La Roya Banquet Hall located at 185 Westney Road South in Ajax is a place where dreams come true.  Under the ownership and management of Kalyani Nathan, known to her clients as Kali, La Roya’s own name reflects its international flavor; literally meaning “sweet dream” in Persian.  Further, the Roya is also a beautiful river in Europe that runs from the south of France into northern Italy.  “La” meaning “the” in French turns La Roya into The Sweet Dream.  And it is a sweet dream-come-true for Nathan, a former financial advisor, who purchased the banquet hall in September 2011.  Since then the hall has undergone a phenomenal transformation.  Elegantly appointed in creams and golds, the facility now caters to every nationality with no fewer than four expert and highly decorated chefs specializing in North American, African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Italian food. 

La Roya offers seating for 300 people with a dance floor or up to 350 for banquet table seating.  The hall and catering services are available combined or separately which allows Nathan and her staff to cater larger events both in and outside the community, and as far away as Brampton.  Catering is available to groups as small as 50 or a crowd as large as 1,000 attendees.  While table service is available within the hall, La Roya specializes in a buffet-style service and the well stocked bar is manned by SmartServe certified staff.  To complete your event, La Roya works closely with a number of decorators and disk-jockeys to satisfy any taste. 

“This place gives everything for you when you are celebrating something in your life.  My role now is to make sure that the people who come [here] are happy,” explains Nathan.  Event planning has always been a passion of hers and now she has a canvass on which to create memorable backdrops for La Roya’s clients.  Some of the more incredible schemes haveincluded a New Orleans style 16^th birthday, a Winter Wonderland 1^st birthday and a Moroccan Adventure night which saw the hall turned into a rich and spectacular Bollywood setting.  When asked if there was anything she couldn’t do, Nathan replies, “If you dream it, we will make it come true, and those happy precious memories will stay with you.”  Got a special event on the horizon?  Call La Roya and let Kali Nathan and her staff create splendid memories to last you a lifetime.

La Roya Banquet Hall

185 Westney Rd South,

Ajax, ON  L1S 2C9

(905) 427-9922 

The newest of three locations, Graziella Fine Jewellery, located at 289 Kingston Road East, Ajax, brings four generations of jewellery industry experience to the Durham West community.  A family business, the first location opened in Whitby at Thickson Road and Dundas Street in 1998 and expanded to Oshawa’s Five Points Mall in 2009.  The Ajax location opened in 2010.  Graziella now has a staff of 20 non-commissioned employees over the three locations.  While they offer a variety of high-end gold, platinum and nickel-free silver jewellery, Graziella also carries demand designer lines like amore&baci, CrownRing, ESQ by Movado, Michael Kors, Versace, Citizen and pg personalized gems inc.  However, Graziella’s specialty by far is their custom work.

“Jewellery is so personal, it’s easy luxury,” says Ajax store manager Suzy Hassan, “Jewellery lasts a lifetime.”  Yet, many people shy away from custom jewellery as they believe the expense to be too high.  Hassan explains that this is a common misconception, “We do a lot of work in house so we are not paying somebody else for the design, somebody else for the casting and the setting.  We are doing it ourselves so we save a bundle and that [savings] gets past on to the customer.”  Another apprehension customers have regarding custom designs is that they will not like the end product.  Graziella’s cure for this fear is its “wax program”.  A custom piece is first cast in blue wax as an exact replica in size and dimensions for the client’s approval prior to being completed in precious metals and stones.  “It’s easy to be passionate about sparkly things,” says Hassan, “We do take pride in making 70% of our own stock… they are one-of-a-kind pieces.”

Hassan describes the relationships Graziella’s has built with its clients, “We are all very blessed to be in this industry because we see people at the height of their love.”  She goes on to speak of a gentleman who first came into their Ajax store shopping for an engagement ring.  A year later the happy couple has invited all of Graziella’s staff to their wedding.  Hassan does not misspeak when she says, “we are doing more than just selling jewellery.  Our tag-line at Graziella Fine Jewellery is ‘experience the difference’.  I would invite everybody to come in and meet [us] and see what we do and we would be happy to meet them and make them a part of our extended family.”  Customer-Client relationships like this are, quite literally, gold.

Graziella Fine Jewellery

289 Kingston Road East,

Ajax, ON  L1Z 0K5

(905) 427-3104

www.graziellafinejewellery.com