YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Zach Conkle’s career exists at the intersection of art and business.
The owner of the new Looma Café in The Butler Institute of American Art, Conkle is a chef and restaurateur but also a musician who performs most weekends with the Conkle Brothers Band.
During a recent visit to Looma, his guitar was propped up against a wall in the dining area because he had a gig after work.
Conkle, 31, is one of many young Valley residents who are combining their artistic skills with an entrepreneurial spirit. Others include Mario Ricciardi, a filmmaker who also owns a video production company; and Savannah Lach, a dance instructor and enrollment and outreach director at Ballet Western Reserve.
Campus Gathering Spot
Conkle’s café, which opened in late May, is a bright and airy space that befits its location in a museum. Sunlight streams through a massive skylight, and indie rock can be heard at a soft volume from the sound system.
Business has been good through the first few weeks, but it will get a huge boost in August when the fall semester begins at adjacent Youngstown State University.
Late May was a perfect time to open a business on a campus, explains Conkle.
With the summer break in effect, he and his wife, Taylor, and their two employees have time to perfect their menu and iron out any operational wrinkles before the fall semester brings swarms of students.
“We’ve been refining everything at the end of each day,” Conkle says.
He doesn’t plan on changing the menu before August but will definitely make accommodations to please his customer base. “I do need to get more [electrical] outlets, because students will be studying here,” the Columbiana resident explains.
There are few students on campus in the summer but they have already discovered Looma. “I’m hoping when school starts that this will be the spot,” Conkle says.
He learned the restaurant business in Colorado Springs, Colo., where he lived with his brother – and bandmate – Joe Conkle. An abstract painting of the late celebrity chef Tony Bourdain, made by Joe, hangs on a wall at the café.
Conkle had often thought about opening his own restaurant and when he learned that The Butler was seeking an operator for its café, he jumped at the opportunity. The foot traffic from students and museum patrons makes Looma a great location, he says.
Looma is open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. The menu features scratch-made soups and chili, specialty salads such as the Lemon Parm Crunch and Arugula and Almond Citrus, and sandwiches, including the Mississippi Melt with braised beef; the Mushroom Melt with lions mane, king trumpet and blue oyster mushrooms; and the Chicken Egg & Cheese, with pulled chicken, an egg patty, cheese and cilantro lime aioli on toasted challah.
Looma also offers a full coffee bar and tea options.
Having two careers keeps Conkle busy, but he enjoys it.
“I am a little tired but it helps when you are doing things that you love,” he says.
The café gets patrons who are attending events at The Butler and Conkle hopes to return the favor in the fall. “I hope it will be even more of a symbiotic [relationship], with us sending [new visitors] into The Butler,” he says.
The museum has been pleased with Looma.
“It has been so incredibly popular and busy,” says Susan Carfano, Butler spokesperson. “Zach always has a smile on his face and is so pleasant. His food is cooked fresh, not precooked and reheated, and the atmosphere is bright and inviting.”
Carfano noted that Butler museum members receive 10% off their orders at Looma.
Behind the Camera
To get a filmmaking career off the ground, one must have an outside source of income.
So Ricciardi started a video production company. He makes instructional videos, documentaries and commercials for local businesses, and he’s gotten quite good at it.
The 28-year-old Boardman resident and Youngstown State University graduate started Appleridge Productions in 2018 while he was still in college.
Since then he has landed contracts from several high-profile Valley entities, including Whitehouse Fruit Farm, YSU’s Williamson College of Business, Penguin City Brewing, Mahoning County Career and Technical Center, Mercy Health and Salem Medical Center.
His videos typically are incorporated into company or government websites and are occasionally on television.
Recently, he has been tapped by Clever, a Valley-based marketing company, to do the video component for a campaign to rebrand Barry Dyngle’s restaurant in Austintown.
“We did a shoot in which we flew a drone through the restaurant,” Ricciardi says. The footage will be used to make commercials.
Constant improvement is Ricciardi’s goal and he routinely examines his work to find ways to improve.
He takes the same approach to filmmaking.
In October, he released his first feature film, “Midwest Sessions.” Ricciardi wrote and directed the film, which premiered at Tinseltown in Boardman.
“Midwest Sessions” is a high concept piece of cinema, with an atypical structure that borders on abstract. It is a complex and thought provoking meditation on life as viewed through the eyes of young residents of a depressed city.
The film will next be screened in September at a YSU alumni event at the McDonough Museum of Art.
Ricciardi has already begun work on his next movie.
“We have shot about 23 pages out of a 75-page script,” he says. “It’s not connected to ‘Midwest Sessions’ but it has a similar attitude.” Ricciardi wrote the script for “Midwest Sessions” and the upcoming movie and also is the director.
While moving to a larger city might bring more opportunity, Ricciardi is taking advantage of the flexibility and cost efficiencies of working in Youngstown.
“I have thought, what would happen if I went to a larger market,” he says. “Things might take off. Or I might be in an oversaturated market. Here, I have the space to do what I want to do. And I don’t have to rely on an outside industry to make my work dignified or give it credit.”
Going it alone in a small market means Ricciardi has had to learn technical aspects of filmmaking such as lighting.
“I have to know how to light a film because there are no lighting techs here for me to hire,” he says. “If I stay here, I need to learn the gaps.”
Ricciardi relishes the challenge of working in an area that does not have a film industry infrastructure.
“A mantra I heard from another director is ‘obstacles equal opportunity’,” he says. “Where someone else might see an obstacle, I revert back to that mantra and say, ‘Wait, there’s an opportunity here.’ It’s worked to this day, and it’s a great mantra to live by for an artist.”
While he is most at home behind a camera, Ricciardi is also getting involved in live theater. He made his directorial debut this year when he helmed a production of “Almost, Maine” at the Youngstown Playhouse.
Ricciardi is compiling a list of other shows he would like to direct and will pitch them to the Playhouse and Hopewell Theatre for their 2026-27 seasons.
Dance and Outreach
The arts can be a hard way to make a living, Lach says.
But the dance instructor and director of enrollment and outreach at Ballet Western Reserve has found a way to do it in a satisfying way.
Lach, 30, was always involved in competitive dance while growing up in suburban Pittsburgh. Her goal as a youth was to own and operate a dance studio.
“I viewed dance as a sport and as art,” she says. “It was my expression, and I wanted to pursue it as something higher.”
Lach went to Youngstown State University where she majored in dance management, graduating in 2017. The program combines business and dance performance classes. YSU, incidentally, dropped its dance program a few years ago.
With a passion for teaching and a love of working with children and mentoring them, Lach found herself teaching at BWR shortly after graduating.
She also went back to school to become a pediatric physical therapist’s assistant and now has a job in that field.
Both of her jobs allow her to work with and mentor children.
“I’m an artist but I’m not the type to live out of my car,” she says with a laugh. “I have [a physical therapy] job that I’m also passionate about. I feel fortunate that I can do both things. I love both jobs.”
Lach loves performing but says she feels more fulfilled as a teacher.
Ballet Western Reserve is known for its annual holiday production of “The Nutcracker,” but its students entertain in other ways under the guidance of Lach.
They regularly take part in many public events such as the First Friday gatherings in downtown Youngstown and YSU’s Summer Festival of the Arts.
As “The Nutcracker” nears, the troupe also goes to area nursing homes to perform for the residents. It’s an aspect of the job that Lach – who also loves working with aging people – especially loves.
“You should see their faces light up,” she says of the elderly residents.
Pictured at top: Zach Conkle stands behind the counter of his business, Looma Café, in The Butler Institute of American Art.