HOLYOKE – After opening its brand new restaurant at the end of January, Gateway City Arts is preparing for concerts, events and much more for 2020.

In January, the center opened up a new restaurant, called Judd’s in honor of Judd’s Paper Company and offers Czech-American cuisine to represent the culture of its owners, Vitek Kurta, who is Czech, and Lori Divine Hudson, who is American.

Hudson said they bought the building eight years ago to house community arts. “We wanted to have a community arts center and a place for people to come learn and participate in the arts,” she said.

Since buying the property, Hudson said that while the plan was to stick to the arts, things quickly changed. “We evolved into more of a music venue, then we got our liquor license, and then we branched out more into food and now we have the Bistro which has lunches from Tuesday through Friday.”

“We see ourselves as a cultural center where everyone is welcome. We want to provide a place for people to learn, meet people, feel safe, seen and appreciated,” Hudson said.

In order to get people to come to the center, she said they had to make it a one-stop destination. She said, “We wanted to make this one-stop place where you come have dinner, hear music, or see a theater prediction, or have your art studio upstairs.”

Throughout the year Gateway City Arts holds several staple events, including a beer garden from May to October, its street festival and its CzechtoberFest. Kurta said, “CzechtoberFest is our signature festival and we do it once a year. It’s a day of Czech cooking and you come here and everything’s just Czech food, Czech pastries, and traditional stuff, we’ve been doing that for five years now.”

Along with the restaurants and arts, she added that they also house all kinds of private events from parties to weddings and more. Kurta explained that they also host concerts from nationally touring bands and bring people in from all over New England to come watch. “This year we are possibly scheduling up to 150 concerts,” he said.

To keep up with the concerts and shows throughout the year, Kurta said they recently upgraded the sound system. “We just installed a state-of-the-art, top- notch sound system by Klondike Sounds, which possibly makes one of the best sounding venues in Western Massachusetts,” he said, “It is the highest quality of sound required by these touring bands.”

On top of the arts offerings, Kurta added that they also hold office space on the second floor in an open area with a beautiful view of the river below. “This space is for start-up businesses in a shared, clean space with access to high-speed internet and conference rooms so you can meet with your clients,” he said, “It’s all resources that are shared but affordable.”

Hudson added that they are always looking for ways to add to the center’s current offerings. “I’d like to get more dance in here, more fun and I’d like to hold more political debates. Nothing is scheduled yet but we work with a lot of people,” she said.

One of Gateway’s missions is trying to change the perception of Downtown Holyoke. “It’s our biggest mission and challenge at the same time, there’s a lot of good things happening here and new development. Holyoke is changing into a better place,” Kurta added.

Hudson explained that she and Kurta are both thankful for their 27 person staff. “We have a wonderful staff, we could not do this without them. Everyone is working their hearts out because they love our mission and we’re in it to create something really unique,” she said.

After eight years of construction Kurta said the he is ready to focus on what they do best. “Everything that’s left is mostly cosmetic and now we can focus on our programming, art, bringing people together, and really starting to build our community in a much more intensive way,” he said.

Hudson added, “We’ve worked really hard to get to this point and now we want to see it come alive.”

“What we’re creating here is an experience, you can always expect to learn something, whether you come for food, concerts or programs, you’ll learn just by being here,” Kurta said.