OnaJava Coffee & Soul Café holds soft opening in long-vacant South Salina Street building

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — OnaJava Coffee & Soul Café held a soft-opening event on Friday in the redeveloped former Sumner Hunt building at 1555 S. Salina St. in Syracuse at the intersection with East Kennedy Street.

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 Friday event.

The coffee house will begin operations serving breakfast, lunch, and coffee in mid-August, per a Home HeadQuarters Inc. announcement about the OnaJava project.

Home HeadQuarters developed the mixed-use property into new affordable apartments on the upper level. It also selected owner and neighborhood resident Reggie Pickard 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 Friday’s event.

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.

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 in addressing the gathering at the Friday soft opening.