a half cup of tomato soup to try — even after he said he didn’t like tomato soup.
“She had me hooked there for that. I loved her. That was all she had to do,” Reichert said. He became a regular and later, the family’s contractor.
“It’s going to be missed by me and by a lot of other people,” said Reichert, who has been eating at Star Confectionery for more than 20 years. “I mean, the place has been here over 100 years, and the family’s a class act — no doubt about it… The best of people.”
Reichert “met a cast of characters” eating there. “I ate breakfast with people I generally wouldn’t have crossed paths with in my life,” he said.
The restaurant has long been a first job for many local teens — many of whom became honorary members of the Meras family.
“I’ve been very blessed with all the staff that have worked here,” Meras said. “I’ve been so lucky. We’ve treated them like family, and they’ve treated us like family.”
Michelle Papa grew up eating at Star Confectionery with her family. At 14, she went in with her mom for lunch. When Tony found out Papa was eligible to work, he offered her a job.
“He said, ‘You want to work here? I’m like, ‘Yes.’ And that was that,” she said. “The rest is history.” She still works there part-time.
Now 41, she gets emotional recalling the memories she’s shared there — especially making Easter chocolates with Tony in the basement, and listening to his life stories.
“You become family,” she said. “A lot of the same customers since I’m 14 are still coming in there. It’s cool. There’s no place like it.”
Kaitlyn Ferris of Calverton also started at 14 and worked for nearly a decade there before starting her photography business.
“I feel like the whole Meras family just embraced me, just as almost like another daughter,” she said. Tony was “the greatest human in the world” and a grandfather to her; Meras became her best friend.
The restaurant is a place of comfort and belonging for Ferris — “like a second home,” she said.
“I’m honestly just going to miss being able to know that there’s always a booth there for me,” she added.
She has made sure to visit there before for major life milestones and recently brought her toddler son there for his first ice cream.
The restaurant closing is “bittersweet,” Papa said. Both Papa and Ferris said they are glad to see Meras is prioritizing his health and his happiness.
“He hasn’t had an easy life himself, and he always keeps a smile on his face,” Papa said.
Though the restaurant is closing, Meras isn’t hanging up his apron entirely. He plans to keep his chocolate and ice cream makers, and is setting up collaborations with East End businesses to keep Star Confectionery’s famous holiday chocolates and ice cream available.
“I’m not going to retire. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself,” he said.
Meras’ final message to the community:
“Thank you, and I love you. You have made my family feel like family to everybody in town and all the strangers that have come in. Thank you.”
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