Domenic Spataro of sandwich fame

Domenic C. Spataro, 94, of Buckingham, Bucks County, patriarch of Spataro's, a decades-old sandwich shop at Reading Terminal Market, died Thursday, Jan. 26, of congestive heart failure at Doylestown Hospital.

"He epitomized our independent merchant community," Paul Steinke, general manager of the market, said Tuesday.

"He became a legend in longevity, having worked in the market since 1930."

Steinke recalled that "occasionally someone comes to our office and says, 'My great-grandfather had some kind of store here . . . and I'm trying to figure out where it was.'

"And I would march them down to Mr. Spataro, and almost to the end he would know who they were, where their stand was located, and approximately when they were here."

The market was his life.

"I have no hobby and I enjoy working," Mr. Spataro told an Inquirer reporter in 2003 when, he said, he continued to show up at 6:45 a.m. six days a week.

"If I accomplish something, that's my reward. If I work hard, I sleep good and eat good, and I think that's my reward.

"Plus, you get to keep going. I just try to enjoy every day as I go along."

Born in South Philadelphia, Mr. Spataro said in the 2003 interview that he left school in 1930, when he was 13 because his father had died, and he needed to help support his brothers and sisters.

That was the year his Reading Terminal Market career began, at a buttermilk-and-sandwich stand.

After serving food in Army messes from 1943 to 1945, some of the time in Europe, he returned to the market and in 1947 bought the stand named Stevens', renaming it Spataro's.

"At the time when he bought it," son Domenic M. said, "there were three buttermilk counters," including Stevens', each of which "then did poultry, rabbits," and other farm produce.

"We're no longer buttermilk," the son said. "We're cheesesteaks, hoagies, and sandwiches."

Mr. Spataro continued to work at the market shop, which he still owned, up to Jan. 19, when he was admitted to Doylestown Hospital.

"I've been with him, side by side, since 1972, when I graduated from high school," said his son, who earned two college degrees in night classes.

In a 1987 Inquirer interview, the son marveled at the father working nearby.

"He's made 80 billion sandwiches, and each one is a new experience for him," the son said.

"It's a work of art. He's an artist. The bread is the canvas and the fillings are the paint.

"My mom and I watch him sometimes and she'll say, 'Look at Picasso.' "

Besides his son, Mr. Spataro is survived by another son, Wesley; a grandson; and a granddaughter. His wife, Dorothy, whom he met when she worked at the market, died in 1993. A daughter, Dawn, died in 1969.

A ceremony took place Tuesday, Jan. 31.