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Entrepreneurs find 2nd home at golf dome
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Wolves Den business partners Rick Racik, left, Stacey Rzonsa and Joseph Rzonsa at the Creekside Golf Dome in Girard.
Girard
With the cobblestone-covered support pillars, soft lighting and the full bar that runs the length of the southern wall of the Creekside Golf Dome, it’s easy to forget that the newly opened Wolves Den is only feet away from a 60,000-square-foot driving range.
And when business partners Rick Racick, Joseph Rzonsa and his wife, Stacey Rzonsa, looked to expand their restaurant business into Trumbull County, that’s exactly what they were hoping to achieve.
“We did a lot of things to make sure it’s a nice, comfortable atmosphere,” Racick said during a tour of the place.
Racick and Joseph Rzonsa have owned the Blue Wolf Tavern in Boardman since 2004 and, after opening a banquet center in 2008, wanted to expand into Trumbull County.
When Racick and Rzonsa scouted for a location in Trumbull County, it was Girard’s location between Youngstown and Niles and the expanding V&M Star site that drew them to the city.
They picked the golf dome for the potential numbers of events that could be hosted there and because of the large parking lot, which they say on certain nights is filled to capacity.
But converting the dome’s interior was a challenge.
They opened the Wolves Den in mid-February inside the golf dome at 1300 N. State St. Before that, the space it occupies was a pizza joint with a bar, a pair of pool tables and forest-green carpeting.
Its new owners replaced the carpeting, kept the pool tables, added five high-definition TVs above the bar and added a DJ booth for the weekends.
They removed the globe-shaped lights that would have glared from the TVs’ screens and replaced them with smaller lights.
Keeping elements of the room’s sports-bar past, the theme at the Wolves Den is different from the full-fledged restaurant in Boardman.
“[The Wolves Den] has more of a sports-bar, nightclub scene,” said Stacey Rzonsa.
“This is only Phase I,” Racick said.
Racick said the indoor golf range is largely unused throughout the summer. He said he wants to have concerts and events in the dome where people can eat at the Wolves Den before or after an event. The dome already hosts kickball tournaments with its 40 participants eating lunch afterward at the restaurant.
And for customers who can’t make it into the restaurant, the owners are planning a delivery service.
Racick said the opening of his restaurant and others along Route 422 in Girard are symbols of the city’s economic growth.
“There used to be a lot of ‘For Sale’ signs along 422,” said Racick. “You don’t really see those anymore. It’s a sign that things are turning around.”