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…