Bosnian refugee realized the American dream, starting with kindness
Alen Ahmetovic came to the United States as a refugee from the war in Bosnia with nothing. Thanks to the kindness of strangers, he started businesses and a family.
During his senior year of high school, New Oxford athlete Alen Ahmetovic found a photo of himself in the Hanover Evening Sun.
It was a significant moment for the Bosnian immigrant, but one detail of the picture remains etched in his memory to this day: his worn-out cleats, held together with a few pieces of tape, so worn that his feet were exposed.
“I know the community noticed – people, my coaches, my parents saw it – but no one ever treated me differently. They never made me feel less,” Ahmetovic said.
To this day it remains a source of motivation for him.
“When I’m having a bad day, I find this picture and look at it to remind myself of how far we’ve come,” he said.
Ahmetovic spent his teenage years in Hanover after immigrating from Bosnia in 2003. He was a popular guy and an outstanding athlete. His drive and determination were rooted in the work ethic of his parents, who came to the United States in 2002 after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s.
From Bosnia to Germany, Switzerland and Hanover
When the war started, his family first fled to Germany, where they lived for five years. Even though the war was officially over, they were sent back to Bosnia, despite having nowhere to live. Ahmetovic remembers that moment as if it were yesterday. It was the night before a football match he had been so looking forward to when the German police came to their door and told his family that they were being deported back to Sarajevo.
“We had to leave everything behind in Germany,” he said.
When Ahmetovic returned to Bosnia, he found many towns and houses burned down, including his own. A year later, in another attempt to find refuge, they moved to Switzerland. There they applied for the opportunity to go to the United States.
“Somehow, someway, we were chosen.”
“They all thought I was crazy, but I had this feeling”
In 2000, the Ahmetovic family arrived in Washington, DC and were picked up by members of St. David’s Church in Hanover. “We had no idea where we were or where we were going.”
During his first year of life in Hanover, the church financed a house for his family, a car, food and a job for his parents.
“They took us in, they didn’t know anything about us, but they helped us with absolutely everything,” Ahmetovic said.
Ahmetovic was a star football player in school and decided on a whim to try out for basketball. He didn’t know if he would make the team, but he was determined.
Before he knew it, he was playing Division II basketball at Millersville University.
Leaving his comfort zone for a new opportunity seemed to be a metaphor for the move he would make later in life: giving up sales to run a restaurant with little or no cooking experience.
After graduating in 2010, Ahmetovic worked in sales for two years before founding New Era Transportation in the basement of his home.
Since Ahmetovic had no knowledge of trucks (other than the fact that his father made a living from them), even though he did not have a truck driver’s license himself, he took care of purchasing, planning and carefully monitoring vehicle maintenance and deliveries.
“I loved the sales aspect,” he said. “It was always a challenge, and through the sport I learned that I was never the best at anything, but I was always the hardest working person,” he said.
Shortly after the company was founded, he met his wife Fahreta on a trip with his parents to Bosnia.
In 2018, when Ahmetovic was looking for land for his trucks, he came across O’Brien’s Paradise Cove, a family-run restaurant and bar on Route 30 in Abbottstown.
During a meeting with the owner Fred O’Brien, he unexpectedly had the opportunity to take over the restaurant.
“I went home and told my family: We’re buying a restaurant,” he said. “They all thought I was crazy, but I had that feeling.”
The next day a deal was made and the two sealed it.
New Era Restaurant Bar and Motel
A month later, Ahmetovic and Fahreta were learning to navigate their new roles as restaurant owners.
Ahmetovic learned to cook from the previous owner and continued to dispatch trucks in a small office that used to be in the area that now houses the kitchen’s walk-in refrigerator.
“He (Fred) taught me a lot, everything he knew,” he said. “The first two years I soaked it all up, listened and didn’t question anything he asked.”
The two sold their house in Hanover and moved their family of six into a small two-bedroom house on the property. His parents lived in one room, he, Fahreta and their two children lived in the second. For a short time they even lived in motel rooms attached to the restaurant.
After the previous owner left, the restaurant underwent a major remodel, renovating the interior and exterior spaces and adding an outdoor tiki bar and 13 attached motel units.
The restaurant serves classic American burgers, steak dinners and seafood, as well as Balkan dishes such as cevapcici, Balkan-style sausages, stuffed cabbage rolls, gyros sandwiches and pljeskavica, grilled beef and lamb in a Balkan-style flatbread.
For Ahmetovic, work never stops and his head is always full of new ideas or projects. When he has a moment of calm, he often thinks back to how hard his parents worked to provide for their family and hopes to pass on these values to his three children, Lejla, Aldina and Aidin.
“All the sacrifices my parents and I have made are finally paying off,” he said.
