Featuring Research By Sue Montesano
I’ve previously written about the commercial district on West Third Street in Wright-Dunbar, and one of the most interesting structures there is the 3-story Enterprise Building built in 1890 and originally home to the Pekin Theater.
Recently, Sue Montesano conducted extensive research along with three of her cousins to put together a history of their grandfather’s restaurant, The Ark, which she discovered was located in the building.
The project involved going through family diaries, stories, and photos plus library research. Below are some of her findings, with her full historic report linked at the bottom.
In her writeup, Montesano sets the scene: “Two Greek immigrants met in Dayton, Ohio. They became business partners to pursue the American Dream.”
She goes on to tell the story of the restaurant and how the business evolved:
“Johnny Hornis opened The Ark Restaurant at 1026 West Third Street in 1926. John Stratis worked with Hornis and later purchased The Ark at the end of 1928. Following the end of Prohibition in 1933, the partners took over the 2nd floor of the Enterprise Building, spent $10,000 and opened the Rendezvous, a nightclub complete with house orchestra and a staff of 45.”
There were several clues discovered by the cousins that originally helped to spark the research:
“In 2023, Greg Stratis found a matchbook for sale on eBay. The cousins had heard about The Ark, but never knew where it was located. They knew there was a ballroom on the 2nd floor with animals painted on the walls. The matchbook with the address provided the missing link.”
Next, Sue “set out to find the exact location of 1026 West Third.” As I’ve experienced in my own research, historical addresses don’t always neatly correspond to those of today, which can make verifying locations tricky. And in this case too, Montesano had to dig deep to find the answer:
“Using current maps plus a walk of the neighborhood didn’t provide the exact location. After speaking with a realtor at HER located at 1024, Sue decided it must have been part of 1024 at one time. OR could it have been located at what is now an empty lot?
After lots of visits to the Downtown Dayton Library plus online searches it was discovered that the address had changed in 1939 to 1038! Currently there isn’t a street address of 1038 but through recent historic references it has been determined that 1038 was in the Enterprise Building.”
Sue’s nicely designed report in PDF form (below) tells more of the story, including a timeline of the building tenants, and some newspaper articles about the restaurant and additional images.
The history was compiled by: Sue Stratis Montesano Dave Stratis Stacey Stratis Greg Stratis Special Thanks to: Karen D. Brame – Dayton Metro Library Information Services Librarian – Africana Archives Emphasis Special Collections
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