This article is one in a series of articles about what life looks like in Butler County ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary on July 4, 2026. Stories in this series aim to showcase what it’s like to live, work, play and serve in Butler County during this moment in history.

When diners step into Natili North Restaurant on Main Street in Butler, many immediately look for one familiar face: owner Vince Tavalerio. He’s almost always there, moving from table to table, stopping to chat and making guests feel at home.

“Whether he knows you or not, he talks to you like he does,” said James Zambroski, a former Butler resident now living in Tampa, Florida.

Zambroski hasn’t lived in Butler for 30 years and no longer has family in the area. Still, his hometown keeps drawing him back every few years. This September, he plans to return for his 55th Butler High School reunion, and a stop at Natili North is already on the itinerary.

“Vince’s food is terrific. It’s authentic, and I love eating it,” Zambroski said. “And I love seeing Vince. I’ve been a customer of his for 50 years.”

For Zambroski, a former reporter who left Butler decades ago, stepping into Natili North feels like stepping into a time machine. It brings back memories of downtown department stores, Christmas lights strung across Main Street and walks through the city with his grandmother.

While much of Butler has changed over the decades, Natili North remains one of the places where former residents can still reconnect with the city they remember.

That sense of familiarity is exactly what Tavalerio has tried to create throughout decades in the restaurant business.

Near the entrance hangs a large portrait of Tavalerio, his wife, Jean, and their six grandchildren, the children of son Vinnie and daughter Doralice. Elsewhere in the restaurant are family photographs, including one of a youthful Tavalerio in his high school graduation portrait. Soft lights glow overhead as servers greet customers entering the dining room.

One of those familiar faces belongs to Tammy Myers, who has worked at Natili’s for 40 years.

“The customers are my family,” Myers said.

She credits Tavalerio with creating a welcoming atmosphere not only inside the restaurant, but throughout the community.

“Everywhere he goes, people know him,” she said.

“I want customers to enjoy the experience here because it’s more than just good food — it’s camaraderie,” Tavalerio said.

He believes relationships between restaurant owners and customers have become “a lost art” in the business.

But Tavalerio’s path to becoming a restaurateur was anything but straightforward. His first love was music.

Born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio, Tavalerio envisioned a very different career. He studied piano at the University of Cincinnati before attending Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he composed and published music and performed with notable musicians Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, Harold Betters and Pittsburgh jazz guitarist Ken Karsh.

However, the restaurant business became part of Tavalerio’s life in the 1960s after he married his college sweetheart, Jean Natili, whose father, John Natili, founded the original Natili South restaurant in downtown Butler in 1939.

Jean Natili also had a different career in mind.

After college, she worked at the PBS station WCET in Cincinnati as a children’s television personality known as “Miss Jean.” When her father became ill, she returned home to Butler to help run the family business. When she and Vince married in 1968, he left his musical pursuits behind to join her, stepping into the business that would define the rest of their lives.

The couple operated the original Natili South restaurant on Main Street for decades and opened Natili North Restaurant, also on Main Street, in 1973. When Natili South closed in 2014, many longtime customers followed the Tavalerios to the North Main Street location.

Music remained part of Tavalerio’s life even after he entered the restaurant business. Over the years, he performed Italian music at the Penn Theater in Butler on several occasions with his trio and often played piano at Natili South on Friday evenings.

He smiles when mentioning the three grand pianos in his home — a quiet reminder of a passion that never disappeared. His son, Vinnie, has witnessed that talent his entire life.

“My dad is ridiculously talented,” said Vinnie Tavalerio, who recently was helping move furniture and equipment from the former Natili pizza shop next door as preparations were underway for a new Sweet Gremlin bakery tenant.

The entire family still speaks fondly of the original Natili South, which closed 12 years ago. The restaurant featured three floors, crystal chandeliers and a hand-painted mural of Venice.

Family members especially remember singalongs of Christmas carols, along with St. Patrick’s Day and New Year’s Eve celebrations while Tavalerio and other musicians entertained guests.

“My father-in-law called Natili South ‘a touch of New York,’” Tavalerio said.

“That restaurant was like a family member. Such good times,” Vinnie Tavalerio said.

Tavalerio’s commitment to Butler was recognized early. In 1984, at the age of 39, he received Butler Rotary’s Junior Distinguished Service Award, which honors younger individuals who have already made significant contributions to the community through leadership, volunteerism and civic involvement.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was growing concern about Butler’s future following the decline of Pullman-Standard and Armco Steel. The opening of Clearview Mall a few miles south of downtown Butler also raised fears about the long-term health of the downtown business district.

In 1981, Tavalerio served as president of Butler’s Downtown Association. Rather than viewing the mall as competition, he believed cooperation would strengthen the entire community. He reached out to the general manager of Clearview Mall.

The two leaders met and developed a friendship that eventually led to at least 20 projects raising more than $25,000 for local charities, including food banks.

“That really brought us together and we got to know each other,” Tavalerio said.

Over the years, Tavalerio worried Butler could become like other small industrial cities marked by vacant storefronts and fading downtowns. Instead, he said he has watched younger business owners bring new energy and investment into the city.

“I see growth and stability in Butler in the future,” he said.

Inside Natili North today, Tavalerio still moves through the dining room greeting customers by name — some who never left Butler and others returning after decades away — continuing the tradition that has made the restaurant feel like home to generations of residents.