With the arrival since last fall of Scratch Steakhouse & Lounge, UnHitched Brewing Co., In the Mix Bakery and the tourist-attracting Umbrella Alley, downtown Louisville has become a destination. “I definitely got here at the perfect time,” said Demond Germany, owner and executive chef of Scratch Steakhouse.
“We have a ton of regulars,” said Jacob Bruckner, the enthusiastic co-owner of North Canton Nutrition, a smoothie and juice bar that opened in February. “We help gain a healthier lifestyle and achieve fitness goals,” he said.
It certainly seemed bold and risky to launch a new bakery in April, in the midst of the coronavirus stay-at-home order. But following her longtime dream, Ashley Graham, 23, went ahead and followed her plan to open In the Mix Bakery at 234 E Main Street in downtown Louisville.
It was on First Friday in August 2012 that a downtown Canton standby, George’s Lounge, reopened with three new owners. “We’re all from Canton. We saw what was happening downtown, and we thought the location was perfect,” said Ryan McMichael, who partnered with his twin brother, Aaron, with whom he has a chiropractic business, and John Degenhardt, a friend of theirs since elementary school.
When Canal Fulton’s popular lunch spot, the Dragonfly Tea Room, relocated last fall to larger quarters formerly occupied by Canal Fulton Glassworks, it allowed for the launching of a second business. In the building behind the tea room’s new location at 215 Market Street W, where glass once was blown, is The Dragonfly Winery.
Vincent Cessna typically arrives at his Italian restaurant, Vincent’s Pastaria, around 5:30 a.m. “My day starts with (making) 4 gallons of sauce every morning. It’s the lifeblood here. It goes in the lasagna, the meatballs, the pasta dishes,” Cessna said. “My anxiety goes down when the sauce is done, right around 8:30.”
Faced with months of crippling road-closing construction outside her five-year-old bakery in downtown Massillon last year, Jamie Anania decided to take a big plunge.
Mike Cammel had plenty of experience with Italian-style food before he opened his own business, Camellone Italian American Cuisine, in December 2016.
Joe Sigler has a lot of history with the building at 216 Fourth Street NW in downtown Canton. At age 20, he started working there at his uncle Sylvester Premier’s Italian restaurant called Premier’s. Later, he and his uncle remodeled the place and renamed it Primo’s. Setting out on his own in 2008, Sigler ran the AMVETS eatery nearby (in the space now occupied by Fronimo’s Downtown), then in 2012 returned to 216 Fourth Street, bought the building and opened Triple Nickel/Amvets 555 there.
It’s no exaggeration to call Damascus Mediterranean Cuisine a family operation. Sanaa Aboulaban, a Syrian woman who’d been cooking professionally in Brooklyn, New York, had yearned to have her own restaurant for 30 years and found it at Damascus, which opened in July at 4469 Hills and Dales Road NW in Jackson Township.
