By GEORGE FJELD
PITTSFORD–Keith’s Country Store, an institution in Pittsford, changed hands last July 1st so seamlessly that it was hard to notice. Mostly that is due to the fact that it’s still in the Keith family: Jon and Monica Keith sold it to Jon’s nephew, Jesse Keith, and his partner, Kate LaRock (Brandon native). So the tradition continues. The other major tradition that hasn’t changed is the Coffee Guys. Every morning from 7 to 8:30, a group of about a dozen locals drink coffee and settle the great affairs of the town, state, and country, but mostly just shoot the breeze. The Keiths have provided tables and chairs for decades to make it feel like home.
Jesse and Kate want to keep the tradition going. They continue to provide food all day. Jones’s doughnuts in the morning for breakfast, soup and sandwiches for lunch, and home cooked dinners in the evening. Most Pittsford residents know that Friday is Prime Rib night but how many know that Monday is fish and chips, Wednesday is lasagna, and poutine comes out on Tuesday and Thursday. Pizza and calzones are always available. There is a full beverage case and lots of other snacks. They’d like to expand the deli and offer some sit-down eating as well.
Jon says that Jesse is a better cook than he was. Maybe that’s because Jesse went to culinary school at Paul Smith’s college in the Adirondacks whereas Jon sold Interstate Batteries for years! (Just kidding, Jon.) Kate’s transitioning from a full time job as a graphic designer to spend more time on the ordering and operations end of the business. There’s always something to do at the store.
Rumor has it that great-grandfather Frank Keith opened the store on Christmas Day, 1938 to beat out the opening of Kamuda’s Market which opened a week later on January 1, 1939. Frank had a large family. His oldest son, Pat, took over the store when it was time and turned it over to brother Joe in 1962. There have been a lot of associated businesses in the history of this country store. L. F. Carter got a contract to plow Route 73 from Brandon to Rochester over the gap. Pat built him a garage for his trucks to be housed in Pittsford. That garage almost became home for a Packard dealership in the 1950’s until the deal fell through. So Pat started selling the modern marvel of the day, the television. That lasted until the early 1960’s. At that point Pat wanted to run a salvage yard behind the store but the state convinced him to trade that land for some state land on Plains Road.
Enter Joe Keith, famous now at Joe’s 19th Hole summer snack bar, who returned home and took over the reins. Joe morphed the small gun-sale business that was in the front of the store into a sporting goods shop that occupied the south end of the store where the food shelf now resides. Local sports legend Wade Mitchell reportedly worked there at one time. Having the Weatherby franchise for the state of Vermont meant that the shop was a big draw for sportsmen from all over the area. Sporting goods persisted until the 1980s and was followed by antiques and a golf shop. For most of those years there was a gas pump outside. Joe Jr. aka Mike, aka Chico, ran the store from the 80s until 1995. Jon and his wife, Monica, bought it then and ran it for 28 years until selling it to Jesse and Kate last summer.
Now, most of the time when you sell your store and retire, you go home to work on the honey-do list or pursue your favorite-but-ignored hobby. Not so with Jon Keith. He’s still opening the store 2 days a week for Jesse and Kate, running the register, and, as I caught him, doing the dishes. He has the Keith work ethic and has a hard time keeping still. Plus, if he stays home he ends up making cookies, which is not part of the plan. He thinks he’ll move away slowly but is happy to lend his nephew and partner a helping hand as they work to keep the tradition alive. In 15 short years, the store will turn 100. “That’s what we’re shooting for,” said Jesse.
