“I love being here I prefer being in the Berkshires with my family above all else, but it’s been pretty busy for me in the Bahamas recently, a bit more than I anticipated. “It’s almost entirely delegated, and then I jump in for 2 percent of it,” he said. Since Salame is based in the Bahamas most of the time for his cryptocurrency work, he points out that “the team runs 98 percent” of his Lenox investments. “We have a lot to focus on right now,” Salame said, “so, unless something pops up that is an opportunity that won’t always be there, probably not.” It will reopen as a restaurant, with the concept to be decided. it once housed Lenox Pizza - for $625,000. Last month, Salame bought the long-vacant restaurant property at 7-9 Franklin St.New manager Cheryl Murray, “an incredible baker,” he said, will expand it into a small cafe with quiches and coffee, renaming it Sweet Dreams, combined with an adjacent storefront on Church Street, formerly Twigs, that will house the candy emporium. In October, Salame acquired The Scoop, a popular ice cream parlor and sweets shop owned by Jennifer Nacht for 13 years.After renovations, he aims to reopen the establishment next March as a year-round eatery, but not as an Italian restaurant. “I think we won’t keep it as Cafe Lucia it was really Jim and Nadine’s vision, and it would be hard for me to push that forward,” Salame said. “We haven’t nailed down exactly what will happen with it.”Īn adjacent vacant house on Tucker Street, zoned commercial, also acquired by Salame, will enable him to combine the footprint, subject to town approval, for additional outdoor dining and to house his new catering venture. “There’s a lot of potential there,” he said. After meeting co-owner Nadine Atalla as the health of her husband, Jim Lucie, declined before his death June 13, Salame expressed interest and followed through with the recent purchase of Cafe Lucia.Other acquisitions quickly followed the Firefly and Heritage purchases: I’ll add where I can, and try to complement where I can.” “I want Lenox to be the first place you think of, which will benefit all the other restaurants as well. His overall vision is to make Lenox the dining hub of the Berkshires for locals and visitors, he said.
It feels like a team of people, making it easier.” Current staffing for the Lenox Eats group is about 25, but that total will increase dramatically for the summer. “There are managerial roles popping up, creating opportunities and excitement. Salame also owns the Old Heritage Tavern, The Scoop, the former Cafe Lucia, and plans to start a new operation, Lenox Catering Co. Ryan Salame is shown outside Firefly Gastropub, one of the restaurants he has purchased in Lenox. Since then, Salame has added Cafe Lucia The Scoop a vacant property on Franklin Street soon to be a restaurant, and a commercially zoned house behind Lucia slated as the site of Salame’s new Lenox Catering Co., to be operated by Donna Navarino, with high-end catering experience for more than 20 years, and as an auxiliary facility for Lucia’s reincarnation, with details on that venture to be announced.
In March, he purchased the Olde Heritage Tavern from proprietor John McNinch in a $1.5 million transaction for the building on Housatonic Street, plus an additional amount for the business.
In July 2020, he acquired Firefly Gastropub, thanks to a long friendship with former longtime owner Laura Shack. Since then, he has been a rapidly rising Bitcoin tycoon as newly minted CEO of FTX Digital Markets in the Bahamas, a subsidiary of the global cryptocurrency exchange FTX.com.īut, in downtown Lenox, Salame (pronounced Salem), now 28, is best known as the owner of a half-dozen commercial restaurant properties under the new marketing banner of Lenox Eats. Fast-forward: Salame graduated from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s Isenberg School of Management with a business degree in accounting, then earned a master’s in finance from Georgetown University in 2019.