Tangier West officially opened Tuesday at 3150 W. Market St. in Fairlawn, bringing a new restaurant called Isabella's along with it and continuing a Northeast Ohio hospitality name that traces back 78 years. The venue sits in the former home of Bricco West, the Italian restaurant that closed in February after its owners retired following a 36-year run. It also lands directly across from Summit Mall, in a stretch of West Market Street that has seen no shortage of turnover lately.
According to Cleveland.com, Tangier West is the only event space in Angelica George's growing portfolio that includes a full restaurant. The roughly 12,000-square-foot building houses Isabella's cocktail lounge and restaurant alongside multiple rooms sized for weddings and private parties, including a 200-person ballroom, a 20-person boardroom, and plans for a 30-person private-group room. George signed the lease on the space just six weeks before opening, the outlet reports.
A Family Name Returns To West Market Street
The Tangier name has deep roots in Akron. The original business opened in 1948 at 663 E. Exchange St. under founder Ed George Sr., before a fire in December 1958 caused significant damage and pushed the family to relocate to West Market Street in 1959, according to The Jukebox. That West Market Street complex added a parking deck in 1975 and, per Cleveland.com's reporting, hosted Tina Turner, Ray Charles and Natalie Cole on Ed George's first opening weekend there — booked at the time for under $10,000 combined for what was then a small room.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Ed George Sr. marketed the expanded venue as bringing a “Vegas to Akron” atmosphere, booking national headliners including James Brown, The Temptations, Jerry Lee Lewis, Joan Rivers and Tony Bennett, according to background reported by Cleveland Magazine. Ed George, now 87, has worked in the business for 65 years, Cleveland.com reports.
From Full-Time Dining To A Multi-Venue Catering Network
The family sold the 60,000-square-foot original complex to the LeBron James Family Foundation six years before this year's opening, and the building has since become House Three Thirty, a community gathering hub that opened in early 2023 and later added the LeBron James Home Court multimedia museum in November 2023, per Cleveland Magazine's account. The old complex retains the physical structure of the famous original venue, but the operational legacy, brand name and culinary traditions now live on through the George family's newer ventures.
Before that sale, Tangier had already shifted its business model away from full-time dining toward private events, hosting up to 120 weddings and banquets a year prior to pandemic-related shutdowns in 2020, according to Akron.com. In December 2021, Fairlawn City Council formally passed a resolution acknowledging the economic development impact of Tangier Catering LLC as co-owners Ed George and Angelica George moved primary operations to Our Lady of the Cedars, the outlet notes. Weddings still make up about 70% of the George family's event-space business, which hosts more than 100 weddings annually, Cleveland.com reports.
Isabella's Honors The Woman Who Kept The Books
Isabella's is named for Angelica George's grandmother, Isabella, who worked in accounting at Tangier until age 93 and lived to 101, per Cleveland.com. The restaurant serves a Mediterranean-focused menu with craft cocktails and is open Tuesday through Sunday; its menu even includes items pulled from Tangier's original 1975 menu. Chef Glenn Gillespie leads the kitchen after formerly working at Edgar's at Good Park Golf Course, which closed in April.
Tangier West joins three other venues in Angelica George's Northeast Ohio footprint: the Ballroom at Our Lady of the Cedars in Fairlawn, The Trailhead at Cascade Lofts in Akron, and The Bank at East End, according to Akron.com. The Trailhead sits on North Street in Akron and connects to Lock 15 Brewing Co., which is owned by The Brew Kettle, while The Bank at East End is a renovated space at East Market Street and Goodyear Boulevard that George also oversaw. Even with four venues now under her management, George told Cleveland.com the new Fairlawn location is enough for her.
Opening Night And A Changing Fairlawn Corridor
Tangier West's interior was designed by Akron-based Hazel Tree Design Studio, which converted the former restaurant space into a speakeasy-inspired lounge and updated event ballroom, and the venue kicked off its opening-night festivities on August 19 with a sold-out dinner and show headlined by veteran performer Frankie Scinta, a longtime regular act at the original Tangier complex. The launch focuses primarily on weddings and corporate events going forward.
The opening also arrives amid a wave of turnover along the West Market Street corridor near Summit Mall. Fairlawn said goodbye to the Skyway Drive-In after 74 years this summer, even as national chains such as Dave's Hot Chicken and Condado Tacos have moved into the area. Tangier West's arrival gives the strip one more entrant in a stretch that keeps swapping legacy independents for new concepts, though this one carries a Akron surname nearly eight decades old.
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