Salem to host its first Italian festival

By D.A. Wilkinson

SALEM — It’s early Thursday afternoon and people are eating and smiling at the Green Rose Bistro.

Jan Chambers of Salem pointed at owner Maria Longo and said, “She’s crazy. Fun crazy.”

This is what you like to hear about the person that proposed the latest festival in the city: The Salem Italian Festival.

Salem has had many variations of festivals, but not an Italian fest.

Audrey Null, executive director of the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, said Longo approached the chamber with a draft proposal for the festival that will now take place Friday and Saturday.

Like all fun parties, the final schedule is getting some last-minute changes.

“This has been a great group of volunteers that have come together under the Salem Retail and Business Association, a division of the Salem Chamber,” Null said.

Chambers, who works for KLG Ambulance, said she wouldn’t have met Longo without the festival.

Maria and her husband, Alfredo, moved to Salem 12 years ago and bought the Bistro about two years ago. They ran a pizza shop in Austintown for years and now run Alfredo’s Pizza in the Broadway Plaza.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.