Onajava Coffee and Soul Café to launch in long-vacant South Salina Street building

SYRACUSE — Onajava Coffee and Soul Café, a family owned and operated business, is getting set to launch operations on Oct. 1 in the redeveloped former Sumner Hunt building at 1555 S. Salina St. in Syracuse, at the intersection with East Kennedy Street. That’s according to owner Reggie Pickard in a Sept. 5 email response to a CNYBJ inquiry. Onajava held a soft-opening event Aug. 2 to share remarks with invited guests in the newly developed space. The event represented a “revival” of the original Onajava on the city’s South side 20 years ago. It “will be a space focused on building community through food, coffee, music, poetry, and art,” the City of Syracuse said in its advisory about the Aug. 2 gathering. Home HeadQuarters developed the mixed-use property into new affordable apartments on the upper level. It also selected Pickard, the business owner and neighborhood resident, to occupy the updated commercial space on the main level with Onajava. “We were so captivated by his vision for this building,” Kerry Quaglia, founder and CEO of Home HeadQuarters, said in his remarks at the Aug. 2 soft opening. The Onajava coffee house is part of Home HeadQuarters’ effort in redeveloping the 1,600-square-foot property that also includes two 3-bedroom apartments on the second level. The City of Syracuse, Empire State Development, and the Allyn Family Foundation provided funding for the project. The coffee-house project has a total value of more than $225,000, per the City of Syracuse website. The city also awarded the initiative $50,000 in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. “I remember Onajava on West Onondaga,” Syracuse Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens said in her remarks. “Not just a place to get coffee but a place where people gathered together.” Owens also said the project is “personal” to her because of her friendship with Pickard. “I think of downtown as the beating heart of economic engines in the city, but it does not survive without the commercial corridors running through neighborhoods, like South Salina [Street] that go into that beating heart and flow out of that beating heart, so we can’t just develop downtown, we have to invest in neighborhood corridors along with housing redevelopment,” Owens said. In her remarks, Syracuse Common Councilor Rasheada Caldwell called the rebirth of Onajava “amazing.” She knows Pickard from coaching basketball. “They’re like family to me,” Caldwell said of the Pickards. “My daughter calls him Papa.” She also praised Home HeadQuarters, calling it “truly the heart of the community.” “They listen. They hear you, and they do what they believe is right for us,” Caldwell said. “This Onajava is going to be great.” As he spoke to the gathering, Pickard dedicated the coffee house’s opening to Aaron Smith, who handled marketing efforts for Pickard and encouraged him to open the coffee house. Pickard told the gathering that Smith had died on Aug.1, the day before the soft-opening event. He dedicated the soft-opening event to Smith’s memory. Pickard grew up around coffee, food service, and entertainment. His mother owned a restaurant in Syracuse in the early 1990s. Before that, his family managed entertainment at the Pan American Village at the New York State Fair. He also operated the original OnaJava Coffee & Soul Café on the city’s Southwest side 20 years ago, per the Home HeadQuarters announcement about Onajava. “My heart goes out to everyone that’s here today. The spirit is great. I just love it,” Pickard said.