Buckland’s Bar and Grill hasn’t served a drop of beer or a single hamburger since it closed its doors more than a decade ago.
That’s not too much of a problem for Pete Flanigan ’79. He has something that most Oswego alumni don’t: a Buckland’s on the first floor of his home.
Flanigan, the last of many former owners of Buckland’s, laid claim to decades of memorabilia. When the doors closed and bulldozers came, everything was fair game.
“I took what I could,” Flanigan said. That included half of the iconic Buckland’s sign that once stood outside.
“We got a truck and some rope and just pulled the thing down,” Flanigan said. He ripped out all the old electronics and split the sign down the middle. Flanigan’s half (pictured) resides in his Buckland’s-themed recreation room at home. The other ended up with his old business partner Pete Sobel ’82.
Rocco Varacchi ’70 and Cindy Spiak Varacchi ’72 first met on the beer-soaked floor of Buckland’s, where Rocco worked as a bartender and manned the grill.
“I tried to sell her a ticket to my fraternity beer blast, but she didn’t want anything to do with it,” Rocco Varacchi said.
For many, it was more than just a bar or a place to work.
“Buckland’s was family,” Bill Price ’70 said. “(Owner) Bob (Clark) took care of us, and we took care of each other.”
— Keith Edelman ’10
