'It's a rebirth.' Former Italian Center in North Hill to now serve Bhutanese immigrants

The former Italian Center in North Hill is undergoing an evolution for a new generation of immigrants in Akron.

Som Baraily and Janga Gajmer, Bhutanese entrepreneurs and brothers-in-law, purchased the building last fall and hope to carry on the tradition of providing North Hill community members with a space to hold special events and celebrations and convene over a shared meal.

The Namaste Center, as it is renamed, will open to the public in the spring at 134 E. Tallmadge Ave.

“We are doing the same thing that the Italian Center did. We have the banquet hall, in the basement we have a bar and we are trying to do a restaurant,” said Baraily, 27, a Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugee who arrived in America in 2014 and used to run the Global Kitchen restaurant in Tallmadge Circle.

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“I sold that business and purchased this building because I want to serve my community, because my people are living in North Hill side, so I want to do better in the North Hill side,” he said.

He and Gajmer plan to open a restaurant and catering operation serving Nepali and Indian cuisine in the basement of the building while renting out the upstairs banquet hall.

The idea to purchase the Italian Center stemmed from a need they recognized in their community. Their fellow Bhutanese community members needed a space to hold weddings and other community celebrations. At the same time, they needed on-site catering services so that people would not have to transport food from faraway restaurants or homes during large celebrations.

“I tried to solve a problem for my community,” Baraily said. “I bring the whole package in one place. If the people have events here and they want to eat Indian food or Nepalese food, I can provide it,” he said, adding that he is committed to serving all community members.

“It’s for everyone,” he said.

For Gajmer, 28, purchasing the building was a full circle moment. Like many other Bhutanese community members, he had rented the former Italian Center’s banquet hall to hold his own wedding in the summer of 2018.

Gajmer and Baraily are currently renovating the interior of Namaste Center and hope to open by April 1.

The history of the Italian Center

The Italian Center, which traces its roots back to the 1930s, was originally established as a social club for immigrants from the Abruzzo region of Southern Italy.

The building opened in 1939, said former president Fred Strelbicki, and was revered for its Thursday night spaghetti dinners, which the center held for 30 years and evolved into a take-out operation at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiple generations of families and friends bonded over a shared meal downstairs while others danced upstairs.

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“The week before they started doing the shutdowns in March of 2020, that Thursday before the announcement, we had over 280 people come down for dinner. It was very vibrant and it was a lot of fun,” recalled Strelbicki, 44.

A lack of younger volunteers and a primarily elderly membership base, who were more vulnerable to the risks of COVID-19, caused the club to rethink its operations.

"Although I will say, our membership, the people in their 70s and 80s, they put people in their 20s and 30s to shame with their work ethic,” Strelbicki laughed. "As much as we tried to keep things going forward, we just got to a time frame where it was like, ‘Well, maybe it is time to hand this off.' "

Strelbicki said that the Italian Center is still a club and will hold its monthly meetings. The club does not currently plan to move to another permanent location but will continue to meet at rotating locations if necessary. The new owners of the building expressed their willingness to host the club.

Strelbicki described the former Italian Center facility as being both a place for Italian immigrants to convene over a delicious meal and a way of supporting one another as they navigated life in a new country.

“When you look at clubs like this that existed, they were born out of [the need] for people that had moved here from Italy, in order to be able to connect and have access to, really, resources," he said. "People that can help them navigate the way of being new to the United States and maybe not even knowing the language, and having it being specific to a region allowed you to have that connection where people were familiar with where you came from.

"They evolved over time and they were very much social clubs. You’ve got each generation that separated from that, had less of a need for that connection, and just didn’t necessarily have the same interest that their parents and/or grandparents might have had with being active, while they loved the club."

With the Italian-American community now firmly established in Akron, those earlier needs are no longer present. But North Hill’s growing Bhutanese community faces many of the same challenges earlier Italian immigrants encountered.

Strelbicki will cherish memories of walking through the doors and smelling the aroma of garlic. As a child, he was forbidden from entering the kitchen, but he spent the last five years volunteering there.

“It just was something that we have an emotional connection to that brings people together. … You knew you were going to eat well. … It was just a place that you knew symbolized being together,” he said.

Though Strelbicki is sad about the closure, he is excited to pass the torch on to a newer generation of immigrants who are carving out a place for themselves.

“It’s hard ... It’s the reality of letting go of something I have known my entire lifetime. What it becomes now though is – it’s a rebirth,” he said.

“Now you see that happening again, only with the Southeast Asian culture, with the grocery stores and the restaurants and the community centers,” Strelbicki said.

“I think their intention is to do very similar community-centered restaurant stuff. … So you kind of see it going through this rebirth and that’s very interesting as well.”

Seyma Bayram is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Learn more at reportforamerica.org. Contact her at sbayram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3327 or on Twitter @SeymaBayram0.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Italian Center named Namaste Center after sale to Bhutanese immigrants