Van Aken in Detail

Jstyle shines a light on some more Van Aken District businesses – many of which are new to the area or have Jewish connections

Adun Spice Company

Within Van Aken District’s Market Hall is a new spice and cooking shop, Adun Spice Company, founded and owned by chef Ramat Wiley.

Adun is a curated shop of single spices, artisanal pantry items and spice blends developed by Wiley and based on her own cooking.

The concept for Adun came to Wiley during the COVID-19 pandemic, when her culinary work paused and she had free time to explore an area she’d been interested in – spices. She graduated from Cuyahoga Community College’s culinary program in 2016 and has worked in non-traditional culinary jobs, such as food styling and cooking for private events.

“I’ve always loved spice shops,” she says. “Everywhere I travel, I look for di erent spice shops just to see what people in di erent areas are gravitating toward (and) cooking. Every region is di erent in what their everyday staples are.”

She decided to start Adun based on nine blends, herbs and salts “curated based on how I cook,” she explains. Beginning as a pop-up and online shop in early 2021, she opened the store at Van Aken in February of this year.

“I literally cook all di erent types of ways, and I think having that knowledge helped me be able to talk to di erent people about things that they want to cook,” Wiley says.

Adun’s citrus garlic is its bestseller – “That’s kind of like the blend that started it all,” says Wiley, noting it’s good on nearly everything, including chicken, vegetables and seafood. Its golden milk is a drink blend of warm spices centering on turmeric as well as cinnamon, ginger, black pepper and cardamom. It can be blended warm with plant-based milk and a sweetener, or as a cold drink over ice or blended. The avors also go well with ice cream, oatmeal and cereal.

Adun’s single spices can also ll in pantry holes. Wiley says, “We have a variety of things you can’t normally nd in traditional grocery stores – things you nd in cookbooks that you are like, ‘where the heck do I get that at?’”

- Amanda Koehn

Ramat Wiley in her Adun Spice Company. Photo / Amanda Koehn

The Rice Shop + Lox, Stock & Brisket

You could say that to chef Anthony Zappola, small and complex are beautiful. Zappola, the award-winning chef/owner of The Rice Shop and Lox, Stock & Brisket Delicatessen at the Van Aken District, uses a similar approach to the menu at his two restaurants.

With a short, focused menu, each relies on a strong, singular theme or concept. And each has a limited menu: The Rice Shop has just six items, with dishes like Mochiko Chicken, Kentucky Fried Fish, Steak Fried Rice and Tuna Poke.

Emphasis is on avorful sauces – such as yum yum, sambal sour cream and mostly cold sides like cabbage slaw and sesame salad. The concept, Zappola says, was to use American cooking technique and to add Asian avors. Specials include straight-up Asian favorites such as won ton soup and egg rolls.

Lox, Stock & Brisket’s menu includes just seven classic, and slightly reimagined, sandwiches. For example, the Lincoln Park, #2 has chicken schnitzel and features hot sauce aioli. Sides include matzo ball soup, potato salad and slaw.

The menu also includes four breakfast sandwiches. Most include scrambled eggs. And the Ridge Lane – lox, cream cheese, cucumbers, dill and red onion on a bagel – makes an appearance on both breakfast and lunch menus. The singular breakfast side o ering is home fries.

The menu also includes quotations from actor Adam Driver, and this one from actor Michael J. Fox: “I’m going to marry a Jewish woman because I like the idea of getting up Sunday morning and going to the deli.”

Zappola speaks of a similarity between top favorites on each menu, Kentucky Fried Fish from The Rice Shop and the Lincoln Park from Lox, Stock & Brisket.

“The sauce is the same, the spices that we use, the chicken spices in the our are the same,” Zappola tells Jstyle. “Both have coleslaw (and) one has pickles and one has like a sh sauce vinaigrette, but they both use cabbage. And then obviously one has rice and one has bread.”

Cleveland native Zappola worked in New York, Dallas and Las Vegas, where he opened The Rice Shop to rave reviews, according to The Rice Shop’s website. In 2018, he sold The Rice Shop in Vegas to return to Cleveland and open The Rice Shop, located at 3403 Tuttle Road, and Lox, Stock & Brisket, which had its rst location in University Heights in 2018 before moving inside Van Aken’s Market Hall in 2020.

The Ridge Lane from Lox, Stock & Brisket, which is lox, cream cheese, cucumbers, dill and red onion on a bagel. Jstyle photo

- Jane Kaufman

To read more about Lox, Stock & Brisket from when it rst opened in 2018, visit jstylemagazine.com/delicatessen-duality

Luster

In December 2018, friends Tamar Brecher and Robin McCann opened Luster gift boutique in the Van Aken Market Hall with the mission of localizing unique gifts

“We started to talk about how every time we travel to other places, other cities, we would see cool things and cool stores, pieces that we wouldn’t nd in Cleveland, and so we felt like there was a need for a new gift boutique,” McCann says. “We felt like the Van Aken District was a perfect home for us.”

Luster’s merchandise is what sets it apart, she says.

“We really do try to shop for things that are di erent, that you don’t see around,” she says. “We don’t take ourselves too seriously, we really just like to have fun. So, when we see things that either make us smile or make us laugh or just seem sort of o -beat, we like to include them in the store.”

Brecher and McCann met at the Joseph and Florence Mandel Jewish Day School when their children attended school there. Brecher’s family attends Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights and Pepper Pike, and McCann’s family attends The Temple-Tifereth Israel in Beachwood, McCann says.

“We have a unique bond, Tamar and I, in that we met volunteering at kids’ day school and we found that we worked well together, and that’s sort of what started our friendship and our working relationship,” McCann says.

Luster likes to give back to the Jewish community as much as it can, McCann adds.

“We’ve done collaborations with (the Jewish) Federation (of Cleveland), with Park Synagogue, with Temple-Tifereth and with Mandel Jewish Day School, and we feel really proud about that,” McCann says

Luster is at 3441 Tuttle Road in Shaker Heights.

Earrings from Marlyn Schi at Luster are designed with two small huggie hoops, pave stones and a connecting chain. Photo / Luster - Meghan Walsh

SLFMKR

When Kait Turshen decided to open SLFMKR, a curated clean beauty and selfcare shop at the Van Aken District in Shaker Heights in 2020, it was because it was something she wanted and needed but did not exist.

“I started my journey of clean while living in New York and found myself bouncing from store to store on the weekend to pick up various clean beauty and self-care items I was using at the time,” she says. “The errands were endless. When I moved to Cleveland in 2018, I was then relying on either ordering most of my personal care items online or picking them up on trips while back in New York.”

Realizing she couldn’t be the only Clevelander having this problem, she took to the drawing board – and SLFMKR was born. But why Van Aken District? Turshen says the area “immediately felt like home.”

“We found ourselves driving across town frequently to spend time at Van Aken,” she recalls. “Eventually, we moved to Shaker Heights and found ourselves eating at Van Aken nightly during our kitchen renovation. When the (COVID-19) pandemic hit and we were still in lockdown, I often biked to Van Aken with our daughter as an outing and I would envision SLFMKR there each trip.”

Now two years into the business, Turshen says SLFMKR is unique due to its “incredibly personal, individualized approach” to clean beauty and self-care.

“We are more than just another beauty store,” she says. “Our team is trained to go beyond a sales associate role but rather help to curate an individualized approach for every customer, skincare concern and selfcare goal.”

For those rst-time visitors to SLFMKR, Turshen says don’t be afraid to explore – that’s what being self-made is all about.

“We believe in rede ning the concept of what it means to be self-made in today’s society,” she says. “Rather than being de ned by your wealth, celebrity, social status or even social media following, we believe that being self-made is to achieve success in your personal health and well-being.”

SLFMKR is at 20146 Walker Road.

Photo / SLFMKR

- Becky Raspe

Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming

From nutritional counseling and birthday cakes for dogs to grooming services for cats, Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming Van Aken o ers a bevy of treats for Fido and Kitty.

With more than 100 brands of foods and therapies, the store o ers several di erent kinds of grooming, including blueberry facials for both canines and felines. Sta will brush teeth for dogs, groom puppies, do a mini-grooming, luxury bath or a full-service grooming, which includes the luxury bath, blow dry, brush out, nail trim, ear-cleaning and all-over cut.

Among the raw, frozen and dry pet food brands the bakery carries are Fromm, Orijen, Primal and Zignature. It has grain-free food, food toppers, puppy and senior food, and bone broths.

In addition, the store has food and water bowls, feeders and waterers, collapsible pet bowls and leashes – all for dogs.

Joe Gilk, who owns the Van Aken location with his wife, Natalee, says the store opened in December 2019, two months before the COVID-19 pandemic made landfall in the United States.

“It’s a great area,” Gilk says. “The people of Shaker let us survive.”

Gilk says the companies that make the foods o ered at Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming are all family-owned businesses.

“They’re not owned by big companies,” he says. “Dog food’s the only thing they sell, so that’s their main priority.”

Gilk, who describes himself as a dog lover, says one of the most popular items is called chicken chips, which is made from chicken tenderloin.

The store also has a full line of treats, including dental treats, no-hide chews and homemade ones.

Dog toys include chew, plush, interactive and squeaky, as well as life vests, coats and jackets. The shop’s team advises customers on choices of dog food or cat food for their pet of any age or breed, and o ers nutritional assessments.

Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming is at 20075 Chagrin Blvd.

Photo / Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming