Joe Palozzi was a leader of the Rochester indie coffee scene

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Corrections and clarifications: Joe Palozzi’s longtime crony was misidentified in a prior chronicle of this story. His name is Whitey Proietti and his grill is called Proietti’s.

Separating a misconceptions from existence is a formidable pursuit when it comes to Joe Palozzi. Java Joe, as he was improved known, died Saturday of cancer. He was 68.

In new years he could be found piloting his large coffee bean spit in a coffeehouse that goes by a name The Best Coffee during a Market, during a Rochester Public Market, curtly informing anyone who inquired about dim fry coffee that, “We don’t bake a beans.” With an trash right in a center of that sentence. Colorful adjectives were a tack of Mr. Palozzi’s grammar.

Look behind 4 decades, and Mr. Palozzi — alongside his oversized celebrity — shows adult as one of a primal total on Rochester’s eccentric coffeehouse scene.

“Most of his stories are flattering crazy, he was a flattering severe character,” pronounced longtime crony Whitey Proietti, owners of a Webster grill Proietti’s. They’d famous any other given they were 5 years old. Mr. Palozzi left Aquinas Institute — “We both got thrown out during about a same time,” Proietti pronounced — and went on to connoisseur from Eastridge High School in 1966. “He gave them a illusory residence since he didn’t wish to go to Franklin,” Proietti added. “That’s a kind of things he did.”

Mr. Palozzi afterwards complicated justice stenography in New York City. That’s where he got a thought of prohibited dog carts. “Java was a initial chairman to ever put a prohibited dog transport on a streets of Rochester,” Proietti said. That was in 1970. “I went with him to New York City to collect it up. He had it during Main and State. The initial day we had it on a street, there were no regulations, no one ever did it before. The health house didn’t know what it was ostensible to do. They city wanted him to get a permit, though they didn’t know what kind of permit.”

In 1974, Mr. Palozzi non-stop Café Primo in Pittsford’s Schoen Place, that he claimed had a initial espresso appurtenance in a area. He sole a business and changed to Hawaii in 1978 to grow coffee beans. So he always said. But life for indie coffee souls was tough in a Maxwell House universe of a day, heading to one of a primary Palozzi legends. He was also flourishing pot. Until Hawaii authorities figured out what was unequivocally flourishing down on that hillside, and suggested he leave a state. Immediately.

Mr. Palozzi’s son, Joey, reliable that story, adding that he after met some of his father’s partners in a scheme. “They never utterly got out of a trade,” he said.

“That’s how he got into flourishing coffee, he was flourishing pot,” pronounced Proietti. “It was easier to grow it between a coffee trees, since we couldn’t see it.”