(upbeat music) - Hey, other Akronites.

Welcome once again to "Around Akron with Blue Green."

We have another jam-packed episode ahead of us today.

I meet up with Rail N Road, a traditional hobby shop located in North Hill.

Then I'm gonna head over to another staple in the community, Dontino's Italian Restaurant.

They've been serving Akron for over 40 years now.

Then I sit down and interview myself.

Yeah, I know, sounds kinda odd, but you're gonna learn about Blue Green and what this guy's all about.

Now, to kick this show off today we're gonna head over to 2 Live Music.

Now, they've been around for over 30 years serving the community with not just music but a little bit of everything.

Let's go see what 2 Live Music is all about.

- We're family owned, family oriented and all about the community.

We've been here for almost 30 years.

I've actually seen people grow up.

I have customers now that tell me, "I remember when I was little and we'd come in and try to buy a NWA or something like that, and you'd say, 'No, you have to come back with your mom or dad, you can't have that.'"

And (laughs) now they come in with their kids and really, I do feel that way.

People come and they do hang out.

I know stories about people's grandchildren, about their husbands and wives, so-and-so had a baby and, "We're going to a wedding in Cleveland next week.

My niece is getting married."

And it's kind of like that old school neighborhood store where the owners know your name.

Like, "Hey Jim, hey Mary, how are you doing?

What's going on with the kids?"

So yeah, I do feel like it's more than customers.

I feel like they're a long distance family.

(chill music) We opened in 1991, actually September 1st.

And we weren't actually in this building, we were across the street over in a little bitty shop, 500 square feet.

It was right on Diagonal, 'cause we're over here now on Vernon Odom.

And it was just all music, nothing but music.

CDs really hadn't hit then.

It was more cassettes and LPs.

And we sold cassettes, LP, posters, incense, but the majority 99% of what we sold was just music.

(chill music continues) When we moved to our second location, which was over in the Hawkins Plaza, right over that way, (laughs) we started to carry CDs.

That's when CDs came on the scene.

Eight tracks and cassettes were, eight tracks I would say were totally phased out.

Cassettes were still on the scene, but the new kid on the block was the CD.

So that's when we geared the store towards CDs.

And I think the music industry realized that the digital sound from a CD was much better than a cassette.

Plus once you taught a customer how to take care of a CD, you were gonna have less problems than that old cassette (buzzes) raveling up in the stereo system.

So yeah, that was the progression.

And then on the urban end, I don't know why, but the LP actually started to fade away 'cause I was a big LP person when I was in high school.

We used to shop and hunt for vinyl, 12 inches, 45s, full albums.

But on the urban end, when the CD came out, that's when the vinyl kinda faded away.

But I'm glad things have changed and it's back now.

(chill music continues) What we do is we offer a space rent free for consignment for people who don't have a brick and mortar store.

What we do is we have people that make jewelry, people that make candles, people that make clothes, and we invite them to come in to our location, we give them a spot rent free, we sign a little contract, what they left with us, how much it's worth, what they receive for each item sold.

And then we just get a little commission fee off what we sell.

I'm looking for that young person in the community that has that spark, that has an idea, "Hey, you know what?

I developed this, I made this.

Can I bring this into 2 Live?

Can we see what we can do?"

We're the old dogs on the block right now, so we're always looking for new ideas and we're always open to new ideas.

And what's the worst case scenario?

We bring it in, it doesn't sell, I give it back to you.

Best case scenario, you bring it in, it sells, we all make some money.

That's what I'm talking about.

(chill music continues) We actually carry some local lines.

We have some local people that have put T-shirts and hats and things in here.

We also carry a lot of positive imagery like black heritage type of shirts.

So if you're looking for anything out there like that, shirts of whether it's Martin Luther King or Huey P. Newton, Harriet Tubman.

Just a lot of pride kind of shirts.

And we're always looking for new gear, so if I have any young entrepreneurs out there that have a line and they wanna get it out, let me know.

I'd be happy to talk to you.

(chill music continues) The advice that we give is first of all, study.

Study, study, study.

Study the market, take some business classes, and I would actually recommend Akron offers a great business program called Bounce, B-O-U-N-C-E. And they are specially here for small businesses, for entrepreneurs, for people who are trying to get something off the ground, or for people who have gotten something off the ground and need some more help, some more ideas.

So I would definitely say do some research with the city, see what's out there, see if there's any grants out there, see if you can get educated through some free programs like the Bounce program, and then check your market, know the people, know the area, before you open that store front.

But no matter what you do, believe in it, love it, and work hard for it.

(chill music continues) - Hobby shops are a dying breed, and I got to sit down with Rail N Road, a traditional hobby shop located in North Hill.

Let's go see what this place is all about.

- I had older brothers and they started with the trains and stuff.

And then when they got a little older, they kinda passed it down to me.

And my dad always enjoyed them, so it became something that we could do together.

And as far back as I can remember, really, I'm gonna say four or five years old, we had trains trains around.

Did all the classic models of the rocket, the Saturn rocket, when it was popular there, the whole space launch and all that.

I always enjoyed building model kits and they had slot cars, my brothers had, that they had passed down and a lot of fun.

(inquisitive music) There's not a lot of these kinds of stores around in general.

It's just one of those kinda things has kinda faded away and a lot of stuff's done online now.

But to come in the shop here, you have the opportunity to look at stuff and touch and feel and see it rather than just see a picture of it on the internet.

So that is appealing to a lot of people because sometimes they come in looking for one thing and go home with completely something else that they saw that they liked and just couldn't pass up for their train layout or their display or whatever.

You can't stock everything, but a lot of stuff that I get in is for special orders for people who see something that they want and I'll order it in special for them and they can come pick it up.

But it's always neat to see new items come in because even the used stuff that comes in second hand is still neat because some of that stuff hasn't been around for 50 years or whatever and you see it and you see it in such great shape and you say, "Wow, this thing's 50 years old and it looks like it's brand new."

So it just tells you that it was a very popular toy and it was well taken care of back then.

Being that there's not a lot of places like this around, of course there's always a demand for someone to take their items to get repaired.

And we do repairs.

I have a guy on duty that takes care of that.

And availability of parts is what makes that easy to do because you just can't find parts for this older stuff anywhere.

So I have a couple of sources that I get my stuff from to make the repairs with and keep trains 60, 70 years old running.

(inquisitive music) Well, there are several different levels.

There is what they call the starter level, which is the person that's getting their first set.

Maybe you're gonna buy it for your child or your grandchild.

And you wanna see if they're gonna take a liking to it.

And these kids, I see when they come in, the young kids, if they like trains at five or six years old, their eyes just light up when they come in here and you kinda know that that kid's probably gonna play with trains for a long time, maybe the rest of his life.

And they have starter sets that give you everything you need to get started, track, engine, all that.

And you just start there.

And if they really like it, you can build on that and you can expand it and you can get to the other extreme end where you're paying almost $2,000 just for one engine.

So it's a great hobby because there's so many different facets and so many levels you can participate in.

I mean, a lot of people will just get a simple starter set and that will be their Christmas train set for years.

(inquisitive music continues) A lot of people have some, maybe they've had a family member that worked for the railroad at some point, their grandfather or something.

So they recognize that name of that railroad that they worked for, like the Baltimore and Ohio or something.

So it's kind of drawn to that.

And then other people just like the look of the train, for example, like the Cuyahoga Valley Line runs a special every year with the steam engine down through there and stuff.

And it's very, very popular.

Thousands of people go down there just to see a working steam engine that probably don't have anything to do with trains other than to see that in action.

And you can get a model of that.

Some people have trains that they don't have layouts that they actually run them on, they just sit it over the fireplace or in their office for a display.

So there's a lot of ways to appreciate it.

(chill music) I enjoy the trains, I've enjoyed them all my life, but I also enjoy watching other people enjoy them and talking with other people about them.

And one of the funniest things is to see a dad bring his-six-year old son in here and that little guy's eyes just light up.

He's basically just did the kid in the candy store thing.

And then I like to treat them, they may be coming in for some track or a car for their set, but like to treat them like they're the most important customer right now.

And they get a big kick out of it, too.

I have a real good rapport with the customers, and you have to in this business.

It's not like you're selling a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk.

People wanna come in, they wanna talk to you about their set, what they're trying to accomplish with their set, what they need to accomplish it, so you have to be able to communicate with them to find out what exactly they want.

(chill music continues) I'll just say that model railroading is like any other hobby.

It has a multitude of sub-interest in it.

And if you, whatever your hobby may be, if you're a musician or whatever you might do, there's so many things to take into consideration.

With model railroading, you can just study the history, you can build a small layout, and you can build an elaborate layout.

You can just have the trains on the shelf like in your office or your den just to enjoy them.

There's many facets to it, and it's a great hobby to explore because if it's something that interests you, you can spend a lifetime enjoying it.

(train rattling) - Next up is Dontino's Italian Restaurant, located in North Hill.

Now, they have some recipes they've been using now for over 40 years.

Let's go see what Dontino's all about.

- When you hear family owned and operated, it truly is.

And I feel like we're a dying breed and that's sad to me.

That's why I'm a big, big, big supporter of all family establishments in the Akron area.

I don't look at other places, even the local Italian spots, I don't look at them as competition.

We shouldn't do that.

Us local spots gotta really have each other's backs.

I feel like that's very important.

When you come in here, it's very normal on any night to see me.

Obviously I'm here all the time.

My children running through the restaurant, my wife, my mom and dad who still come in all the time.

My little sister who works here with me, Annie, she's the best, so people know Annie well too.

But we truly are, when we say family owned and operated, we are family owned and operated.

(warm music) My first recollection of the restaurant, and I do remember it vividly, is coming in here when I was a little boy about my son's age, seven, eight years old, and seeing my grandpa and grandma in their aprons in the back, mixing pizza dough by hand, no machines, nothing.

And I remember my grandpa with his big smile, my grandpa's Dontino, that's who the restaurant was named after, giving me a little piece of dough to play with, showing me how to spread it out.

And that is my first recollection of being in the restaurant as a little boy about my son's age.

(warm music continues) When my father and grandfather bought the restaurant in 1975, it was literally just a small little bar with about 30 seats, couple booths, couple tables.

In the late eighties, we bought the building that we're actually sitting in right now.

It was a chemical supply building.

My father bought it.

We tore down some walls and expanded.

So we went from a restaurant bar that sat about 30 people to at full capacity now, we're about 210.

(upbeat music) So the mural, that was painted, again, when we did the expansion, and if you look closely at the picture, there are some pretty cool things in it a lot of people that come in here probably never notice.

My grandfather is in front of the building that has the Dontino's sign on it.

There is the only other building on that mural is Chez-Del, the furniture store, because Chez-Del, the DelMedico's, were good friends of ours and they helped with the design and with the expansion.

So we put their little logo there on the mural.

You have in the gondola my mother and father.

You have pictures of several different men around and that represents myself and my three older brothers.

So there's a lot more to that mural than meets the eye.

We wanted to give it a little story behind it, so that's been there forever.

(spirited music) So this was actually my grandfather and grandmother's dream when they came to this country from Sicily.

I'm first generation in this country.

My parents, my grandparents, all born in Sicily.

So they came to this country from Sicily.

They loved to cook.

Before they got it, my grandfather worked at Schulman's.

My grandmother was a seamstress for the O'Neils downtown.

This bar became available, it was for sale.

They had a dream to open up a family restaurant and share a lot of their Sicilian recipes with Akron.

It started small again.

My father originally was not into the restaurant business.

He actually got his master's degree in romance languages.

He was a Spanish professor.

Now we're full-blooded Italian, right?

We all speak Italian.

He was a Spanish professor at Kent State and at Akron U finishing up his doctorate when the restaurant really started getting busy.

My grandpa and grandma needed the help, so my dad put his PhD to the side, came into the business full-time, quit teaching, and he's been here ever since.

My mom played a big part in this restaurant as well.

She did in the beginning, 'cause my grandma and grandpa, when they came here, they did not speak the language.

So my mom did all of the bookwork.

When this place first started, my mom was in here with my grandparents and my dad every night and day.

So it started heavy family and it still is heavy family.

(warm music) His name was Vincenzo, okay?

In fact, my son is named Vincenzo after my grandfather.

His nickname was Dontino.

Dontino, as they called him in Sicily.

And in fact to this day, my grandfather passed away in 2016, he was well into his nineties, 94, 95, I believe, but we went to Sicily, my father and I and one of my brothers took him back to Sicily in 2015, the year before he died.

Everybody there called him Dontino.

And he just loved it.

"Dontino, there's Dontino."

It's a term of respect, Dontino, and that's how the restaurant was named after grandpa.

- Now to wrap this show up today, I'm gonna sit down with myself.

I've been asked several times, who are you?

Is your name really Blue?

Well, let's go see what this guy's all about.

So no, my birth name is not Blue Green.

My last name is Green.

Now when I was in college, I started going by Blue.

I had blue contacts, blue eyes.

I was studying script writing at the time.

We were studying "Reservoir Dogs."

Mr. White, Mr.

Pink.

Someone said, "Hey, you should be Blue," so I started going by Blue Green.

Now the funny thing about this, I went home, talked to my parents, I'm like, "Yeah, someone called me Blue, I started going by Blue."

My mother looked at me and my dad started laughing.

A story I'd never heard.

I was originally supposed to be called Blue.

My dad was in Vietnam and a buddy of his died named Blue, and he wanted to name me after this guy.

My mother's like, "No, ain't having a son named Blue.

Blue Green, that's just too much."

Well, I guess the name found me.

It was meant to be.

So I do go by Blue, do when you see me, call me Blue.

(warm music) I was diagnosed with ADHD as a young child, so I always had energy and it was hard for me to focus and concentrate on things, so I didn't do really well unless it was a hand-on kind of activity.

I was always creative, always stories going on in my head.

I'd make up different universes when I was playing.

And I'm an only child as well, so you learn to actually live on your own and make up friends in your mind.

So I've always been a storyteller like that.

But I remember specifically, in I think it was the fifth grade, we had an interview part of our class and I really excelled, and it was rare for me to excel in something that wasn't creative or artistic or something of that nature.

And for some reason, I put it on the back burner until later on in life.

But that was the first time that I realized that this interviewing thing, I'm pretty good at it.

And I'm always been a storyteller, so now I put it together.

(introspective music) I was born in Southern Ohio and I came to Akron in 1991 right after I turned 18 years old, so technically I became an adult in Akron.

And growing up in the Rust Belt, my dad was a steelworker down in Southern Ohio.

So Akron, when I came here, it was almost like a unfamiliar kind of home.

The town was, I don't know, it felt kind of gritty to me.

It felt kind of, I don't know, like a steel town and I felt I was accepted here and I loved Akron.

I love the architecture of Akron, I love the history of Akron, and not being from this area, it's really hard when you live somewhere and you see it all the time.

Like Stan Hywet.

Oh, that's just Stan Hywet.

Or the rubber industry.

Oh, everybody has that.

You don't think about all the amazing things you literally have right in your backyard.

So when I came here, I was amazed at all the stuff.

So now I've been able to take this love and passion and creativity in my sense of acting like a 12 year old with my mind asking questions.

And before you know it, I decided we need to put a show together.

(introspective music continues) I'm gonna tell stories till the day I die.

(laughs) And that sounds morbid, but I've heard someone say before, "If you can die doing what you love, well, you lived a great life."

So I'm never gonna retire unless I absolutely am forced to.

As long as I have the mental capabilities and the physical abilities to get around and tell a story, you're gonna see me telling stories somewhere.

I guarantee that.

(inquisitive music) PBS is so important for so many reasons.

It's one of the true unbiased sources of information in the world today.

It is constantly ranked as one of the best news sources, one of the best educational sources, one of the best children's services that we have in the world.

Here, let me show you something right here.

(Blue groans) See, this is Ernie.

(laughs) Ernie was my doll as a kid and Ernie sits up by my desk here when I work, because I learned about so many things by watching "Sesame Street" growing up, "The Electric Company," all these amazing programs which is brought by PBS.

And not only do I mention that, the nature shows, the educational history shows, amazing directors like Ken Burns, is a god in the documentary world, is on PBS for you to see.

You may not be able to attend the best universities in the world.

You may not be able to get to actually go to these places and see them upfront.

But with PBS, you can get all the education that you could possibly ever want by watching amazing documentaries.

You can learn so much.

There's entertainment, there's education, and it's quality content.

I mean, for me to be on this show and my content is right between just amazing program that I love, (sighs) it is such an honor to be lumped in with some of the best programming in the world.

And there's little old me "Around Akron with Blue Green."

I mean, literally it brings a tear to my eyes.

It's special.

And thank you PBS for letting me tell stories around Akron.

Thank you once again for watching this episode of "Around Akron with Blue Green."

If you have any questions, comments, or just wanna drop me an email, you can reach me at www.aroundakronwithbluegreen, or you can catch me on Facebook, Instagram, and now on Twitter.

Thank you and have an amazing day.

(upbeat music)