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Marc Bona-Features writer, cleveland.com food, beer, wine, sports entertainment/history spoke to Bill about Cleveland Whiskey moving, to open Flats tasting room - No BS: Orchid House Winery plans special Bourbon club - Here’s the view from The Vue in Wadsworth: Themed menu in cool space
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Cleveland Whiskey moving, to open Flats tasting room
CLEVELAND, Ohio --After 11 years on E 25th St., Cleveland Whiskey is taking its operations to The Flats. The move, which was significantly delayed by pandemic restrictions and construction product shortages, will start this month as offices and equipment are relocated. Production will begin, but an opening date for public tastings and tours is still unknown, says Market Manager Michael Neumann.
The destination building sits at 601 Stones Levee Road in Cleveland, along the Cuyahoga River and beneath the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge. It was built in 1911. Consolidated Fruit Auction Co., the dominant fruit vendor in Cleveland at the time, used the building until 1929.
“We are moving, but we do not have a date or plan yet for when we will be open to the public,” says Johanna Barnowski, director of marketing. “The facility at this time is only ready for production. We’ve had many setbacks from Covid -- back orders and price inflation, etc. We are also restoring a historical building which has its own list of time-consuming particulars.”
The building will have a public tasting room and offer tours in the future.
“We’ve planned to move for several years and our current space ... was supposed to be a starting point,” says Barnowski. “It’s always been a goal to have a larger space where people can come in and enjoy themselves.”
The distillery currently has 11 year-round products, plus a seasonal, limited-release Christmas Bourbon.
No BS: Orchid House Winery plans special Bourbon club
CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio – A private, exclusive club for Bourbon lovers is set to open in April, and that’s no BS.
Take that literally. The Never Ordinary Bourbon Society – No BS for short – is set to open its doors officially in April, just more than a year since the folks behind Sapphire Creek Winery & Gardens bought ThornCreek Winery and Gardens and rebranded it into The Orchid House Winery.
Think special and swanky.
“It’s been on my radar to start a club like this for a long time,” said Kathleen Birkel D’Angelo, president of Tap Root Hospitality, managing company for all three venues. “Ultimately our goal is to have multiple locations with it. We just thought there was a real need to bridge the gap between a public restaurant and a country club.”
Grand opening is Saturday, April 6, for the private-members club located in Orchid House Winery’s basement. It has a hidden, speakeasy access, she said.
Expect a “Bourbon-centric” space with a variety of cocktails, wine and captain’s list, D’Angelo said.
“We’ll have full food menu and cigar humidor. The entire space is very high end. A lot of the furniture pieces were designed by Pininfarina, who is the Ferrari designer. It’s got a very high-end European look, but very comfortable at the same time.”
She added: “It’s really a place where people who love Bourbon (can) get together and socialize in a relaxed and sophisticated atmosphere.”
A poker room is a glass-enclosed space “with these incredibly cool, acrylic, lit panes made in Milan. It creates a really cool ambiance,” D’Angelo said, adding it can be converted to whatever guests want – to play poker or have a private dining space - “anything you want.” Another room has motorized curtains for additional privacy.
The experience will have “a Velvet Tango Room-feel to it,” said Leo Hines, director of operations, referencing the Cleveland cocktail bar.
Members will be able to choose from more than 400 bottles of Tequila, Vodka and Gin as well as Bourbon. Expect Blanton’s, Pappy Van Winkle, high-end Sazerac - Bourbons “that are hard to come by,” he said.
“Some of the distilleries down in Kentucky have releases that are specific to them … Things you can’t really find in your local liquor stores are what we’re trying to bring into the club,” said Hines, who joined D’Angelo’s team in July. He was regional director with Chef Art Pour Restaurant Group for eight years and before that spent 17 years with Bravo Brio restaurant group.
An interesting touch: Tap Root Hospitality acquired a cocktail printer that produces pictures using beet-carrot juice that land on top of cocktails. Frothy and other drinks like espresso martinis are perfect libation canvases.
“The possibilities are endless, really,” Hines said. “You just upload a digital image, and it will print it on top of the cocktail.”
To start, the members-only club will cost $1,000 (individual) and $2,000 (corporate). After the opening in April, membership fees will double.
“Members down in the club will have access not only to the Orchid House menu, but there will be exclusive items on the menu that will include oysters, caviar, some wagyu-beef options,” Hines said. “Some really cool stuff you don’t see at a lot of places.”
A members page will offer help from “Roxy,” an AI concierge, said D’Angelo, who said members will receive a monthly statement, so it’s more like a country-club payment method.
“It is a big expansion,” she said. “We spent the last year completely reworking Orchid House Winery from when we opened. We completely renovated the interior. We’ve got all new furniture; the rooms have all been redone. The menu is completely redone. And this downstairs space really takes it to a next level.”
In the end, she said, the No BS Club will be “unlike any other space you’ve been to.”
The Orchard House is at 155 Treat Road, Aurora. Sapphire Creek is at 16965 Park Circle Dr., Chagrin Falls, six miles to the north.
Here’s the view from The Vue in Wadsworth: Themed menu in cool space (photos)
SCHEDULED for 5:30 a.m. Monday, March 11, in ENTERTAINMENT
WADSWORTH, Ohio – Walk into The Vue, and the first thing you’ll notice about the restaurant’s ambiance is, well, its view.
That’s what caught the eye of Anthony Scolaro, who opened the Wadsworth restaurant in November. Scolaro, who owns 111 Bistro in Medina, owns The Vue with his business partner, Brian Dolgowicz.
Scolaro wasn’t actively looking to expand. One day he and Dolgowicz and their wives had drinks, relaxing on a night off. The next day Scolaro got a call out of the blue from a contact at the city.
“He said, ‘Hey, just reaching out, I know you have a place, you live here in Wadsworth, would you be willing to walk around with me downtown? I’ll show you a few things, get your ideas.’ It was more of a consulting basis - ‘Hey, let me pick your brain.’ ”
As they sauntered through the Medina County city he told Scolaro, “Oh, by the way, there’s some empty places here. Would you ever be interested?’ ”
“At the time I wasn’t,” he said. “But Brian and I had just had that conversation. I called him up. I said ‘Brian, it was so weird, I just got a call from the city.’ ”
Scolaro remembered the first time he saw the space, at High Street and Ohio 94, it “looked nothing like it is now. But the potential was there.”
He added: “I never had the intention to do this,” but saw the spacious windows that offer a wide-open view.
“It was beautiful,” he said.
A small, red clocktower stands a few feet from the restaurant. At night the trees are lit, he said. The wall of windows offers a transparent expanse, on a smaller scale but similar to Blue Point Grille’s nice downtown Cleveland view of the Terminal Tower at night, or the former Bricco in the heart of downtown Akron, another corner location.
The city offered a $75,000 grant, “and the rest was history,” Scolaro said.
They did a complete demolition on the space, which previously held a Spectrum location. It has been several things but never a restaurant, he said. They had booths and tables made.
“It’s historical,” said Scolaro, who said the building dates to 1905. “We wanted to bring it back to what it was.”
The quaint space is about 1,750 square feet but has a good-sized bar.
“We wanted to make an impact with that,” he said. “People love eating at the bar.”
It’s lined underneath with classic, solid bar-rail brass Scolaro bought at auction from the defunct Karl’s Inn of the Barristers in Cleveland.
“You can’t find brass like that anymore,” he said. “It’s cool to have a piece of that history.”
Scolaro’s own history is rooted in Medina and Summit counties. He studied culinary arts at the University of Akron and has lived in Wadsworth since 2008. He is careful to keep separate identities for his two restaurants.
“I wanted to think of a way to use menus differently here, that we aren’t overlapping,” he said. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be hyper local. We can use seasonal ingredients in it, but I didn’t want to get stuck in that. Because that’s what we do (at 111 Bistro).”
For a brief period, Scolaro owned Trio in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood. It didn’t work out, but 111 Bistro has been steady.
“We have a good reputation that we can glean from there to really bring confidence for customers to know it’s not our first rodeo - we know what we’re doing, we’re here for a reason,” he said.
Soon, The Vue will sub its themed menu, from “comfort” to “delicate,” emphasizing micro-seasonal ingredients this spring like asparagus and strawberries. Whatever the approach, the menu will stay focused. Don’t expect massive options under multiple headings.
“The average customer comes in once a month or once every few weeks. They’re going to have enough time to taste what they want to taste, then you’ll change again. It’s never going to get stagnant,” Scolaro said.
“There’s always something new to look for, there’s always something new to try. And that’s what we’re going for.”
Appetizers include deviled egg, pasta fagioli, biscuit and gravy, hummus and beet salad. Entrees cover a small gamut: Meatloaf, lamb cassoulet, lobster mac, beef osso buco and others. A trio of desserts rounds out the menu and includes PB&J – peanut-butter bread pudding and grape sauce.
While he says he didn’t want to “reinvent the wheel” with the wine list, he does have a few off-the-beaten path varietals and offerings, like a Gavi by the glass. He admits Old World wines can be tough to sell, because people are not familiar with them, but he said Gavi – a crisp white wine – sells well.
“If you’re into Sauvignon Blanc or you’re into Pinot Grigio, it’s the blend of the best of both worlds,” he said. “Some of these Italian whites are just beautiful.”
Four tap handles are all craft-focused, with a pair of India Pale Ales, Kolsch and a seasonal, plus a good variety of cans.
“The room is oddly similar to 111 in that it is narrow and long,” he said, referring to his first restaurant, which sits about 11 miles to the north of The Vue and which marks its 10th anniversary this year. “We wanted to create a different vibe here. We’re close enough to each that I don’t want to cannibalize my business. There’s nothing like this here. This town needed something, desperate for any kind of full-service restaurant that actually cooked.”
The city took to The Vue immediately, he said. The first few months the restaurant was reservation-only.
“We couldn’t take walk-ins. It was a good problem to have,” he said, saying now the place is drawing from surrounding areas, and it doesn’t hurt that it sits near a main drag – Ohio 94. And maintaining 111 Bistro is helping with folks in Wadsworth.
“Having that background in Medina makes a big difference,” he said. “You’re the new kid, but they know you. It makes me feel a lot better.”
Scolaro has been busy but says he’s “super lucky” with his quality staffs; he has more than 50 employees between both places.
“This is part of my life now where I’m learning to let go a little bit, which is hard. For two months I wasn’t at 111. I was on the line here.”
Dolgowicz remains happy about The Vue’s direction.
“I love it, definitely excited. It’s going well,” said Dolgowicz, who has a corporate-manager background and has worked previously for Quaker Steak & Lube and Mike Mariola Restaurants, which run The Rail. He said he has worked as a dishwasher all the way up to regional manager. “We were neighbors and both molded by the same business.”
Scolaro’s cooking and guidance at 111 Bistro has been consistent, and he has hit the ground running in Wadsworth. The future is steady for now.
“We’ll let these kind of go for a minute,” he said. “I’ve got to do something Italian at some point.”
Besides, he added, “It’s not like I’m retiring any time soon.”