More than half a century of Marshall Street history came to a halt this summer, and students, alumni and faculty are speaking out.

Cosmos Pizza & Grill, the popular restaurant sandwiched between Insomnia Cookies and the Verizon Wireless store, has been shut down since mid-May with expectations of reopening in July after “maintenance and improvements,” according to the sign in the window. In June, a “For Rent” sign appeared in the next window with the number of a Syracuse lawyer.

No one has come in or out of the diner and the usual phone number is disconnected. With no response or word from the owners, this has left everyone wondering — what happened to the Syracuse University staple?

“The first day it hit the news that Cosmos was closing, I got phone calls from three or four of my friends asking if I knew someone so they could buy it,” said Ira Berkowitz, a 1982 SU alumnus. “I know people who want to reopen it. It is shocking to me.”

Berkowitz said his friends, who are also SU alumni, did their own research and tried making phone calls to the numbers on the restaurant’s windows, but have yet to receive any response.

When Cosmos opened in 1963, it was one of the only restaurants on The Hill. It was a place students went for eggs and bacon, burgers, cheesy fries and honeybuns. Varsity and Burger King were the only two other hangout spots for faculty and students in the sixties, because there was no student center at the time.

Berkowitz was nicknamed Mr. Cosmos by fellow alumni for ordering 240 honeybuns for his son’s bar mitzvah and naming his dog Cosmo. The diner-style restaurant was the best place on Marshall Street to go for breakfast on a college budget — and to see who went out with who the night before, he said.

“I was a regular,” Berkowitz said. “Cosmos was my go-to place for breakfast. You’d walk in there on a Saturday or Sunday morning — I’m sure you’ve heard of the walk of shame — well, the walk of shame came with breakfast at Cosmos.”

The news of Cosmos not only came as a shock to many alumni, but so did the sudden loss of co-founder George Cannellos, who died in January 2013. To Linda Landau, a 1976 alumna of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Cannellos working behind the counter every day created the friendly, unforgettable atmosphere of Cosmos. He specifically hired SU students to create a connection close to campus and the community.

“He was always there,” Landau said. “He worked there. Maybe that was a part of the lure of it all.”

Cannellos was the face of a long-standing tradition on Marshall Street. With Cosmos at a standstill and its famous owner gone, SU has lost a piece of its history.

Jennifer Carnahan, a 1999 Newhouse alumna, said she is saddened that yet another local restaurant is gone from “M-street.” With chain restaurants like Jimmy Johns and Chipotle, Carnahan said Marshall Street is losing its college feel.

She said the past bustle of Marshall Street is gone and has been replaced by bars and nightlife. Carnahan added that she’ll miss coming back to campus as an alumna and grabbing her favorite cheesy fries with her friends.

“Even though it was just a restaurant, it was one of those staple institutions on M-street,” she said. “It was sort of like building a bond and all the friendships that you had as you were going through school. It was a tradition.”

Newhouse professor and 1999 SU alumna Aileen Gallagher also said Marshall Street was losing its character and that one could find the restaurants on The Hill now anywhere — they’re no longer unique to SU.

Gallagher remembered Cosmos as an equalizer, because every single person could afford a meal there. She had never met anyone in her time at SU as an undergraduate student or as a professor who was unable to afford a Cosmos cup of coffee or meal.

“It was reliably good food, and there’s something for everybody,” Gallagher said. “People liked it. It is the definition of comfort food.”

Although students, faculty and alumni will miss Cosmos’ signature food, Landau said the SU community is losing part of its culture.

“I think the bigger thing was, it wasn’t a restaurant, it was a part of Syracuse University,” said Landau. “Other restaurants have come and gone. Nobody cared about any other restaurant that came and went, but Cosmos and Varsity really represent Syracuse. It’s almost like saying we’re going to get rid of Newhouse or the basketball team.”

Published on August 26, 2014 at 12:30 am

Contact Jackie: jmfrere@syr.edu | @jackie_frere