“Only in America”

Ghanian immigrant brings his own Italian flavor to Silver Spring

Over the years, Silver Spring has seen many restaurants open their doors.  Place names like Captain White’s, The Shanghai, and The Charcoal House live only in our memories while others still continue to do business today and new names appear seemingly daily. The life expectancy of

Photos: Julie Wiatt John Eshrun has run Vicino since 1989.

a new restaurant is very short, so one that continues into its 18th year is a rarity. Such is the case for Vicino Ristorante Italiano. Behind the success of every long lived restaurant is a personality; for Vicino, it is John Eshun.

I sat with John in the quiet after the lunch rush one afternoon. Greeting me with his ever present wide grin, we settled into a table in the corner of the dining room. Decorated simply, the bright restaurant features basic table settings on red table cloths and vintage posters and art work on the walls. As we talked, two young boys no older than four or five approached John to ask for change for the candy machine at the front. Flashing them a grin, John took care of the lads who called him by name as if he were just one of the family. After giddily working the machine, the boys returned to their parents a couple of tables away. 

John is from Ghana, West Africa where he was born in 1949. Growing up in the post colonial era of the former British possession was difficult. Unstable governments and a weak economy inspired John to seek a better life elsewhere. He began his journey by immigrating to Liberia where he met his now wife Jane and had a son, Frederick. But Liberia didn’t offer him the opportunities he sought.

Going to the U.S. Information office after considering a move to Europe, John chose to come to America. Seeking to improve his education and make a better life for his family, he set of for the Washington D.C. area in 1974. Leaving Jane, now expecting their second child, and Frederick behind was difficult but necessary, and he knew that it would be better to go alone at first. Upon his arrival, John enrolled at Benjamin Franklin University, now a part of George Washington University. There, he studied accounting and finance all the while working at least two jobs to pay his tuition and save so his his family could join him. He worked at a deli in the basement of the then WTTG Channel 5 building and at Kenwood Country club. From there, he went  to the old Martin’s Restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue, where the owner was so impressed with his determination that he created a position for him.

On a Saturday afternoon in 1975, he saw the Pines of Rome Restaurant in Bethesda, walked in and asked for a job. The manager told him to come back and start the next day. So began his career at The Pines, first as a dishwasher, then a cook’s helper and a cook. Then on a Saturday night, after a row between the manager and a busboy, John was pulled from the kitchen and put on the floor first as  busboy. John’s winning smile and personality quickly got him promoted to waiter and things really stared to happen for him.

Eshrun says his good neighbors, the artists at the Nora School, painted the mural on the side wall of Vicino.

In 1979, he graduated from Benjamin Franklin and worked first at the CPA firm of Jack Martin and Co. and then Gallagher and Hughley Lumber Co. on Blair Road. All the while he continued to work at The Pines at night. Jane had joined him in 1975 but their efforts to secure entrance visas for their children, Frederick and Eunice, didn’t come through until 1986 when John would see his ten year old daughter for the first time.

John was building a great following at The Pines and he knew he wanted more. The family was living at Summit Hills at this time and John and a friend, Marcial Mejia, a cook and co-worker, yearned for something greater. They first looked at the site now occupied by Mi Rancho restaurant. Then John saw a vacant building on Sligo Avenue that had once housed the Sligo Inn. With the help of two benefactors, Jack Lyons and Tommy Tavener, they put their plan in motion. On October 5, 1989, Vicino opened to a packed house, a phenomenon that continues to this day. John has since bought out his partner Marcial and John and Jane had another son, Eric. The kids are all grown now; Frederick is a mechanic in Bowie, Eunice manages a Red Lobster in Greenbelt, and Eric serves in the U.S. Army. Stationed at Fort Stuart in Georgia, Eric is currently deployed to Afghanistan after two tours in Iraq. John and Jane are immensely proud of their children and rightfully so.

John looks to the future of Silver Spring with a hopeful but cautious eye. “I’m not anti-development, but I want a reasonable pace” he says as he would like to see the progress that has been made in Downtown Silver Spring stretch to other areas. “I would like to see development at a slow pace” he told me, “So people don’t get offended”.

Vicino hosts a “Jazz Night” one Monday a month in its lower dining area that has been quite successful. It is independently run but Vicino supports it and nurtures it.

John tells me he gets one odd question all the time. He says people wonder about a black man owning an Italian restaurant to which he responds “only in America!” Proudly he will tell you “America is the greatest country, No place is perfect but you won’t find a better place. This is the opportunity America gives you. You can start from the bottom and move up. I am so happy to share it.”

Vicino is located at 959 Sligo Avenue and Vicino’s food is, in a word, wonderful. John is the reason it all comes together so well. When customers probe further about the “black man and the Italian restaurant”, John bares his winning smile and says “I’m from Sicily, the Southern part” Here is another “Face of Silver Spring” we can all be proud of.

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