Just before their 40th wedding anniversary, the couple decided to retire after selling Campo. At the time, Aloise said the sale included “recipes and goodwill.” The couple sold to Eric Maxwell.
“We wanted to go out like Joe DiMaggio,” said Aloise, in reference to the famous center fielder for the New York Yankees, before he retired. “We wanted to go out on top.”
Aloise stuck with his humble roots and never sought the limelight, Macone said.
“He was just worried about feeding his people at his restaurants,” Macone said. “He wanted to impress people with good food that they hadn’t maybe had before.”
A mentor
In retirement, Aloise operated Republic Restaurant Consulting, where he helped restaurant owners with everything from business plans to cost analysis and real estate evaluation.
Mara Witt, owner of Honey Pot Cafe and Tearoom in Manchester, was matched with Aloise as her mentor through the U.S. Small Business Administration’s SCORE program after deciding to open her own business.
“I didn’t know who he was when I got paired with him,” Witt said. “I found out through our first meeting about the other places he owned and how he kind of brought fine dining to Manchester. Eventually talking to other people, they kind of said, ‘Wow you hit the jackpot.'”
Her original idea was to take over an existing cafe and Aloise walked alongside her as she worked on a business plan and looked for locations to open in.
“He said, ‘This idea is good, you need to do it,'” Witt said. “He was kind of lit up. It gave me the confidence I needed.”
In a joking tone, he liked to remind Witt he was doing it all for free and how lucky she was.
“He was like, ‘Other people pay me to do this,'” Witt said.
Besides cooking, Aloise loved traveling with Rippee and rode his bicycle often. He would strive to hit 1,000 miles on his road bike each year.
On the night before he died, Aloise, Rippee and Macone reunited to prepare a meal as part of the New Hampshire Liquor Commission’s Perfect Pairing events at its outlet in Nashua. The main dish was beef osso buco sourced from Little Brook Farm.
The next evening, Macone received a call from Rippee about Aloise’s death.
A call he will never forget.
“We are all incredibly close,” Macone said. “They don’t have any kids of their own. They’ve always treated me with the love of a child. They’ve always treated me like family.”
Dining and Cooking