43
Downtown Circle opens Hookah bar downtown
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
Al Adi’s pride extends from his native Middle East to Youngstown where he has built a business in the heart of the city.
The owner of Downtown Circle, a deli and convenience store with a hot foods selection, and the new Downtown Circle Hookah and Bar, said he believed in Youngstown and wanted to help the city show its potential.
“When you saw downtown 10 to 15 years ago, it was very painful to see,” the 55-year-old said. “That by itself pushes a person to try to help out as much as possible to have Youngstown come back. I am very proud that I was one of the first businesses to inspire and encourage a lot of [other] small businesses to come to Youngstown.”
Adi might not have left his business until the wee hours of the morning, but it’s hard to tell. He still moves quickly, making sure his customers are served and satisfied.
“There’s always a line,” Adi said. “The minute we open that door, people start coming in.”
Known as “The Store Man” to the children who frequent his business, Adi has been a Youngstown businessman since the early 1990s. He moved to the city after he came to the U.S. in the 1970s from Jordan and attended San Diego State University for business.
Adi always has been a hard worker. He learned it from his father, who had a construction company, and his mother, who taught him the art of cooking for his large family.
Adi operated an IGA grocery store in the former McGuffey Plaza on the East Side for several years, and he also operated gas stations in Youngstown and Warren.
“Throughout the years, I have gained a lot of experience,” he said.
By 2007, Adi sold all of his businesses and then he thought about downtown, which at the time was pretty deserted.
He knew there was a need downtown for a store that offered the necessities, and quality Mediterranean food. He also knew there was a high population of workers downtown to bring in the business.
He was doubted by everyone around him. He was told not to make the large investment it would take to establish the business downtown.
He decided to live the dream and open the store. It took Adi just 15 minutes to settle on buying a property downtown, but a year and half to fix the building at 116 W. Federal St., which was once a furniture store in the 1950s known as Hansburg’s Fine Furniture. Later it became a Plaza Optical.
“It was emotional, and it was a proud mark for me to make the step and take the risk,” he said.
Adi opened the same day as the Italian Festival in 2011. He still remembers the reactions he received from his new customers amazed by the store.
“It was brand new,” he said.
Adi wouldn’t say the amount of investment he made into the business, but that it was a lot and he is just now starting to see it pay off, even though his business is constant and has been since the start.
“I succeeded,” he said.
And he proved all of the naysayers wrong.
His fresh Mediterranean food offered up a new taste for downtown. The recipes are his family’s.
The falafel – fried, seasoned and ground chickpeas – is homemade, for example. And there are the grape leaves that are stuffed with rice and special spices that come in a vegetable or meat option.
A year after he opened the store, Adi dreamed about opening up a hookah bar and restaurant, and it officially came true last month.
Adi wanted to bring a Middle Eastern tradition here, and offering hookah smoking was something else new to add to downtown.
A hookah is a tobacco pipe with a long, flexible tube that draws smoke through water.
Its origins stem back a millennia to India along the Pakistan border. The tobacco used in the hookah comes in 10 flavors at Downtown Circle Hookah and Bar.
The bar also has an extended menu of Mediterranean cuisine.
The atmosphere adds to the flavor. Adi brought out pictures of Middle Eastern cities from Jerusalem to Amman, Jordan.
On the other side of the Downtown Circle Hookah and Bar are pictures of what once was downtown Youngstown, and what the exact location customers are sitting in used to be.
Customers such as Alex Stellmar, 21, of Coitsville, Nicholas Frank, 20, of Lowellville, and Justin Stellmar, 19, of Lowellville enjoy the relaxed atmosphere at Downtown Circle Hookah and Bar.
“I was surprised this was downtown,” Frank said.
Justin was impressed by the bar.
“It’s a clean environment,” he said. “[Hookah] is a cheap social thing you can do with your friends.”
Adi believes his vision has become a reality after he worked hard to make it so.
In a few years he might be able to relax, and his children, four daughters, will become more involved.
“I believe it will be very successful, and I believe Youngstown will have a lot more than it has now,” he said. “I am here until the last day. Downtown is somehow picking up the spark and going forward.”