ToquiNotes: After 57 Years, Business Owner on Main Street Goes Strongly to Retirement Armed with Faith
By Jeff Toquinto on October 26, 2024 from ToquiNotes
Roughly 57 years ago, a young man – at the ripe age of 23 – took over a business on Main Street in Bridgeport and opened another inside of it. Last week, at the age of 80, he walked away silently from the job and building that has been a fixture on Main Street for decades.
Joseph Michael Spatafore, the patriarch to the local Spatafore family known by Joe to many, walked away from his business and the building that housed it at 305 East Main Street. The business, which has dissolved, was Joseph Michael Hair Replacement that served as a beauty salon and as its namesake.
The building? It formerly housed the former Roth Motel, a legendary old-time business recalled fondly by many in Bridgeport and beyond.
It is that business that Spatafore purchased Oct. 15, 1967 – almost 57 years ago to the day that he walked earlier this month. His retirement plans are nowhere near set in stone, and he is doing what he always has done when it comes to big decisions in his life, and that is to let God work it out.
It was that way last week. It was that way five and a half decades ago when he returned home from New York to take over the business. All of that, especially at the age of 23, might seem overwhelming. For Spatafore, it was not.
“I wasn’t nervous about it because I prayed about everything I did. My dad was negotiating the price on this while I was working in New York City at the time,” said Spatafore. “I wanted to come back home.”
Home, at that time, was the North View section of Clarksburg. He lived on 16th Street and also Hamill Avenue prior to making his venture as a resident of Bridgeport and currently living on Hillhaven Drive.
The only thing Spatafore was worried about when trying to get back home was the negotiating between his father and the former owners of the property. He wanted to take it over as soon as he learned it was available, but there was a concern on the parental front.
“I was afraid dad might blow it because he was a tough negotiator,” said Spatafore with the ever-so-mild hint of a smile. “If he couldn’t have gotten it at what he thought was the right price, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Spatafore did not then and does not now dwell on what may have happened. He dwells on what has happened. What ended up happening was he took over a business, but he said he had a partner from the beginning.
“The Lord has seen me through, and he’s blessed me since day one. When I started the business, I gave it to the Lord,” said Spatafore.
The business was in Spatafore’s name. His faith made sure it was in God’s hands.
His method worked. It not only worked for decades on the business front, but it worked on the personal front as well. We will get back to the personal part of his life shortly. First, a look back at the early days when he took over and ran the Roth Motel and started his salon, Joseph Michael’s Salon, inside the main building.
“I was running the motel when all the traffic was going up Route 50. Interstate 79 wasn’t there yet and then they started building (Interstate) 68,” said Spatafore. “It just took a lot of traffic off Route 50.”
By the mid-1970s, the motel business was not what it once was as travelers were taking easier routes. Because of that, he turned the motel into efficiency apartment units that still operate to this day.
“I used to live in the salon shop. The back part was my bedroom and the front of the motel there was a switchboard that I operated,” said Spatafore. “I ran it early on by myself but hired a few individuals for the salon in maybe 1968 or 1969. I got married in 1970.”
Joe and his wife Joyce Arlene Spatafore became a team that would be as solid as any team one could find until her passing. They worked together in the salon and hair business for nearly 50 years, never had an argument, and Joe “missed her terribly” on days or times she
was not there. She worked with him until she turned 70, her oldest daughter told me, and she passed away in 2022 at the age of 72.
was not there. She worked with him until she turned 70, her oldest daughter told me, and she passed away in 2022 at the age of 72.
“After we got married, we moved upstairs in the motel to the tourist room,” he said. “That was the area we rented out to salespeople.”
During his time living in the shop and working there, Joe and Joyce Spatafore successfully raised five kids, and it was successful because of what was done in his downtown Bridgeport business. You probably know the kids, now adults – Jack, Jennifer, Joseph, Janelle, and Jeanette. They are a virtual who’s who of quality human beings and a chip off the Joe and Joyce Spatafore decency block.
“I just knew what I was doing would provide for me because I trusted in the Lord. When I came here, I didn’t have two nickels to rub together, but I ended up with my family, which is everything,” said Spatafore. “I not only knew the Lord would provide for me, but I also knew when I came here, I would be here until I died or until I retired. I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Still, he had to grow the business before he could retire. And he did just that.
In his early days, Spatafore started out with a steady clientele. Many of the individuals were demanding and had extremely lofty expectations. He met those expectations because they kept coming back – some for decades and many until his final days on the job.
“It was different back then with a hair style $2 and a haircut $1,” said Spatafore. “You adapted, and you started seeing faces for years and years.”
Spatafore, earlier this month, was still seeing some of those weekly clients, some who have been coming to his Main Street shop for decades. One of his last customers that he saw weekly to do her hair was 102 years old.
“I saw a lot of people in the shop. It was in 1990 when I got into hair replacement,” he said. “That’s been a lot of the business in recent years.”
The business, in recent weeks, has transitioned. While he maintains ownership of the efficiency units and the main building of the old Roth 
Motel and his former salon, he has leased out the workspace.
Motel and his former salon, he has leased out the workspace.
Last month, Adyson Audia took over. She opened up The Beauty Lab and is already thriving in a location that has thrived even prior to Spatafore taking over in 1967. No one is happier that she is doing well than the man leasing the space to her.
“Adyson was a God send. If she hadn’t come here, I’d probably still be cutting hair and doing hair replacements, which I’ve primarily been doing for the last few years,” he said.
Her arrival sealed Joseph Michael “Joe” Spatafore’s departure. What it has not sealed for the grandfather to 12 and great grandfather to four (and one on the way) is what the next adventure will be.
“Retirement is a question mark. I know God has plans for me in the future and He hasn’t completely revealed them to me. I go day by day and listen to Him and see what the Holy Spirit has to say to me,” said Spatafore.
Although he has not heard the words, Spatafore is not worried. He is doing with his retirement what he did with his business and his family. He is putting it in God’s hands.
Enjoy your retirement Mr. Spatafore. You have earned it.
Editor's Note: Top photo shows Joseph Micheal "Joe" Spatafore in a work station where he took care of thousands of individuals over 50-plus years, while he is shown standing outside of the sign that has come, or will be coming, down. In the third photo, he is shown with the love of his life, his late wife Joyce. In the fourth image he is shown with his five children. In the photo just above this editor's note, he is shown with Adyson Audia, who opened up The Beauty Lab in the former space where he did business. Photo below is from a few years back showing Jack and Joyce with their siblings and their herd of grandchildren. Family photos courtesy of the family through Jennifer Spatafore Trippett.
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