VOL. 39, NO. 4
JANUARY 22 - 28, 2018
Source Lunch
Akron Family restaurant is influential gathering spot. Page 40
CLEVELAND BUSINESS
Suzanne DeGaetano, Mac’s Backs-Books co-owner Page 43
The List Largest commercial property sales Page 38 SPORTS BUSINESS
Indians climbing revenue rankings
INDUSTRY OUTLOOK: FOOD AND DRINK
Should it be such a waste?
By KEVIN KLEPS kkleps@crain.com @KevinKleps
Urban Farmer general manager Andy Hata is a strong advocate for effective recycling efforts. Here, he harvests chilies from a hot pepper plant cultivated in a basement grow tent at the Westin Cleveland Downtown. (Peggy Turbett for Crain’s)
Making the most of their trash can be a daunting task for restaurant operators By JOE CREA clbfreelancer@crain.com
An average American discards 4.4 pounds of trash every day, or 1,606 pounds per year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That means an average family — statistically, around three people — throws away 90 pounds of trash each week. Care to guess how much of an average hotel or restaurant’s waste ends up in landfills? Andy Hata, general manager for Urban Farmer restaurant, part of the Westin Hotel Cleveland in down-
town’s Civic Center district, helped orchestrate an audit of the amount of waste produced by the 22-story, 484room high-rise. “We discard 584,000 pounds per year, for the entire hotel property, including food service,” Hata said. That includes everything from kitchen trimmings, broken glassware, cans, paper and plastic products, wine bottles and mixed garbage, he said. “It’s damning because of what we could do with all that waste. And damning because why haven’t we already done anything?” Hata asked. Others ask the same, or similar, questions.
Taking their concerns to court Northeast Ohio cities continue their battle with the state over the collection of net profits taxes. Page 4
Inside: Focus Nighttown remains a gem. Page 9 Distillers take shot at success. Page 9 Craft beer market is packed. Page 10
A quick survey of a half-dozen popular Cleveland-area restaurants provides a simple summation of stumbling blocks and mostly unsuccessful attempts at salvage and recycle efforts. “We did compost for a while, and one of my employees took it home for her big farm,” said Dante Boccuzzi, chef-owner of Dante in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood and several
SEE WASTE, PAGE 12
SEE INDIANS, PAGE 39
REAL ESTATE
Higley’s move is ‘1,300 feet’ By STAN BULLARD
Entire contents © 2018 by Crain Communications Inc.
other Northeast Ohio restaurants. That worker eventually moved on. Boccuzzi said his staff can separate materials into various bins, but other issues quickly arise. “In the winter it’s not so bad, but in summer vermin is a huge issue. We would gladly do it — but there’s no system in place,” he said. “We would separate the glass and stuff, but nobody picks it up. They don’t have that system in place in Cleveland.” Paul Minnillo, owner of Flour Restaurant in Moreland Hills, said he’s a big advocate of recycling who’s wanted to get more of his restaurant’s waste recycled “from Day 1.”
Coming off consecutive playoff appearances, and with an average of 98 wins per season the last two years, the Cleveland Indians are well above the norm in Major League Baseball. From a revenue standpoint, the Tribe is closing in on the middle of the pack. And in this case, average is pretty darn good. In 2014, Brian Barren’s first year on the job, the Indians were in “the bottom third of the bottom third” among the 30 MLB clubs in revenue. It was then that Barren Barren, now the Indians’ president of business operations, developed the “15 and 5 battle cry,” which was his plan to get the Indians to 15th in baseball in the organization’s key business metrics within five years. Making significant improvements in three crucial revenue segments — tickets, premium suites and corporate partnerships — creates “as much flexibility as possible for our baseball operations team and our ownership to field a competitive baseball team,” Barren said. The business side’s plan got a huge jolt from the Indians’ surprise run to the 2016 World Series.
sbullard@crain.com @CrainRltywriter
Black and white photos of significant buildings long part of Northeast Ohio's landscape, such as the landmark art deco former U.S. Coast Guard station at the Cuyahoga River’s mouth, line the south wall in a conference room at the Albert M. Higley Co.’s main office at 2926 Chester Ave.
Through a glass partition in the conference room, a north wall is covered with color photos of recent projects such as Eaton Corp.’s North American headquarters campus in Beachwood. They are a reflection of past and present at the general contractor and construction management company that has completed about 12,000 projects — both big and little and primarily in Northeast Ohio — since it was started in 1925. It was launched by the
grandfather of its current chairman, Bruce Higley, who succeeded his father, the late Albert M. Higley Jr., in the role in 2008, after serving years in various roles since 1984. However, for all its legacy, this outfit is focused on its future. It is undertaking sweeping moves — physically, with a new headquarters, and marketwise, with a just-opened Detroit office — that follow an internal updating of the organization.
SEE HIGLEY, PAGE 39