Chester Rodio, an original 'Virginia Beach boy,' dies at 86

VIRGINIA BEACH

Chester Louis Rodio, 86, who was among those who helped reshape a once-sleepy beach town into today's Oceanfront resort and was a principal in the old Peppermint Beach Club, died Friday.

"He was one of the original beach boys," Mayor Meyera Oberndorf said Saturday night. "He loved the city so much."

Rodio was one of seven children, born to Italian parents in 1921.

After graduating from Jessup High School in Jessup, Pa., he was drafted into the Army where he served in the Air Corps, which later became the Air Force.

He served throughout World War II, earning numerous combat ribbons.

After the war, he returned home with visions of starting his own business. That brought him to Virginia Beach in 1949.

At the time, Atlantic Avenue was a strip of boardinghouses, a handful of hotels and a few restaurants.

Rodio's imagination and business sense would soon help transform it.

"Everybody was touched by him one way or another" through his many business ventures over the years, Oberndorf said. "He always made everybody feel very welcome."

Among the businesses he opened: The Golden Garter, The Moonraker, Laskin Road Seafood and the Upper Deck Restaurant at 16th and Atlantic.

Oberndorf said his contributions came not just from launching his own businesses, but in being so willing to aid and guide others seeking to carve out a bit of success of their own in the resort city.

"He helped to nurture a lot of the young people," she said. "Chester was always there. He had a lot to do with the broad grins and the happy moments in Virginia Beach."

Tim Parsons of Courtland, who worked for Classic and Colonial Cadillac from the 1980s up to 2001, saw Rodio many times over the years.

"Chester would bring his Cadillac to me for repairs and send me customers," Parsons said Sunday. "And, of course, Chester would always give out a bottle with a ribbon at Christmas."

Parsons said he "had many local legends and characters for clients and Chester stood out there with the most memorable of them." The man was, he said, "always fun to do business with."

The venture that perhaps brought the most joy to untold thousands over the years was the original Peppermint Beach Club, one of a handful of public dance halls at the beach during the 1960s.

Acclaimed as "The Home of Beach Music," it hosted performers such as Bill Deal and the Rhondels, Sebastian and his House Rockers, Little Willie and the Impressions.

The Peppermint Beach Club, long a mainstay at 15th Street and Atlantic Avenue, slipped into history in 1995 when its contents were auctioned to prepare the 88-year-old building for demolition.

Rodio, then 73, was there. He said then that he returned to laugh it up one more time inside the cavernous hall.

"I don't know anyone who came in here and didn't have fun and then left to straighten out their affairs and go on to lead a useful life," Rodio said. "There were a lot of good people here."

In the years that followed, he remained active.

Nearly every morning, he would meet with longtime friends and fellow Oceanfront entrepreneurs at a special, reserved booth in his daughter's restaurant, Old Country Pancake House.

They would talk of days past, bemoan the pace and nature of Oceanfront development and talk local politics while sometimes playing gin rummy.

"We've been hollering at each other for years now," Rodio, then 84, said of the gatherings in a 2006 interview. "Everybody has to have something to do every day. You have to have a reason to get up, if it's for a pretty girl, to go fishing, go boat riding or just go hang out on a corner."

The restaurant, at the corner of 14th Street and Atlantic Avenue, held special meaning for Rodio.

It was there that he opened that first restaurant after the war, the Doll House, which boasted the best hot dogs and chili to be had anywhere.

In a 2002 joint resolution, the Virginia General Assembly honored him for having "contributed greatly to the growth of the City of Virginia Beach" and as having been "a positive example to other business owners and citizens for more than 50 years."

Steve Stone, (757) 446-2309/2319, steve.stone@pilotonline.com