A small business resurgence in West Hempstead?

There’s a subtle transformation going on in West Hempstead’s business district — a slow, understated change that is surprising even the most vigilant neighborhood watchers: New businesses are slowly coming back to the hamlet.

Amid some of the empty storefronts are new establishments. The district is dotted with beauty salons, child-care services, kosher restaurants and family party venues that are turning heads even at the West Hempstead Chamber of Commerce.

With help from the chamber, the Herald compiled a list of 21 businesses that have opened, expanded or found new owners over the past two years. Many have set up shop on Hempstead Avenue, an area that has been struggling to regain vibrancy after years of decline.

The new business owners, some of whom are from the area, seem to be wise to the type of business that will succeed there, and are building accordingly. One is Avalone Family Catering. “We were known as a nightclub for many years, but we also had done catered parties,” said Jodi Messina, a catering manager for Avalone, formerly the Rumors nightclub, in the Cherry Valley Shopping Center. “But our private events would end around 10:30 p.m., and then we’d open the nightclub at 11 p.m. and stay open till 4 a.m. We were getting a bad rap, because fights would break out.”

The club’s ownership decided last August 2014 that it would refocus the business exclusively on catered parties.

Since the change, Messina said, business has picked up dramatically, and many more people have begun using the venue for private parties. “We’ve been doing a lot of Sweet 16s and graduations now that we can hold our events later in the evening,” she explained. “People didn’t want their events to end at 10 p.m., and our nightclub was preventing us from offering [later hours] to them.”

She stressed that although some people’s negative impressions of the venue may have lingered because of the nightclub fights of the past, there would be no more. Previously known as Rumors, Tabu, Oz and Focus, the club-turned-catering hall has been in West Hempstead for over 30 years.