“Aldo Lepore grew up in rural southern Italy, in a little village outside Naples. He emigrated to America as a young man in the 1950s, and found something familiar and appealing about the wide open spaces of then relatively undeveloped Chili, where he and his wife Diana settled down. Aldo worked hard as a welder. Diana did the same at a local pasta factory. By 1964, they had saved enough to purchase a liquor store in Rochester’s South Wedge neighborhood, renaming it Lepore Liquors. For three years, Diana took the bus from Chili into the city each day to tend the store while Aldo continued welding work. Seeing the population boom in Chili, they decided to move the store closer to home, opening the Chili Liquor Store in Chili-Paul Plaza in 1967. In time, they moved the store out of the plaza and into its stand-alone shop on Chili Avenue. In the mid-70s, Aldo added 1000 square feet to the building—with his own hands! Another 1000 square feet were added to both the main and lower levels in 1993. The last expansion, in 2017, added another 5000 square feet up and down. The store now covers nearly 20,000 square feet on two levels, all stocked with wines and spirits from around the world—especially Italian wines—and a substantial variety of local ciders, wines, and liqueurs as well.”
–Christine Corrado, North Chili Neighbors
Chili Liquor after its big move to its current location in Chili Center in the 1970s.