PULASKI, NY – Colosse Cheese, a fixture of the Pulaski retail scene for many years, is celebrating the opening of a new location.
For the last 51 years the business has been situated on the crossroads of State Routes 11 and 13, one of the busiest intersections in Oswego County. Everything the store has to offer has moved to the new site, including the Colossal Ice Cream stand.
“The new location provides us with more land and better parking for our customers,” said Debora Hill, who owns the business with her husband, Matthew. “We feel that occupying a larger, newer building will be an advantage for us.”
The new location at 3844 State Route 13, also referred to as Rome Road, is just up the street from the long standing shop.
Cheese making has a long and storied history in Upstate New York. During the decades following the Revolutionary War, New York replaced the New England states as the predominant cheese producing region of the newly formed United States. For the next 150 years, New York and Ohio produced the bulk of the nation’s cheese. The Central and Northern regions of Upstate New York carried their respective weights during this period, as dairy farming played an enormous role in the economy.
Although cheese has been produced in the hamlet of Colosse in the Town of Mexico since 1862, Colosse Cheese’s history dates back to 1902, as a co-op started by three farmers. The O’mara family became sole proprietors of the business sometime in the early 1900’s.
In 1922, Joseph Raiti, an immigrant from Italy, began producing ricotta cheese on the farm of his wife’s family in Fayetteville, New York. He bought a general store in Conquest, northern Cayuga County, in 1929, and started a cheese factory there in the early 1930s.
Raiti became one of the best known citizens of northern Cayuga County because of his highly sought after cheeses. His five pound Christmas gift box of cheddar cheese became a well known and much desired holiday tradition in the area. In 1958, a fire struck the cheese factory, and production was relocated to the Cicero Cheese Factory, remaining there until 1969, when Joseph’s son Edward Raiti and his wife Helen purchased the Colosse Cheese and Butter Company from John O’Mara.
In March of 1971, the Raiti’s purchased the former Gulf gas station on the busy corner in Pulaski and converted it into the Cheese store, adding the ice cream business in 1974. The Raiti family continued the cheese mongering tradition until 2014, when the business was purchased by the Hills. Raiti’s cheese was a holiday delight.
For many residents of northern Oswego County, the annual reopening of the local ice cream dispensaries is a celebrated rite of spring. The coronavirus pandemic has brought about some changes to the way business is done, but ice cream is still being provided to those who love the frozen treat, with Colossal Ice Cream’s servers wearing a face mask and gloves while working.
The Hills have made other accommodations in order to keep the business operating during these challenging times, including installing plexiglass barriers at the cash register. These additions are costly, but a necessity during the ongoing pandemic. According to Debora Hill, online sales have increased and cheese and other products are being shipped very frequently.
The Colosse Cheese store supplies the northern Oswego County area with some of the most unique cheeses, as well as a variety of other gourmet treats. Visiting fishermen and summer residents of the region often plan a stop at the store to bring home a taste of the North Country, and the Hill family plans to keep this tradition alive for many more successful years.
missing or outdated ad config