Founder of well-known Rochester sandwich shop chain dies

As a young man, Amiel J. Mokhiber dreamed of becoming a millionaire.

The son of immigrants, he achieved that goal by middle age, but not the way he expected. And he found that the reward wasn’t the money itself but what it enabled him to do: provide for his family and make a difference in his community.

Mr. Mokhiber, founder of Amiel’s the Original Sub Shoppe, a Rochester-area staple since 1963, died Nov. 1, 2023, at age 94, surrounded by loved ones at the Pittsford home of his son, Amiel J. Mokhiber Jr.

Recently, Mr. Mokhiber Sr. had rallied from pneumonia and was stable, his son said.

But, “He was tired. He kept saying, ‘I’m tired.’”

He had come to the end a long and productive life. “And he did it his way,” his son said. “Like Frank Sinatra, he did it his way.”

Mr. Mokhiber was born in Niagara Falls, New York, on June 2, 1929.

It was there that his parents — James A. Mokhiber, who came to the United States from Lebanon when he was 13, and Ethel Hessney Mokhiber, who had arrived here from Syria as an infant — founded wholesale fruit and vegetable business the Niagara Fruit Co.

As a teenager, Mr. Mokhiber swept floors and built perfect pyramids of produce at a cousin’s retail operation.

“Back then it was all about display, which is where Dad learned to sell the sizzle. You know, it’s all about eating with your eyes,” Amiel Mokhiber Jr. said. “Then he went to work with my grandfather, working on the wholesale side. He was driving the truck, selling, taking orders, going to restaurants and hotels.”

In 1976, Mr. Mokhiber told the Rochester Times-Union that the job was “long on hours, short on pay.” And at 31, by which point the family had relocated to Albany, he was ready to try something different — and on his own.

The Albany High School graduate moved to Rochester to sell bonds and mutual funds for an investment firm. Two years in, battered by a bear market, he wasn't just broke but $40,000 in debt.

Mr. Mokhiber went home and asked his dad if he could pick up where he left off in his old job, but James Mokhiber wouldn’t hear of it, telling his son he needed to return to Rochester and find a way to become successful.

He got in his car, and on the drive back he got an idea, he told the T-U: “Just out of a clear blue sky, I said, ‘Submarine sandwiches!’”

He searched the city for a place to put a sandwich shop and found it in a vacant building on West Main Street opposite Bull’s Head Plaza.

“He had nothing,” Amiel Mokhiber Jr. said. “He told the building owner, ‘Look, I’m from Albany, New York. I came up here, I have an idea, I’m going to do a sandwich shop. I don’t have any money.’ The gentleman wanted, like, $250 a month. Dad said, ‘I’ll pay $500 a month if you give the first six months free.’”

The building owner agreed.

Said Ethel Mokhiber Duble, one of Mr. Mokhiber's two daughters: “I think the way my father did it was when you met him, you sensed a man of integrity, a hardworking man and a man with a purpose and a vision, and it just comes across. So, you wanted to make the deal with him.”

People started pouring in the door of his business on the very first day. Mr. Mokhiber kept long hours and even slept on a cot there.

After grossing $150,000, he felt confident enough to hire some help. He then opened a second restaurant and a third and a fourth. By the mid-1970s, there were two dozen Amiel’s shops in the Rochester area, and the company had taken its roast beef sandwich and other specialties into area Big N stores, part of the Neisner’s chain. (Amiel's also opened a location in London's Piccadilly Circus.)

An ebullient figure, Mr. Mokhiber often was seen chatting with customers, asking them how they were doing and whether they were enjoying their food, said Jeff Hetrick, a friend and former territory manager for Kentucky Fried Chicken. “He was just really personable,” he said.

His mod clothes, carefully managed hair style and gold chain around his neck projected an image of success, as did a home in an expensive tract off Clover Street in Pittsford, the T-U reported.

“But,” daughter Ethel said last week, “it wasn’t about that stuff, and it never was to any of us. It was about family. That house was filled with cousins that needed a place to stay for the summer, or — I can’t tell you the number of people that lived with us from the family as they were getting their start or they came on hard times.”

He also cared for his neighbors, including during those early days by giving free sandwiches and cartons of milk to the neighborhood kids in Bull’s Head and later by stepping up to help charitable causes, his son said.

“Whenever there was a fundraiser, they always went to my dad,” Amiel Mokhiber Jr. said. “He would either give them money or give them food” — or restaurant space for events. “He never said no.”

However, Ethel said of her father, “He had his downs. Business downs, personal downs.”

One of those downs occurred in 1977, when Neisner’s declared bankruptcy, dealing a blow to the Amiel’s chain. After that, Mr. Mokhiber battled some serious health problems. And by the end of the 1980s, all his restaurants had shuttered.

Amiel Mokhiber Jr., who had been living in Chicago, moved back to Rochester and together, he and his dad reopened the Amiel’s at 3047 West Henrietta Road and opened an Amiel’s in the Cobblestone Court development across from Eastview Mall in Victor, where Diana Lewis has worked for more than 20 years.

“I’m not from Rochester, but I very quickly learned how important he was to the community,” she said, choking up. “It’s just sad. Everybody has a story. Like, ‘Every Sunday, my dad took me to Amiel’s to get the tuna sub on our way home from Sunday school or the way home from church.’ It makes me feel part of something really big.”

During one of Mr. Mokhiber's recent hospitalizations, his son told him he had lived a good life and asked him, what were his best times?

“He said, ‘Having you children, and making sandwiches for my customers. I loved my customers.’”

Reporter Marcia Greenwood covers general assignments. Send story tips to mgreenwo@rocheste.gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @MarciaGreenwood.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Amiel Mokhiber, founder of Amiel’s Original Submarines, dies at age 94