Before she died in June of 2024, Debbie Magar of Irondequoit expressed a desire to open a small café, her son Billy Magar said.
“She always wanted a café that offered a little bit of this and a little bit of that,” he said of his mother, who with Billy’s father, Bill, once operated a restaurant in Farmington.
She wanted to call the place Little Bits.
After her death, Billy and his wife, Cayli — who live in Irondequoit with their three young daughters — picked up the mantle.
Their Little Bits Coffee Roasters opens May 24 at 696 Titus Ave. near the corner of Cooper Road.
There will be a ribbon-cutting that day at 11 a.m., and the business will start serving customers at 11:30 a.m. Thereafter, it will be open daily from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Little Bits will serve all kinds of coffee drinks, including cappuccino, Frappuccino, macchiato, Americano and espresso.
“And we’re going to have our house coffee, which is a dark blend,” he said.
As the name implies, the café will sell its own brand of coffee — roasted and bagged at downtown Rochester’s Language of Coffee — as beans or ground.
Little Bits’ signature beverage is the Eagle, a blue-and-gold vanilla bean Frappuccino to represent Irondequoit High School’s colors and its mascot.
The Magars want Little Bits to be welcoming for students.
“When I was growing up here, I always hung out around here at Irondequoit Hots, or we’d go to the Cooper Del,” said Billy, 43. “We just wanted another place where kids could hang out.”
Said Cayli, 32, who grew up in Greece: “It gives them a place to stay out of trouble. Come here, get a bite to eat, have a drink, a smoothie or a coffee and hang out with your friends.”
Or a frappe or a chai drink.
Little Bits also will have many students on its staff of around 24, Cayli said.
The food menu includes muffins, bagels and pastries, along with salads, wraps and paninis.
In keeping with the Irondequoit theme, many of the offerings are named for streets and schools in town. The Listwood, for instance, is sausage, egg and American cheese on a choice of bagel, English muffin or bread. The IHS is a grilled chicken wrap with lettuce and mild Buffalo sauce.
Billy also owns a landscaping, plowing and property maintenance business and a cleaning company. Cayli teaches third grade in the Byron-Bergen school district. And they have their girls, Carleigh, 14, Danielle, 11, and Willow, 4.
So, their plates are already pretty full, and they carefully considered the pros and cons of taking on Little Bits.
But it felt like it was meant to be.
After looking for a space for months, they noticed that 696 Titus, a stone’s throw from their home, was for rent, and at 700-square-feet, it seemed like just the right size.
Then they found out that property owner William Boneberg was married to Danielle Boneberg, Cayli’s high school soccer coach at Greece Olympia.
“All these little things for me were like a sign,” Cayli said. “Like, what are the odds that it’s across the street from where we live, that it’s a perfect location where his mom would want it, and it was a little shop that we could sell a little bit of this and a little bit of that? … It was almost like his mom handed us the gift.”
The business opening in that storefront, which has been vacant for years and previously was home to Personal Designs Florist, also starts a new chapter for the community.
Jeff Reddish, the owner of Jeremiah’s Tavern, wanted to open his fifth location at Titus and Cooper and for a time owned 696 Titus and the connected buildings where Titus Tavern operates and Cooper Deli was located.
His plan was to tear down the structures and others in the vicinity to make way for Jeremiah’s and a parking lot. An Irondequoit grass roots organization that promotes preservation prevented that by getting landmark status for the Titus Tavern building.
Reddish then sold his Titus-Cooper properties to Boneberg.
Turning 696 Titus into Little Bits involved mostly interior renovations. The only exterior work was adding signage and rewrapping an existing awning, so the Magars did not have any issues with the town on the project, Billy said.
Meanwhile, even though their business is weeks away from opening, the family has been getting recognized in public in response to social media posts previewing their forthcoming venture.
“It’s so beautiful, because that’s exactly what his mom would want,” Cayli said. “And I know it’s going to be a road because we haven’t even opened yet. But I’m hoping people are patient and understanding and work with us because we’re willing to work with them and learn.”
From January: Irondequoit’s vacant Cooper Deli space is getting a new tenant.
Reporter Marcia Greenwood covers general assignments and has an interest in retail news. Send story tips to mgreenwo@rocheste.gannett.com. Follow her on X @MarciaGreenwood.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: New café gets ready to open in Irondequoit
Reporting by Marcia Greenwood, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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