Joe Cotroneo pauses to admire the street he knows best.
It’s hard to imagine Ottawa’s Little Italy without hot spot Pub Italia on Preston Street. In the past 15 years the pub has grown while helping to bring the community together.
The driver behind this success is Joe Cotroneo- Preston Street native and owner of the establishment which doles out Italian food and beers from around the world.
Cotroneo modestly plays down his success and doesn’t seem in the least bit affected by the praise he receives from the community for his restaurant and his volunteer work.
At 58, Cotroneo is a certified master electrician, successful restaurant owner, Italian car collector and community innovator.
From the Heritage Mural project beneath the Queensway overpass to this month’s Italian celebration of the harvest (La Vendemmia), Controneo has his hands on every aspect of the Preston Street “renaissance”.
As one of the growing list of Italian events hosted by Little Italy (Corso Italia), La Vendemmia not only brings people into the area but helps preserve the Italian culture.
The maintenance of this is one of the community members’ biggest problems, says Cotroneo.
“How do you encourage some of your kids to continue this tradition? How do I encourage my kids to maybe keep this thing going?”
Cotroneo was born on Preston Street in 1950. In the 1960s, the city expropriated much of the local land and many people were forced to move. Others followed. The Business Improvement Area (BIA) and other community work in the past few decades have brought original residents and their grown children back. He describes Little Italy when he was growing up as always being very energetic.
“People sat on their front porch because they had vegetable gardens in their backyard. They didn’t have a lawn chair back there.”
A few years ago, the Preston Street BIA hired event planning company Groovy Grapes to help promote La Vendemmia and, as Controneo puts it “capitalize on the event”.
In its twelfth year, La Vendremmia hosts a week of intimate dinners, wine tastings, a grape stomp and more.
Cotroneo says that the event was created as a natural fit for the neighbourhood.
“It fit the bill,” he says. “People come down here to make their wine and get the grapes to make their wine.”
La Vendemmia is Italian for the “harvest”-both of grapes and vegetables.
“The emphasis is split between wine and food,” says Groovy Grapes co-founder Sean Moher.
A week before La Vendemmia’s opening, Cotroneo arranged hay along the streets of Little Italy.
“When we need someone to be the pioneer, [Joe] and Pub Italia is where we go,” says Moher.
“He’s not just nice, he’s so helpful,” says BIA executive director Lori Mellor. “I don’t think he knows how to sit still if there is something he can think of to do. We’re so lucky to have him on our board of directors.”
Mellor joined the BIA six years ago. Cotroneo has already been a member for nine years. Cotroneo says the area has really changed since the opening of his business in 1993 and this is largely due to the work of the BIA.
“We have a very active board. We really work well together. We came together at a good time when we weren’t just sitting around a board table throwing ideas in the air. We were throwing them up in the air but we were putting them into action. Someone can come up with a good idea and someone else can put it into action.”
Others are not so easy to dismiss his individual contribution.
“Everyone who knows him knows exactly what he’s doing and appreciates it,” says local business owner Dominic Carroza. “The guy actually spends his weekends, Sunday mornings, doing this.”
Carrozza asserts that places like Pub Italia and his own long-standing local restaurant, Trattoria Caffe Italia, are established, destination areas on their own and do not necessarily need the extra traffic brought about by events in the neighbourhood. But he says that for Cotroneo, “it is not just about his business but it’s the whole community.”
Cotroneo was a teenager when he moved from the area, due to its expropriation by the City in the 1960s. But he kept in touch through his own electrical contracting business.
In 1993, he purchased a formal Italian restaurant on Preston and Pub Italia was born. In the years following, Controneo expanded the business, converting the former bakery next door and creating a patio (which he coined The Abbey) in between.
“I never thought I was going to open up a restaurant/pub,” he smiles. “But I just got tired of [my electrical contracting company].”
Wearing a black, hay-strewn Pub Italia t-shirt that contrasts with his grey goatee, Cotroneo has an easy-going and relaxed demeanor for someone so vigorously involved. But he says the idea of Pub Italia goes back years before its opening.
“I picked up a t-shirt and it shows the two flags on the front, crossed. They are very similar flags. The caption underneath was 50 per cent Irish, 50 per cent Italian, 100 per cent perfect. So I just thought it was a neat t-shirt and back then there was nothing there as far as [an Italian pub] goes.”
Pub Italia has an intensively religious atmosphere decked with church paraphernalia, from pews and stained glass to a mock “confessional” which doubles as a restaurant booth.
The restaurant’s famous “Beer Bible” and unique charm bring customers year-round but Italian celebrations like La Vendemmia give Cotroneo a chance to promote the neighbourhood with a little fun.
In other years, Cotroneo has dressed as Bacchus, the God of Wine, and rode down Preston St. in a wagon with “nymphs” feeding him grapes. Although the construction prevents this from being possible this year, Controneo does not think it will hurt the celebration. He looks on the positive side of the construction.
“When the construction is all said and done its going to be a very pedestrian-friendly street,” he says.
Mellor is also looking forward to the finished product.
“When they dig up the roads to do sewers, when they put it back they beautify it. We will be making deeper sidewalks. Places where we can have benches, lots of trees, decorative lighting…”
At the moment, the BIA is negotiating with the City government over when the construction will be done. To speed things up, parking has been removed from Preston Street itself.
Not missing a beat, Controneo, an avid Italian car collector will ride his Vespa around the neighbourhood during the celebrations, sporting a dressed-up mannequin in the back seat. He owns an assortment of other vehicles, often put on display during Italian week in July.
“I call him the Jay Leno of Ottawa,” jokes Carrozza
Controneo says it is the residents and the strength of the BIA that, over the past 20 years, has began to build up the neighbourhood. He says many of the former residents have now returned, and La Vendemmia is reminiscent of the gardens and harvests the used to have.
Cotroneo’s active involvement in the community goes far beyond his business success.
“He’s phenomenal. He’s such a great board member for us,” says Mellor. “If there’s a job that needs doing, Joe jumps in.”