Italian eatery opens at Stadium Park Plaza
Published 8:30 am Thursday, November 16, 2023
- Tra Di Noi Ristorante owner Arnis Hoti at the restaurant’s bar before it opened Wednesday afternoon at Stadium Park Plaza.
Bowling Green’s newest eatery opened Wednesday afternoon as Tra Di Noi Ristorante welcomed its first customers in a portion of the space formerly occupied by Mariah’s restaurant in Stadium Park Plaza.
Tra Di Noi Ristorante is an authentic Italian restaurant owned and operated by Arnis Hoti.
Hoti immigrated to the U.S. from Kosovo about seven years ago and started working in Italian restaurants in New York.
Eventually he decided to take what he had learned in the Big Apple and opened Casa D’Italia Ristorante in Clarksville, Tennessee, in 2022.
He subsequently heard about the Bowling Green market, and after negotiations on a lease with the Warren County Downtown Economic Development Authority, began planning for his second eatery here.
“It’s been both hard and easy at times,” Hoti said of the effort to open the Bowling Green location. “A lot of people helped us,” Hoti said, specifically the Authority, which oversees Stadium Park Plaza.
“It was worth waiting for,” he said, as Tra Di Noi will offer “a totally unique Italian dining experience” not found in the region, with authentic Italian dishes featuring imported Italian meats and cheeses.
The menu includes things like chicken parmesan, lasagna, baked ziti, manicotti, lobster ravioli and Angus steaks. Lunch and kids menus are also offered, as well as beer and wine.
The dining room takes up the middle portion of the former Mariah’s, the iconic Bowling Green restaurant that closed for good in 2022.
The Authority is also working to lease the rest of the former Mariah’s space. The ground floor of the wrap around the downtown parking garage was vacant of any retail space earlier this year after the closure of a Starbuck’s, but Garcia’s Grill recently opened its second Mexican restaurant in the space once occupied by 6-4-3 sports bar and grill.
Mill House Cafe, located on North Main Street in Franklin for nearly three years, is now also expanding into the former Starbucks space.
Tra Di Noi Ristorante will be open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sundays 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
