July 28, 1978 Gusto nightlife: Sgt. Pepper's on Hertel Avenue

 

Another long-forgotten fixture of the late 1970s

July 28, 1978

Sgt. Pepper's

        Anyone who grimaces at the thought that discotheques have to be brazen and flashy – with a cover charge to match – will be disarmed by the presumptions of the newest nightspot on Hertel Avenue. Sgt. Pepper’s, artfully installed in the first floor of a two-story house at 1126 Hertel, is as cozy as a North Buffalo parlor, and when it comes to admission, the price is right. It’s free.

        Even in the flash department, the sense of proportion isn’t blown asunder. There’s the obligatory police gumball light back in the sound booth, casually zapping the angular mirrors and the aluminized wallpaper, but provisions have been made for escape. The alternatives are crystal clear. Choose the main room for the dazzle. Retreat to the little lounge with the couches if the mood gets conversational.

        Yes, it’s possible to communicate in Sgt. Pepper’s with more than body language. It’s been designed for talking too. The sound system can deliver the Bee Gees in three intensities – Sensurround on the dance floor, a lighter shade of loud for the tables and the bar,  and background boogie for the lounge – separate control knobs for each.

        The guiding force behind these nuances is the abundant figure of Leonard Casolo, a 22-year-old North Buffalonian with a degree in business management from Canisius College. When it comes to making folks feel festive and comfortable at the same time, Casolo seems to have the knack. He developed it at home.

        “All through school,” Casolo begins, sitting back on one of the couches in the lounge, “we had this big clique and my house used to be the depot. We got the garage all remodeled, put a stereo in there and a ping-pong table. Whenever somebody’d ask where you going tonight, it was always Lenny’s garage. Since then, I’ve always wanted to open a bar. I always wanted a place on Hertel.”

        Places on Hertel are not that easy to come by. Happily, however, Casolo’s father owned a house which seemed a likely prospect for conversion. Casolo and his older brother, Joe, pooled their savings, added an investment from their father and applied for a loan from the Small Business Administration. Six months later, it came through.

        The Casolos had a little luck in their timing as well. They acquired their building permit four days before a moratorium was clapped down on new watering spots along Hertel. As the remodeling began last winter, a neighbor circulated petitions against the place and alarmed headlines appeared in the weekly community newspaper.

        “The councilman was getting phone calls,” Casolo says. “I was getting phone calls. Our attorney told me nothing could stop it, though. The moratorium only applied to future licenses. The attorney said if it went to court, we’d win.”

        Casolo was not about to turn his back on the neighborhood, though. He grew up right around the corner on Homer Avenue and he still lives there. So behind the décor (a little help from Ernie Peters of United Interiors), there is six inches of foam insulation to absorb the sound. There have been meetings with the moratorium committee. For good measure, a clean-up crew hits the street after closing time.   

        “We’re very neighborhood conscious,” Casolo explains. “Half the people who work here live here and three-quarters of the customers come from the neighborhood. We know that people who leave the place late at night sometimes have big mouths, but it’s like that anywhere in the city. It’s not like you’re out on Transit Road with acres and acres of nothing around. The moratorium people assumed we’d be another place where people stand around and drink. They’ve never come to see the people coming into the place or what we’ve done.”

        House manager David Scime echoes Casolo’s sentiments about the neighborhood. Noting that the club turns off the alcohol Sunday afternoon and opens the doors for a teen disco, he observes: “Lenny and I both grew up around here and, outside of the Y and the playgrounds, what could you do when you were a kid except stand around?”

        The alternative, obviously, is to dress up and go dancing. Sgt. Pepper’s adds an arctic blast of air conditioning to keep the New York hustle from overheating on the smallish acrylic floor. The disco philosophy here nevertheless is pretty easygoing. One doesn’t have to be a John Travolta lookalike to have a good time.

        The dancers are usually the first wave of evening arrivals, getting impetus from a deejay roster that includes Bobby Litz, a veteran of Club 747, Brandy’s and Frisco’s, on Fridays, Saturdays and Wednesdays; Heidi on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays; and the inimitable Captain Disco on Tuesdays.

        Those who would rather watch the dancers show up a bit later, though a couple cocktails often loosen their inhibitions and motivate their feet. The wee hours are likely to find North Buffalo revelers rolling in after visiting other spots in the suburbs, preferring to take last call within walking distance of home.

        Being a disco bartender isn’t quite the same as pouring potions in other clubs, Scime reports. For one thing, lingering and talking with a customer is out of the question. “You need two-handed quickness, politeness and a little smile along the way,” he says.

        So long as there’s plenty of vodka, there’s no problem. Vodka outsells everything else here, even the tasty little strawberry fields drink that’s the house specialty. One thing Scime is grateful for is the variable-pitch sound system, something he hasn’t had in previous situations.

        “Another thing,” Scime continues, “is that you couldn’t ask for a better crowd here. The people, I can’t believe how nice they are. I’m amazed when I see somebody with a cigarette in their hand looking for a place to put it out instead of grinding it into the carpet. I’ve worked other places and seen rich people with the manners of 11-year-olds and people at big fancy clubs acting like you owed them something. Here they respect the place.”

        Except for the teen dance, Sgt. Pepper’s is strictly a nighttime venture so far, but Casolo wants to do more. The visitors who drop by in the afternoon wondering if he’s open make him think a cocktail hour might be a good idea. Also in the works are a fashion show and possible tie-ins with the newly-released movie, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The film had nothing to do with the choice of the club’s name. It was just another case of fortunate timing.

        “We’ve been incorporated since a year ago June,” Casolo says. “I didn’t even know they were going to make a movie of it. We were thinking of calling it Lenny’s Garage, but we didn’t think that would be the right name for a disco.

        “What happened was a bunch of friends came over to my house one Sunday afternoon and we were all listening to Beatles albums – they’re all Beatles freaks. So my friend Rick says, why don’t you call it Sgt. Pepper’s. I said, Rick, you’re full of ----.

        “Then 1 or 2 in the morning Rick called up – I was studying for my finals at Canisius – and he says, ‘Len, the more I think of it, the more I think Sgt. Pepper’s is really a good name.’ A couple days later I met with the lawyers and I didn’t have any other name, so it was Sgt. Pepper’s. Already we’ve gotten a lot of nicknames. Peppers. Peppers and Eggs. Hot Peppers. Pepperoni’s. My friends, they don’t call it Pepper’s at all. They all say they’re going to Lenny’s.”

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IN THE PHOTO: In front of the bar are Sgt. Pepper's owners, Joe and Len Casolo. Behind the bar, from left, are staffers Danny Roberto, Tony Miceli. Dave Scime and Mike Argo. Uncredited Buffalo News photo.

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FOOTNOTE: The club, located on Hertel just east of Delaware Avenue, got an honorable mention in a Buffalo Courier-Express ranking of the area's top discos in the 1970s. The building is now home to a tattoo shop, Absolute Art by Paul Massaro, a couple doors away from Avenue Pizza and Pasta on the corner of Tennyson Avenue.

As for the hospitable Lenny Casolo, the name actually is Casola. He found his way into Gusto's Nightlife spotlight again in 1980 when he added an outdoor café and Gusto editor Terry Doran wrote it up. By then, disco was dying down. Lenny dropped the Sgt., making it just Peppers, and had live jazz two nights a week. "We still do disco," Lenny said. "But we do food." His mother made the lasagna, the manicotti and the cannoli. The News’ food editor Janice Okun found him in 1992, when he was general manager of Keystone Manufacturing Co. and marketing the Deni Freshlock TurboSeal, a vacuum sealing device for preserving packages of food. He died in 2008.