Opening doors to a dream

The restaurant owners have plans to start marketing their sauces and dressings in the area and beyond.

By ELISE McKEOWN SKOLNICK

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

BOARDMAN — Nick Lavanty realized his dream when the doors to his family’s second Nicolinni’s restaurant opened.

Lavanty opened the first restaurant on Belmont Avenue in the late 1970s but chose to move to Austintown in 1997.

The neighborhood was changing, he said, and he felt a move to the suburbs would be a better fit for the restaurant.

Lavanty wanted the family to open a Boardman location for years, but never found the right opportunity, said Kim Hladun, manager for the two restaurants.

“We’ve been in Austintown for a long time, truly love Austintown,” she said. “But we were ready to try something a little larger and we could definitely build a larger restaurant out in Boardman.”

The Austintown restaurant will remain open, she said.

The right Boardman opportunity came the Lavanty family’s way when the property at 1247 Boardman-Poland Road, the former Bull and Bear Tavern, became available two years ago.

Renovations to the structure took about 17 months to complete. It was a big undertaking, Lavanty noted.

“We were just going to have a couple of dining rooms going,” Hladun added. “Then he ended up just gutting the entire place and starting from scratch — to get the look. He wanted a true European look.”

At roughly 12,000 square feet, the Boardman restaurant is three times the size of the Austintown location.

The Austintown site has one dining room, with 25 tables, while Boardman boasts three dining rooms with a total of 42 tables. It also has a courtyard for outdoor dining.

The two places offer many of the same menu items. Austintown has a few more filet and Madeira dishes, and Boardman has a little more seafood.

An executive pastry chef also works out of the Boardman location. Though she now creates desserts only for the Boardman store, plans are in the works for her to do more.

The next step for the Lavanty family, Hladun said, is to open a production building on property they already own on Glenwood Avenue in Youngstown.

The pastry chef will work from that location and produce desserts for both restaurants. 

The family also wants to begin bottling products they make in their restaurants.

Items such as dressings, pesto oils and marinara sauces, among others, will be made at the production building and trucked to each restaurant daily.

The plan also calls for the family to begin marketing those products, first to local grocery stores and then to a wider market, Hladun said.

Lavanty’s sons, Patrick and John, are the main chefs for the two restaurants. Patrick works in Boardman and John works in Austintown.

The family employs 100 between the two locations.