Wilshire Restaurant & Catering

Wilshire Restaurant & Catering is a family-owned Italian restaurant at 1245 Lyell Avenue in Rochester, NY, operated by the Putrone family since 1960. Over more than six decades, the business has grown from a neighborhood restaurant into a combined dining and catering operation serving the greater Rochester area. Gregory Putrone currently heads the business, continuing the family tradition that began in the early 1960s on one of Rochester's most historically Italian-American corridors.

The restaurant serves breakfast and lunch Monday through Thursday, with expanded dinner service and fish fries on Fridays. The dine-in menu features Italian-American staples, including:

• Chicken French
• Baked ziti
• Meatballs and pasta
• Roasted chicken
• Friday fish fry

The catering side of the business handles events with custom menus and offers options beyond traditional Italian fare, including clambakes, pig roasts, and cookouts. The catering arm grew out of demand for the restaurant's home-style cooking and now serves locations across the Rochester region.

Wilshire Restaurant & Catering is one of the longer-running Italian-American family restaurants along the Lyell Avenue corridor, with an unbroken presence spanning more than 60 years under the same family. The combination of a weekday lunch counter and a full-service catering operation sets it apart from restaurants that focus on one or the other. Their Friday fish fry — a staple tradition in the Rochester area — draws regular weekly traffic.

The restaurant sits on Lyell Avenue (Route 31), a major east-west artery connecting downtown Rochester to the suburb of Gates. This stretch of Lyell has long been associated with Italian-American bakeries, markets, and restaurants, reflecting the neighborhood's immigrant heritage. The Erie Canal runs nearby to the west, and Westgate Plaza with its Wegmans grocery store is a short drive farther along Lyell. Street parking is available along the avenue. The restaurant is open Monday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and is closed on weekends.