Joe Rancatore’s favorite holiday is Lexington’s Patriots’ Day celebration.
Every year, on the day of the reenactment, he comes into his ice cream store in Lexington Center, Rancatore’s Ice Cream and Yogurt, around 5 a.m. After making a latte on the store’s espresso machine, Rancatore kicks back, reads the newspaper on his iPad, and watches the British troops, played by His Majesty’s Tenth Regiment of Foot In America, march up Massachusetts Ave.
This year, he got to Rancatore’s at about 5:15 a.m., excited to uphold his tradition. But when he sat down to drink his Patriots’ Day latte, customers began trickling into the store to buy coffee.
Rancatore told LexObserver from that moment on, the rush of customers never ended.
“It was relentless,” he said.
A persistent line spilled outside the store, wrapped past When Pigs Fly, and stretched out to Eye Look Optical. Rancatore said April 19 “was the busiest day in [the] store’s history.”
Likewise, Liberty Sweets in Lexington Center saw increased business on the day of the Patriots’ Day parade.
“We had 275 transactions, which is crazy,” Lizzy Mastrangelo, an employee at Liberty Sweets, told the Observer. “We normally get, on a good day, half that.”
Revival Kitchen and Cafe in Lexington Center made about four times what they make on an average day on that Saturday, Aidan Anthony Fernandes Saez, general manager at Revival, told LexObserver.
“Right now we average grossing about $2,400 to $3,000 per day,” he said. “We made, after taxes, about $8,300.” The cafe ran out of chicken, turkey, and bread, he said.
The thriving business Lexington’s local stores experienced over Patriots’ Day weekend contrasts what many businesses across the country have experienced this year. President Trump’s shifting tariff policies have not only caused the stock market to go awry in his first 100 days, but have also sparked widespread economic uncertainty.
Business’ experiences on April 19 gave staff hope for the future.
Fernandes Saez said Patriots’ Day weekend gave him a “good taste of what [Revival] could do for the rest of the summer” after a slow winter. He likes to say, “we’re getting ready to get out of hibernation.”
“November to March was the hardest time for us because people are gone, but what keeps us going is the regulars…and treating our newer guests like regulars helps us stay in business.”
Mastrangelo felt hopeful when she heard customers say, “I have to tell my grandkids,” “my son’s going to be obsessed,” and “I’ll be back, trust me,” as they walked around the store.
Rancatore said he is not nervous about economic uncertainty because people always buy ice cream, even in a recession.
“In my experience of owning ice cream stores for 39 years, ice cream does very well in recessions,” Rancatore told the Observer. “We’ll sell less pints, less quarts, and we’ll sell a lot more micros. People find it an inexpensive treat for the family.”
Lexington could see more tourism over the next year as Boston continues celebrating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, Craig Sandler, president of Lexington History Museums, told LexObserver. Boston anticipates welcoming a marginal 10 million visitors in 2026, he said. If only one percent of those people stop by Lexington, that means 100,000 more visitors could come through town.
“This phenomenon of heightened interest and heightened enthusiasm for our town and what it holds is just getting started,” he said.