Robbie Kocher Of Fathers and Their Sons

by Charles McGuigan 08.2024

It’s odd to walk along the commercial strips in Bellevue now. Whether you’re strolling down MacArthur Avenue or making your way along Bellevue Avenue, there’s something missing.  That familiar face, the recognizable gait. An ever-ready smile. A quick, and sometimes sardonic, quip. You would see him in the mornings at Stir Crazy, in the late afternoons and early evenings at Dot’s Back Inn or Northside Grille, and almost any other time of day or night at Once Upon a Vine. He seemed to be everywhere, every week day. A presence we had all come to love. And now he is gone. Left us much too soon. He was just 48 years old.

Rob. Robbie. Robert Howard Kocher, Jr. went to bed in his King William County home early on the morning of July 17, and he never woke up. He is survived by his father Bob Kocher, who was more than a father to his only son. They were like friends, they were like brothers. He is also survived by his beloved Lucy, soulmate and wife; and the fruit of their love, Bobby Kocher, his son. Robbie also leaves behind Candace “Candy” Stafford, his loving mother, along with his sisters, Kelly Kocher and Holly Newman. His two nieces, Katelyn Cohn and Mackenzie Kocher; in-laws, Tatiana and Dennis Grant; and Vera Kocher also grieve over his absence in this world. As do most residents, young and old, of Richmond’s Northside.

In 1976, as our nation prepared to celebrate its birth 200 years before, Robbie Kocher was born in Baltimore, Maryland not far from the spot on the Patapsco River where Francis Scott Key witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry by British invaders which inspired him to write the memorable lyrics of our national anthem. A year later Robbie’s family moved to a housing development, that was new at the time, just off Powhite Parkway on Richmond’s Southside.

Robbie was the youngest of three siblings. Holly Beth was a little over a year older than her brother,  but their sister Kelly Lee was nine years older than Robbie. Kelly was a sort of mother hen and guardian angel to her little brother and sister. When Robbie was about eight years old two teenage brothers who lived across the street from the Kochers picked on him relentlessly. As soon as Kelly got wind of her brother’s treatment, she approached the older of the two boys, who was fourteen at the time, and smacked the hell out of him. The bullying ended then and there.

From the time he was a little boy, Robbie loved fishing. Not far from his home he would ride his bike to a path, well-worn through the underbrush, that led to the banks of Pocoshock Creek. Here he would carefully bait a hook, press on a couple of slip-shot sinkers, attach a bobber to the line, and then cast into the small stream. He would reel in a small sunfish and you would have thought he had just landed a blue marlin.

Robbie and his sister Holly, along with three brothers who lived nearby, wanted desperately to build a dam across a trickle of a stream that ran behind the Kocher home. They wanted to build a pond that they would stock with turtles and salamanders and tadpoles and bullhead catfish. But the pond never became a reality.

Later, when Bob purchased a house in Reedville, he and his son would fish the Great Wicomico from a jon boat propelled by an eight-horsepower motor. He’d also help his father collect their crab pots and empty them of their writhing contents in bushel baskets before returning to Richmond for a crab feast spread out on a newspaper-clad picnic table.

One of his other great passions came along when he was about twelve years old. He and his friend Sean started playing baseball together, and eventually they joined a Little League team, and became its star players. 

“Robbie was a pretty good hitter,” Bob Kocher says of his departed son. “He could smoke ‘em out of the ballpark. That influenced him a lot.” 

Robbie embraced the pro baseball and football teams of his birthplace—the Orioles and the Ravens, and his lucky number was eight, the jersey number of both Cal Ripken, Jr. and Lamar Jackson. Which is why one of the visitations in Robbie’s memory was held this past August 8 at Bliley’s Funeral Home. “Eighth day of the eighth month,” says Bob. It was a gentle nod and parting wave to Ripkin and Jackson.

Bob Kocher, his eyes wet, sits across the table from me, remembering his son. “My son passed away unexpectedly,” he says. “He was part of my heart, part of my life. He was a tremendous help to me, not only at work but at home also. Robbie was my right hand man. Since I got sick he has been taking care of me physically and mentally. He was my savior. He was my first boy, my only boy.”

Before he opened Once Upon A Vine, Bob Kocher owned and operated Price’s Market, the most popular privately owned market in the Fan District. Located on Strawberry Street, Price’s was known for its deli and selection of reasonably priced wines. 

Robbie grew up in that store from the time was eight years old. When he turned eighteen he went to work alongside his father and mother, Candy. 

Not long after Robbie started working there an event occurred that would scar him, literally and figuratively, for the rest of his life. It could have been lifted from a script by Quentin Tarantino. 

“That was a horrifying night,” Bob tells me. “We had a couple guys that came in around about six o’clock, and I could see the imprint of a gun in one of their pockets.” They told Bob they wanted water, so Bob sold them a couple of eight-ounce bottles and they walked out. Bob watched as they headed south down Strawberry Street and then cut through the alley over to Shields Avenue. Bob immediately called the owner of Shields Market, which was just a couple blocks away. “I told him to keep an eye out because there was two guys walking down his way and one of them had the imprint of a gun in his pocket.” says Bob. The owner of Shields locked his door.

Half an hour later the pair returned to Price’s. One went to the counter at the front of the store; the other walked to rear of the store by the deli counter. The perp at the front counter pulled out his gun and stuck the barrel against Bob’s head, and yelled, “Open the register. We want it all.” 

Holly, who was in the back of the store, ran up the stairs to the office. She was screaming, scared to death. “Get on the floor, Holly,” Bob’s voice boomed.  And then Bob brushed the guman’s hand aside. “You can have anything you want,” he said. “Just put the gun down. 

Robbie, who was on the floor behind the counter near his father, hollered, “Dad, open the register.” And as Bob turned to open the register, the gunman pressed the barrel of his weapon into Bob’s chest.

At that moment Robbie jumped up and hit the NO SALE button on the register and the cash drawer sprung open.  The perp, who was short, reached over the counter and accidentally knocked it onto the floor. 

“He thought we did it,” Bob explains. “And the guy takes a step back and shoots the gun. I didn’t feel it, I didn’t know what the heck happened.”

Bob stared hard into the eyes of the perp, then grabbed the arm that still held the gun. His partner in crime came running up the aisle from the back of the store. As Bob struggled with the first gunman, his partner reached the counter, let off a round and then hightailed out the front door. Bob was able to wrest the gun from the other perp and wrestled him over the counter. This perp also fled out the door, but Bob now had his gun and followed him. Bob took aim as the pair jumped into a lime green Volvo and sped off. “I tried to cock the gun, but there was nothing in there,” Bob tells me.

Robbie had taken a gut shot and was taken to MCV Hospitals where he was immediately rushed into surgery. As Bob boarded an elevator to check on his son’s progress he noticed a pain in his hip. In a bathroom he lowered his pants.  “Sure enough I had gotten shot in the hip,” Bob says. “I didn’t realize it, I guess my adrenaline was so high.”

Robbie had been shot just below his rib cage. Surgeons removed nine feet of his small intestine, and repaired sixteen holes in his large intestine. They were unable to remove the slug, but told Bob it would eventually work its way out. Doctors packed Bob’s hip wound, but, as in Robbie’s case, were unable to remove the bullet.

About a year and a half later, Robbie complained about a pain in his butt. Bob looked at the source of the pain, a large knot under the skin. “So I took a razor blade and I cut it out,” says Bob. Three months later the slug lodged in Bob’s hip worked its way to the surface, and again a razor was employed. “It popped right out,” says Bob.

The two shooters, along with their getaway driver, were eventually arrested and tried. “They all got thirty-four years,” according to Bob. “They suspended twenty-four years so they only gave them ten years for attempted murder.” And they were released on parole just six years later.

But blind justice sometimes works in mysterious ways. Not long after one of the shooters was released from prison he went on a drug and alcohol-drenched gambling spree and got into an argument with one of the players. He was shot to death. Two weeks later, the other two perps were down in North Carolina and decided to rob a convenience store at gunpoint. The owner of the store, brandishing a double-barreled shotgun, blew them both away. “So they were all gone, just like that,” Bob says. His fingers snap.

Robbie continued working at Price’s Market for a couple more years and then headed up to Baltimore where he took a job at Eddie’s Market. He remained up north for about five years and then returned to Richmond, working for a time at Specialty Beverage, and then in 2010 he joined his father at Once Upon A Vine. 

“Robbie knew nothing about wine, nothing about beer, when he first came here,” says Bob. “But he learned quickly. He would eavesdrop on my conversations.  He learned wine through the salesmen who would come in every week, and we would taste it together. And when we did wine tastings on Friday night he would listen to the conversations about the descriptions of the wine. He almost sounded like me.” A smile creeps across Bob’s face. “He did really well with customers. One lady said that if she had a bad day, she would come by the store sometimes just to hear Robbie talk to her and make her laugh.”

At both visitations over at Bliley’s Funeral Parlor hundreds of people came through the doors to pay their respects and share stories about Robbie. And after the visitation on August 8, Bob opened Once Upon A Vine where about five hundred folks throughout the evening ate and drank and told scores of stories in celebration of Robbie’s wondrous life.