Prima Cucina Prepares New Location in Austintown

AUSTINTOWN, Ohio — Prima Cucina Italiana restaurant’s new location in Austintown will be a two-floor complex with fine dining and a cozy bar on the ground floor and a lounge with a wood-fired pizza kitchen on the upper level.

The main dining room is scheduled to open later this month, with the second floor opening in August.

The restaurant at 4500 Mahoning Ave. will be the second Prima location for co-owners Tim Huber and chef Josh Santangelo. The original location in downtown Youngstown will remain open but will streamline its menu for faster service and add lunch hours.

The crown jewel of the new Austintown location – formerly The Upstairs restaurant and Wine Down bar – will be an open-air deck on the second floor that will be used for dining or drinks, Santangelo says.

The deck, with newly laid composite flooring planks, will have tables with umbrellas that seat 60 and give it a Mediterranean vibe. A perimeter of tall trees forms a quiet backdrop. “You don’t really hear the street,” Santangelo says.

The main entrance for both floors will be along the side of the building. Upon entering, guests find themselves in a reception room from which they can access the 150-seat main dining area and barroom or take the steps to the upstairs lounge and deck.

An awning and signage will be placed over the exterior of the entrance. “You can stop here and drop off people and then park the car,” Santangelo says. A parking lot with about 100 spaces is directly behind the restaurant.

While the building was already in good condition and fitted for restaurants, the owners spent about $100,000 per floor on renovations and equipment. The cost of purchasing the building was an additional $500,000.

The first floor had been recently modernized by the previous owner and will look much the same, but the second floor is getting a whole new appearance.

The wall between the kitchen and dining room is being cut down to half-height, Santangelo says. Guests seated in the dining area and at the bar will be able to see into the kitchen and watch as pizzas are made and put into a wood-fired oven that will be built onto the rooftop.

The small upstairs kitchen will be used solely for pizza making. The spacious downstairs kitchen will be used for everything else.

“The main kitchen is bigger than [the entire downtown] Prima location,” Santangelo points out.

The upstairs bar is also getting a facelift that will include a wider top made of marble or granite that will be better suited for dining.

The downstairs restaurant will be open daily from roughly 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and closed on either Sunday or Monday.

The second-floor lounge will welcome nightlife, and stay open until 2:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturday, and possibly Thursdays, and will offer live music in the lounge and possibly on the deck.

“The lounge will have a 1960s look with lights on the tables,” Santangelo says.

The new Prima complex will also have two smaller rooms that can be used for private parties.

The menu of Prima Cucina includes Italian specialties and steaks, with an extensive wine list.

Santangelo, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York, will continue to oversee the kitchen and its staff. The restaurant will employ 20 to start, with about 20 more to be added when the second floor opens.

The decision to open an Austintown location had a lot to do with the sharp downturn in business for all downtown restaurants.

“There are not really any people downtown since the [reconstruction of West Federal Street] began and now the explosion [at the Realty Trust building],” Santangelo says.

The downtown restaurant is known for its delicious food and charming atmosphere but has been losing money for the past two years.

Santangelo and Huber both believe downtown will make a comeback after the street reconstruction ends and Central Square – which has been closed since the explosion – reopens. But he’s not sure what the once bustling restaurant and nightlife scene will look like by then.

“It’s just a question of who survives,” he says.

The current Prima location downtown will be reinvented with a menu of sandwiches on focaccia bread, smaller orders of pasta, eggplant and chicken dishes, some steaks, salads and soups. It will also have lower prices.

“We’ll do dinner there only on Fridays and Saturdays,” Santangelo says. “And once West Federal Street reopens, we’ll go back to [extended] evening hours.”

Huber and Santangelo are also preparing to open another location in downtown Youngstown, in a space in the Erie Terminal Building on West Commerce Street.

Santangelo says it will be “a gastropub concept,” with pizza, pasta and meatballs, chicken parmigiana and salads, plus a bar.

“It will be more of the Italian American items,” he says.

The Erie Terminal site is in the location that formerly housed The Kitchen Post restaurant and requires little renovation. It should open later this summer or early fall.

“We’re waiting for the liquor license [from his former Republic Pizza restaurant-bar on Lincoln Avenue] to transfer to the new location,” Santangelo says. “And it’s also contingent on street construction.”

Pictured at top: Josh Santangelo, co-owner, chef and manager of Prima Cucina Italiana Restaurant, stands on the second-floor deck of the eatery’s new location in Austintown.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.