Our Story
"With over 20 years of experience traveling through Italy, importing fine products like coffee and olive oil while collaborating with small family producers, I've gained extensive knowledge of the country. This passion for Italy and travel led to the creation of Arnone Travel, a full-service travel concierge company. Based in Akron, Ohio, Arnone Travel is part of Arnone Hospitality Co."
I spent everyday there doing the same and it became the fabric of my everyday life while there. After returning home, it left a void in my daily being that I had to figure out a way to bring this idea home while connecting me back to the people, culture and products from Italy.
Refocusing to find my great grandfather’s hometown, I made a side trip to Palermo, Sicily for the off chance I would randomly find our relatives. I went to local phone booth on a Main Street in the city, looked up “Arnone” and was blown away at what I found. Pages and pages of “Arnone” filled the book. What I thought was such a unique name here in the states, turned out to be the equivalent of what some might say “Smith” is here. I tore out a few pages as evidence to bring back to my grandmother (Gubby) and for a few good laughs at which ones might be related.
I was so proud to be able to help in sharing the family legacy that I combined the name “Arnone” and the cafe concept I so adored in Florence and in 2011, I started importing coffee from Italy for one wholesale customer and some personal family consumption under the name Arnone Italian Imports.
Three years later in 2014 a family business was born as “Cafe Arnone” based in Fairlawn, Ohio as a food truck serving authentic Italian espresso, sandwiches and gelato. Patiently we worked the business, growing slowly every year and in 2018 opened a store in our hometown of Fairlawn to share all things authentic Italian: family, coffee, food and gelato!
Still thriving today, allowing us to open a stand alone gelato shop, Sal’s Gelato in the neighboring town of Akron, Ohio. It is named after our son, Salvatore, who was given a traditional Sicilian family name.
Follow along here to see updates as we travel to visit family in Favara and continue to do business in Italy while growing the Arnone business name!
Arnone History
In 2002, I quit my job, left my family and friends behind and made a solo trek to study abroad in Florence, Italy. I had an internal drive to learn more about the place where my great grandfather came from on my mother’s side of our family. It changed my life forever!
I was assigned a random apartment on Via San Gallo with two other guys who were also named Mike. While all three of us were vastly different in every way, it just worked. There was a cafe on the corner block of our street that was electric every morning, noon and night full of people enjoying everything they could possibly need; coffee, bakery, sandwiches, beer, wine and gelato. I was awestruck at how this tiny place satisfied so many people with a variety of different items throughout the day. Nothing like that existed at home.
Christmas of that same year, we all gathered as normal and questions of my trip were flying around like the pasta everyone was eating. A cousin came flying in from the other room and cornered my mom and I with a letter they received from Sicily. She was the only one who still had the “Arnone” last name, so they were mailed a letter from Favara, Sicily seeking their “American” cousins. The letter was initially laughed at, thinking it was spam or someone looking for money. My mom and I thought otherwise, and decided it wouldn’t hurt to send a letter back. That’s exactly what my mom did and lo and behold we got a response! The letter connected the dots from my grandmother to her dad back to Favara, Sicily as the hometown for our “Arnone” ancestry.
The following year, my mom and grandmother (Gubby) went back to meet our Sicilian family for the first time. It was an incredible experience, as they had a framed picture of Gubby’s wedding hanging in their house as firm proof that we were all family. We got to see the building where my great grandfather was born, and have since been back numerous times for weddings, gatherings and for our American relatives to meet the original “Arnone” family and town where it started.
