OUT AND ABOUT

CLEVELAND CLINIC CHILDREN’S DERBY DAY SOIREE | 2022 CLEVELAND MAGAZINE SILVER SPOON AWARDS |

May 7, 2022 Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland May 18, 2022 Cleveland Marriott Downtown at Key Tower

THE INAUGURAL Cleveland Clinic Children’s Derby Day Soiree raised more than $2.1 million to help support lifesaving programs and advance pediatric research, which is critical to promoting health, training caregivers and transforming patient care for the future. The Derby Day Soiree’s presenting partners were recognized during the event and included the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Scala Family Foundation and Cleveland Superstars.

1) Chair emeritus Umberto P. Fedeli with his wife,

Maryellen, and family 2) Eritha Payne-Cisco and Andre Cisco 3) James Beardsley with his mom, Doris Beardsley 4) Beau and Blair Hollowell and Shelby and

Zachary Siegal

1) Caren Nakhooda, Azim Nakhooda, Kris Snyder and

Courtney Durbin 2) Brandon Chrostowski, Dante Boccuzzi, Jill Vedaa and Douglas Katz 3) Jen Toohey, Matt Hribar and Tim Richards 4) Rachelle Murphy, Bryan Tetorakis, Mark Kawada,

Brad Race and Dillon Stewart

SILVER SPOON AWARDS was an exciting multi-course culinary experience to benefit the Arthritis Foundation. Four Cleveland chefs came together to create a collaborative dinner extravaganza: Brandon E. Chrostowski of Edwin’s Leadership & Restaurant Institute; Dante Boccuzzi of Dante, Ginko and Goma; Doug Katz of Zhug, Chimi and Amba; and Jill Vedaa of Salt+. Guests enjoyed a red carpet arrival, chef Q&A panel and live auctions.

CELEBRATE150: A SESQUICENTENNIAL

GALA FOR URSULINE COLLEGE | April 30, 2022 Cleveland Museum of Art’s Ames Family Atrium

POSTPONED FOR A YEAR due to the pandemic, Celebrate150 was the joyous culmination of a year of celebrating Ursuline’s sesquicentennial. Attended by over 400 people — including Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb — the event featured an 11-piece band called the Orchestra and artist Eileen Dorsey painting the event in real time. Ursuline president sister Christine De Vinne gave a brief historical overview to showcase the spirit of the school.

1) Charlene Nichols and her son Cleveland

Mayor Justin M. Bibb 2) 150th anniversary co-chairs Denise San Antonio Zeman and Sister Anne Marie 3) Carolyn Flint and Paloma DeFreeze 4) Jodi Capuiso Olivo, Dennis Olivo and Emily Caswall Devey

THE LAND LAY OF

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NIVA HITS A HIGH NOTE IN THE CLE

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CAN LEE WEINGART ACTUALLY WIN?

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FE S T I V AL

BLAZE THE WAY

GALLIVANTING WITH GERALDO

MORE THAN 700 kayak, canoe and stand-up paddleboarding enthusiasts are expected for the fourth annual Blazing Paddles Paddlefest July 23. The 2-, 5.4- and 13-mile races, as well as the 8.6-mile recreational course, will pass under an arc of water pumped from the same fireboat that doused the flames when the Cuyahoga River famously caught on fire in 1969, symbolizing how Cleveland has become a poster child for environmental recovery in the last 50 years. “We have an opportunity to continue the national conversation,” says Jim Ridge, event organizer and founder of Share the River. "Clean water is not a drag on the economy; it serves as an economic driver, and it’s a way to attract people here. We see that in the rise of waterfront development along the Cuyahoga River. People want to work and play here.” sharetheriver.com

MUSIC

Stages Reunited

The National Independent Venue Association honors Cleveland with three days of live music, education and community building at its first annual conference.

IN 2008, SEAN WATTERSON, along with his late partner Sean Kilbane, opened Happy Dog as a way to reconnect with Cleveland. At the time, Watterson worked for a bank and had previously fought terrorism and money laundering for the federal goverment.

Twelve years later, that political and financial expertise proved vital to saving Happy Dog, Cleveland’s other independent venues and countless stages across the nation.

Mere weeks after the pandemic shutdown in March 2020, hundreds of venue owners nationwide — including Watterson, Cindy Barber of the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern and Kathy Blackman of the Grog Shop — formed the National Independent Venue Association. With Watterson leading the Ohio precinct, NIVA’s chief purpose was to lobby Congress for federal aid — a goal achieved by the $16 billion Shuttered Venues Operators Grant in 2020.

Now, two years later, the association honors Cleveland with its first annual conference July 11-12, which kicks off with a pre-party at the Beachland on July 10. The event boasts a bevy of live performances and panels, serving to strengthen ties with the community and between members. It marks the first time many of them, even the most instrumental, have come face to face.

NIVA co-founder and executive director Rev. Moose, known for his work with the New York-based creative marketing firm Marauder, says the conference lets NIVA members connect, share ideas and celebrate their accomplishments.

“It’s our people,” says Moose. “These are our people, and we should come together much like a family reunion.”

Cleveland’s experience providing hospitality during big events such as the NBA All-Star Weekend made the location a no-brainer. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s kindness and support was also a pull, says Moose, especially after it invited a couple dozen NIVA members to the 2021 induction ceremony and gave them a shoutout during the event.

The city's arts community also has a rich history of lobbying for its grassroots music venues. In 2011, though on a much smaller scale, the owners of Northeast Ohio’s independent clubs, concert halls and music-hosting dive bars banded together as the Cleveland Music Club Coalition to successfully lobby the city to lower harmful admissions taxes.

“That put us in a great position when the pandemic hit,” says Watterson. “The Cleveland clubs already had some muscle memory from when we were fighting that admissions tax battle.”

During the upcoming conference, Beachland, the Rock Hall, Grog Shop, Music Box Supper Club and Pickwick & Frolic are all set to host curated panels with industry experts, specialized educational sessions and NIVA’s debut awards ceremony at the Rock Hall. Oregon Space Trail of Doom, Daisha McBride, Discord Theory, The Cavves, The Babylonz and other bands are scheduled to perform at the Happy Dog during both nights of the conference.

With hopes of solidifying itself as a long-term force, NIVA has re-envisioned its goals to go beyond just relief from pandemic-related hardships. Soon, the group hopes to offer support to those affected by natural disasters or future public health crises, provide access to health insurance plans through its new NIVA Care initiative and launch a workforce development program designed to train qualified professionals for music industry jobs.

While COVID was a catalyst for NIVA, says Moose, the need for this kind of support was always there.

“[Independent venues] are truly the anchors of the communities,” Moose says. “Yes, the music, development, arts and culture are important, but the community itself is what drives all of those other elements. The independent sector launches tomorrow’s superstars.” nivassoc.org

4THE RITZ- CARLTON Set against the backdrop of Lake Erie, The Ritz-Carlton, offers luxury accommodations, elevated amenities, and locally inspired cuisine in the heart of downtown Cleveland. ritzcarlton.com/cleveland6 5 VISIT CANTON The ultimate destination for football fans is a road trip away! Head to Canton for legendary experiences in the Hall of Fame City. 800-552-6051 // visitcanton.com

1THE LODGE AT GENEVA-ON-THE-LAKE Summer is bright in Ohio’s first resort town. Tour wineries and unwind at our lakeside resort and private cottages just an hour from Cleveland. 866 806-8066 // thelodgeatgeneva.com 6 VISIT HAGERSTOWN, MARYLAND Our Civil War history, 5 National Parks, family friendly attractions, shopping & dining make for an epic adventure. 301-791-3246 // visithagerstown.com

2LAKE COUNTY The Grand River Valley, Ohio’s Wine Country, features 30+ award-winning wineries and new, beautiful hotels with wine shuttles making it a perfect summer getaway! 440-975-1234 // mylakeoh.com

3SUMMER IN OHIO! Find thrills at an amusement park, hop in the car for a road trip to one of Ohio’s Inviting Regions, or explore Ohio’s Adventure Trails. Wherever your adventures take you, you’ll find it here in Ohio. 1-800-BUCKEYE // ohio.org GREAT ROAD TRIPS TO TAKE THIS SUMMER! PHOTO BY: TAMMY MCCORKLE

Dan Spencer Sr.

LIFE LESSONS

Suds No More

After six decades on the corner of Pearl and Brookpark roads, car wash owner Dan Spencer Sr. shares stories of better (and wetter) days.

DAN SPENCER SR. KNOWS that if it weren’t for the pandemic, he would have made it to five million cars. The 83-year-old owner of the Pearl Brookpark Car Wash, Spencer made the tough decision to shut his doors in March after a breezy 57 years, selling the business to Rainforest, a Northeast Ohio chain. He was just 66,000 washes shy of the milestone.

I want my car as clean as it can be, and that’s what we always strove to do. I’m a car nut: I had a ’61 Corvette and a ’64 GTO, robin’s egg blue. So, I’m particular — I want the cars to be washed the way I’d want mine to be.

Nobody had money when we started. I told my wife back in ’61 when we got married, I told her, ‘Guess what? All the money we saved up for a house is going in the car wash!’

In 1966, we did 148,000 cars.

During COVID, we washed 63,000 (with just two washes in April 2020). Let’s just say we got beat up pretty good.

One of my problems was people would come into the car wash and steal my help. They’d say, ‘Hey, Dan. You know, how’s that boy out there?’ Two, three weeks later, the kid’s gone. Back then, everybody wanted to work. Today? I don’t know what happened. We still have customers who bring us free pizza or boxes of donuts for the whole crew.

Today, all these are outside-

only car washes. You pull in, you stay in your car, you go out — see ya! Nobody wipes them off, nobody vacuums them. You want to vacuum? ‘There’s some vacuums out there, go use them!’

I sound like I talk a lot, but normally don’t. I could never get up and give a speech. I’d just hate it. Being in this business, the way I could talk to customers — I’d be out wiping down a car and see a racket or a golf bag. ‘Hey, how’s your golf game going?’ And boy, they’d just go on and on about their golf game.

I still get here every morning at 8:30. Why? I don’t know. Because I get up; I got to do it. I can’t stay home. I’m actually trying to talk Rainforest into maybe letting me keep the detail shop out back. Maybe just fiddling around with cars, wax one here or there, you know?

POLITICS

Seeing Red?

Republican Lee Weingart claims he’s in a close race against Chris Ronayne for county executive. Can he break the local GOP losing streak?

IT’S BEEN MORE THAN 25 YEARS since a Republican has held an executive-level position in Cuyahoga County. That Republican was Lee Weingart — and he’s on the ballot again, facing off against Democrat Chris Ronayne in November to become the next Cuyahoga County executive.

“It’s an uphill battle,” Weingart says. “But there is so much frustration in county government that I believe voters are open to a different approach."

Weingart says he's analyzed how we compare to five other Midwestern counties about our size — and the results aren’t

Chris Ronayne Lee Weingart

Top Issues We asked both candidates to rank their five priorities if elected.

Democrat Chris Ronayne 1. Reduce gun violence and increase equitable justice. 2. Improve access to health care and affordable housing. 3. Strengthen health and human services for those in need. 4. Leverage our strengths to bring new jobs, support small businesses and grow our workforce. 5. Make county government more accountable and effective. Republican Lee Weingart 1. Freeze property taxes for seniors on fixed incomes. 2. Promote urban investment to create 10,000 private homes, 4,000 jobs and 250 small businesses. 3. Oppose $600 million jail and $1 billion Justice Center. 4. Sell the Hilton Cleveland Downtown and the Global Center for Health Innovation. 5. End corruption and bring back vision to county government. good. “Even though we have the biggest county government and biggest county budget, Cuyahoga County is among the poorest, the hungriest, the most unemployed, the most segregated and the least safe,” he says. “We finished last in everything we want to be first in.”

Weingart, 56, was appointed Cuyahoga County commissioner in 1995 at age 28. After losing his election bid to stay in office in 1996, he started a consulting company, LNE Group, which lobbies the U.S. government. His two decades of experience behind the scenes contrast with Ronayne’s very public roles in Cleveland.

Ronayne, 53, served as Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell’s planning director and chief of staff in the early 2000s before becoming University Circle Inc.’s leader in 2005 — a post he stepped down from in 2021 to campaign for county executive.

Both sport silver hair, ready smiles and family backgrounds (Ronayne has two children; Weingart has three). Neither has ever won an elected office.

So does Weingart, or any Republican, actually have a shot at holding a major office in Cuyahoga County?

“You’re asking a guy who lost this race, you understand?” says Cuyahoga County councilman Jack Schron with a hearty laugh, referencing his failed campaign against Armond Budish for county executive in 2014. “But I do think [Weingart] has a chance, absolutely.”

Weingart says his campaign’s internal polling, by the Columbus-based Strategy Group, shows a one-point race.

“We don’t discuss polling data," replies Ronayne’s campaign manager, David Razum, "but we’re very happy where we are."

Ronayne does admit he has a head start.

“Parties matter and, of course, candidates with Democratic party values have an advantage in Cuyahoga County,” Ronayne says. “Cuyahoga County deserves a leader with vision, experience, and integrity, who puts the people first, and that’s why we’re going to win.”

As of mid-June, Cuyahoga County has 93,893 registered Republican voters, compared to 203,676 Democrats and 577,857 independents, according to the county Board of Elections. “This race should not be political,” says Schron. “If you ask the populace, they would want whoever is best qualified.”

MUSEUMS

Abolitionist Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art just acquired a powerful new sculpture that speaks to both the past and the present.

In April, the Cleveland Museum of Art announced it had acquired Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s Why Born Enslaved!, a major work of 19th century French sculpture. Evidence indicates that the polychromed plaster served as the master model for other versions, which are in the collections of museums in the U.S. and Europe. Why Born Enslaved! made its debut to the public on June 6 and is displayed together with other masterworks of European painting and sculpture in a gallery near the rotunda of the 1916 building. The piece comes to Cleveland as museums continue to figure out how to be stewards of art but also sanctuaries for social justice.

William Robinson, the museum’s senior curator of modern art, recently spoke with us about the impact he hopes the piece will have in its new hometown.

Q. What’s the first thing to know about Why Born Enslaved!?

A. It’s one of the most powerful expressions of abolitionist visual art. Carpeaux was the most important French sculptor of the mid-19th century, during the reign of Napoleon III.

Q. What does the sculpture depict?

A. It depicts an enslaved woman of African descent who is bound by ropes. Her blouse is ripped apart, which signifies the violence of her condition. Yet, she looks upward with this look of absolute defiance. It’s in that expression that we get a sense of the artist’s intent to make it a protest against the abominable practice of slavery.

Q. Why is it an important acquisition?

A. There are two reasons. First, it’s a stunningly beautiful work of art that adds a masterpiece to our already extraordinary collection. The second is the context of the work and how it resonates with issues of social justice today. This unnamed model became a living embodiment of enslavement. It speaks to the history of slavery and allows us to recenter how we look at the past and how we interpret images and power imbalances.

Q. How does the museum plan to integrate it into its collection?

A. We want to bring in community voices to give us their interpretation of it and create a dialogue. We envision programs dedicated to families and audiences at all levels. We think the sculpture is a bridge to dialogue about the depiction of slavery, colonialism and the representation of Black women and what it means to have an unnamed woman who has been enslaved be depicted by a white male artist of some privilege. There is another version of this sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. They currently have a small exhibition centered around it that gives you a sense of how the sculpture touches people.

Q. Are you concerned about the reaction?

A. The piece will invite sometimes painful discussions, but I think that’s going to lead to considerable reflection on not just the history of slavery but on the power of art. The conversations are going to be productive. I’m not fearful of them at all.

PERSONALITY

The Summer of Geraldo

After giving up his Cleveland radio show, the famous news anchor has a bit more free time on his hands — and he knows exactly how to use it.

This spring, Geraldo Rivera announced he would no longer be doing his show, Geraldo in Cleveland, on WTAM, citing increased duties with Fox News, particularly his role as one of the hosts on The Five. But it’s not a complete breakup with Northeast Ohio. Rivera still lives in Shaker Heights with his wife, Erica, and their daughter, Solita (a sophomore at Hawken School). “We’ve become Clevelanders,” he says.

First impression: Rivera’s first real exposure to Cleveland came in the early 1980s, while he was a reporter for 20/20. A story he did on Summit County Probate Judge James V. Barbuto sparked a $20 million lawsuit (it was settled out of court). “Everyone sued me, and I was in federal court in what seemed to be the coldest winter ever,” he recalls. “I had a very grim exposure to Cleveland. Fortunately, it’s gotten better since.”

Getting out of the house: During the pandemic, Rivera hosted radio shows from his den and recorded TV appearances at home, as well. But since then, things have opened up, and he’s spending more time in New York — a small price to pay for having the most-watched show on cable television. “I never expected to have a hit show this late in life,” he says. “I think I’m the only 79-year-old who ever signed a new three-year contract.”

Lengthy commute: Rivera spends at least three days a week in New York City for his work on Fox News but the TV personality says he can get from the studio to his Shaker Heights home in four hours — when everything goes right. “I get a knot in my stomach when I have to travel and I see it’s raining.”

Coming home: Erica, who briefly joined the interview, says she used the lake to sell Rivera on the move to her hometown. “My dad took Geraldo around Bratenahl, and he fell in love with the waterfront,” she says. “My parents were concerned it was so far from their home, but my mother said, ‘It’s closer than New York City.’”

Bucolic splendor: Their home in Shaker Heights is just 2 miles from the Cleveland city limits, but Rivera marvels at its pastoral setting. “Right next to us, we have what amounts to the Hundred Acre Wood,” he says, referencing the fabled landscape in Winnie-the-Pooh. “We’re rich with critters. We have hawks, all kinds of deer and I can hear coyotes at night.”

An avid yachtsman: Rivera has a 36foot Hinckley picnic boat (they’re made in Maine), which he keeps docked at the Shoreby Club in Bratenahl. He takes it out regularly, having traveled to Mackinac Island, Buffalo and Detroit, and loves living on the Great Lakes. “Lake Erie is hugely underrated. It’s kind of shocking that more people don’t take advantage of it.”

Hopping on the bandwagon:

Rivera and his family made the move to Shaker Heights in 2017, and even though he’s a native New Yorker, he’s warmed to Cleveland’s sports teams. Of course, it didn’t hurt that both the Guardians and Cavs were having great seasons. But it’s not hard for him to root for the Browns either. “I do love an underdog,” he says. “I really thought it was the dawn of a new era when Baker Mayfield was drafted.”

A busy social cal-

endar: He and Erica have at least one social engagement every weekend. They’re not big on cooking, he says, so they like to go places like The Fairmount in Cleveland Heights or Sara’s Place in Gates Mills. If they’re entertaining someone from out of town, they might take them to the Marble Room downtown. “There’s a surprisingly rich restaurant scene,” he says.

Raising the bar: His tastes in restaurants may tend toward the upscale, but Rivera loves having a nightcap at the Harbor Inn in the Flats, which bills itself as Cleveland’s oldest dive bar. “It’s my favorite bar in America. Possibly the world.” Trump no longer speak, he understands the sway the 45th president still has. “I was friends with Trump for almost my whole adult life,” he says. “I knew him since the ’70s. He just really disappointed me with the rejection of the election, and he endangered the Constitution in a way that’s alarming to me.”

On the links: When Geraldo's not on the water, he can be found at the Shaker Heights Country Club — typically with his daughter. "I suck at golf, but she’s on the Hawken team, so I feel like it’s my duty as a father."

Best location in the nation: He’s heard all the jokes about Cleveland — and he doesn’t believe any of them. “Cleveland has an unfortunate inferiority complex. People almost anticipate some complaint about it. I have no complaints about Cleveland."

Rivera and his wife, Erica, on their 36-foot Hinckley picnic boat named Belle, which they dock in Bratenahl.

FEAST FORAGE &

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YUM VILLAGE'S DETROIT ROOTS

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AMBA'S SENSORY OVERLOAD

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DINING GUIDE: CLE BBQ JOINTS

TAS T E M A KER

ME VOY ENAMORANDO

PAOLA VALBUENA STUYVESANT watched the first Pulpo Brewing Co. beer flow off the tap in disbelief. “We’re really making beer,” the operational vice president and brewer remembers saying. “And it was a good one!” The Blonde Mamacita — a simple, refreshing blonde ale — was indeed good enough to serve as one of Pulpo’s flagship beers, along with the hazy Medusa pale ale and the Colombian coffee-and-Mexican vanilla-infused El Capoccino, when the brewery opened in Willoughby’s Hola Tacos/Barroco complex in 2020. Now with a little more confidence and the continued support of her sisters-in-law and general managers Jennifer StuyvesantOrtiz and Joane Stuyvesant, Valbuena Stuyvesant is ready to launch a standalone taproom in the former B Spot space in Crocker Park this month.

“Every time someone calls me a brewmaster, I get a little bit of a heartbeat," she says. "I feel like I don’t have the seniority to be called that.”

Indeed, Valbuena Stuyvesant had never brewed a single beer before — not at home as a hobbyist nor in another brewery as an employee.

Prior to Pulpo, Valbuena Stuyvesant earned a degree in chemical engineering and went to work for Pepsi. Working her way up through the lab and eventually to supervisor of the canning and bottling lines for sodas and water, she learned the chemistry behind a drink and the importance of sanitation, keeping everything perfectly pristine. When she’d get home, however, she’d dream with her sisters-inlaw of starting a family business, though they never thought of opening a brewery.

When Valbuena Stuyvesant’s brotherin-law Juan Vergara, owner of Hola Tacos, Barroco and now Pulpo found the former Brim Kitchen and Brewery building on Erie Street, a 10,000-square-foot space with a 10-barrel brewing system, it hit them: Paola basically knows how to brew.

“Well technically I don’t, but I can try,” she told them. To get up to speed, the Houston-based SpindleTap Brewery served as consultants on the project and local experts offered a helping hand. This year, John Hill came on from Ohio City’s Market Garden Brewery to advise Valbuena Stuyvesant as head brewer. “The idea of having something so unique caught my attention,” Valbuena Stuyvesant says.

Today, the brewery’s fruit-forward lineup of 14 ales, stouts, lagers and pilsners — many of which are inspired by house cocktails — is available in 20 different restaurants, mostly in Lake County. Hill says the company’s Willoughby production facility will run at full capacity upon the opening of the 4,000-square-foot brewpub in Westlake. The beers, including Tropic Thunder pina colada IPA, which earned a Best of Cleveland nod, are designed to withstand and complement Hola and Barroco’s spicy Latin flavors. The forthcoming Pulpo brewpub is also set to be a clash of cultures with a menu of Latin-American bar grub influenced by the type of cuisine the sisters enjoyed in their native Venezuela — just one of the ways the group hopes to honor its position as the state’s first female- and Latin-owned brewery.

“When people see pictures of Paola, they say, ‘She doesn’t look like a brewer,’ but we call her brewmaster because she is a master!” says Stuyvesant, who focuses on the hospitality and restaurant side of the business with her sister, StuyvesantOrtiz. “We’re proud to have a family business here in Willoughby and bring out the positive aspects of our culture.”

For those who failed Spanish, pulpo means octopus, an apt reference to the many tentacles of Vergara’s expanding empire of Latin hospitality. But for the sisters, the word really represents family — the bond at the heart of Pulpo Brewing Co. pulpobeerco.com

Paola Valbuena Stuyvesant and John Hill brew, while Joane Stuyvesant (left) handles hospitality.

5 Pulpo Beers to Try Here’s what to try first when you visit the brewery’s Willoughby or Crocker Park locations.

Blonde Mamacita (4.7% ABV) The brewery’s first-ever beer is a blonde ale with a sweet aroma and a dry finish.

El Capoccino (6.3% ABV) Infused with Cleveland's Rising Star Coffee Roasters, this smooth, robust coffee and vanilla blonde ale offers subtle nutty and sweet notes.

Funky Wit (5.4% ABV) A great summer sip, orange peel and coriander offer a bright, citrus nose with chamomile and wheat adding citrusy, oaty complexities in this Belgian witbier.

Mango-cita (6% ABV) This saison is made by fermenting a Blonde Mamacita with French saison yeast and finishing it with real mango to taste like a fruity cocktail.

Tropical Thunder IPA (6.5% ABV) This 2021 Best of Cleveland winner uses all fresh ingredients, including coconut flakes and pineapple, for pure beach vibes.

THE DISH

Maafe Life

With its first Cleveland location, YumVillage aims to be a model for Black businesses and popularize West African cuisine.

Like all pillars of world foods, West African cuisine has been morphed by time and travel. New World slaves mixed the obe ata red pepper sauce of Nigerian chili farmers with jollof rice from Senegal. Years later, saffron and Spanish rice, paired on plates with sugary yuca and coconut and aided by Jamaican jerked meats, eventually made their way to the 21st-century American restaurant.

These dishes also ended up in the childhood kitchen of Godwin Ihentuge, a Detroit native and professional chef who grew up immersed in this synthesis of Old and New World cooking.

“Everyone in my family had a chance to cook,” Godwin says. “When we went to college, I felt I was a ramen noodle master. I could make anything taste good.”

After years of working in the mortgage loan industry, Godwin in 2014 launched YumVillage, an Afro-Caribbean food truck based in Detroit and homage to the Nigerian diaspora. Two years later, he turned it into a brick-and-mortar spot just north of downtown Detroit near Wayne State University.

Takeout bowls with coconut rice and sweet yuca fries fly out of a counter-service kitchen defined by Afrobeats, chalk murals and vegan friendliness. In 2019, Godwin’s concept was named the area’s secondbest new eatery by the Detroit Free Press.

In February, Carasai Ihentuge and his wife, Amira, brought his brother’s concept to a 2,400-square-foot space on Chester Avenue in Cleveland State University’s Langston Building.

“It’s good food, not fast food,” Carasai says. “We’re kind of like Chipotle — but the West African version.”

But with aspirations to offer a $15-anhour wage, employee kickback programs

Carasai Ihentuge brings his brother's award-winning, fast-casual West African concept from Detroit to Cleveland.

and vows to halal meats and Ohio City produce, the Ihentuges yearn to be not only a Caribbean-styled Choolaah but also a replicable, Black-owned model of how to run a sustainable, fast-casual restaurant in a post-COVID world.

Raised in Detroit by a Nigerian father and an African American mother, the Ihentuge brothers were brought up to be foodtrepreneurs. Both parents offered routine lessons on preparing hot maafe, a Senegalese peanut stew, poured over a bed of doughy fufu. Though Godwin Sr. pushed his own culinary talent into an Orlando, Florida-based food truck, his sons worked in mortgage banking and rental cars for most of their twenties.

In 2015, that changed when Godwin was let go from Quicken Loans and converted a $50,000 grant into an incubation project for Detroit foodies.

Dubbed YumVillage Marketplace, “an Airbnb for restaurants,” the project attempted to lower the barrier of entry for small businesses with short-term leases and ghost kitchens. Godwin parlayed the popularity of the food hub into celebrity cheffing for rapper Big Sean, appearing on Beat Bobby Flay and launching a popular eatery that honors “the culture of the diaspora," he says.

That ethos is what Carasai hopes to celebrate here in Cleveland.

For the uninitiated, African cheesy bread ($6), a Cameroon-spiced crostini, is a sound introduction. Meanwhile, the lemon pepper jerk chicken ($16.50) is baked for an hour in fennel and served with sweet plantains. The traditional oxtail ($18.99) is simmered in vegetable root gravy for six hours and served with jollof rice. Those sworn to Yum’s flavors can walk out with a shirt that reads “MAAFE LIFE,” an homage to the meaty, peanut-based stew ($8.50-$12.50) that serves as the menu’s centerpiece.

That life, Carasai says, will even appeal to those not yet versed in the diaspora.

“Food is a language,” Carasai says. “You can speak to anyone. If you don’t speak their language, you can speak to them through your food.” yumvillage.com

FIRST LOOK

Heightened Senses

Chef Douglas Katz and Todd Thompson's Amba is an otherworldly restaurant and bar in Ohio City’s Hingetown.

The first thing you notice upon entering Amba — a nearly museum-like space of stark black, thick rope, rattan shades and low light in Hingetown — is the intense smell of simmering, spicy Indian cuisine.

“The concept is driven by Southeast Asian spices,” says interior designer Kelley Shaffer, who succeeded in her attempt to create one of the most transformative dining spaces in Cleveland. “I wanted to deprive the senses so you would be completely overcome by the food.”

Located inside the “Tiger Building” on West 28th Street, nicknamed for artist Michela Picchi’s massive, colorful “Flying Tiger” mural, Amba is the latest offering by chef Douglas Katz and business partner Todd Thompson. Opened in May, the former print shop has been transformed into a 5,000-square-foot eatery with two distinct rooms, including the attached cocktail lounge, Bar Amba. While the decor has caused a stir, the food, which builds upon the Indian-influenced ghost kitchen concept that Katz launched in 2020, is not to be ignored. The kitchen is led by chef de cuisine Cameron Pishnery, who has worked with Katz since Fire Food and Drink, where a tandoor oven inspired early experimentations with Indian food.

“This is the restaurant our team has been working toward,” says Katz, who directs the film that is Amba. “We have a dream team of people who are really passionate in their areas of expertise.”

The Space. From a fluorescent-lit former machine shop, once home to Schaefer Printing Co. and built in 1923, the building has undergone a dramatic transformation into a moody and enticing restaurant lounge. Thompson, the restaurant’s chief curator of vibes, describes Shaffer’s vision for the space as a neoclassical painting from JacquesLouis David or even Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper, where highlighted subjects against dark backgrounds brings focus and drama. Thus, uplighting creates a film noir effect amidst a buzzing crowd.

Even da Vinci’s Judas and Jesus could get a head bob going to the enveloping playlist of bumping deep house and French electronica music that Thompson mePartners Douglas Katz ticulously crafted and Todd Thompson over the past year. lead a team of experts “A restaurant exin dining and decor. perience should make you feel like you’re somewhere else,” says Thompson. “The whole idea is to be transported, to escape for an hour or two.”

Amba is split into two connected rooms with independent entrances: the main restaurant, which seats 80 guests, and Bar Amba, the cocktail lounge led by Noah Biddle, which seats 40. Three tall, rounded windows bring some light into the main room, otherwise lit by glowing rattan shades along the ceiling and tulip light fixtures on the table. A raw steel bar and a twisted rope ceiling bring texture into the space. Two walls of banquette seating and rectangular tables in the middle of the room are designed for spontaneous additions to your party.

In fact, the spacious room feels not at all jam-packed, like it could hold many more than it’s currently set up to accommodate. Meanwhile, Bar Amba’s lounge is cozier, even darker and more secluded with candlelight bistro tables separated by transparent cloth partitions.

“You get immersed in the experience,” says Katz.

Powerful flavors and strong spirits shine in more than a dozen cocktails made to withstand the heat and intense flavors from Amba's shareable Indian menu.

The Drinks. Expect the orange and brown hues of the food menu (more on that in a second) to extend to the spirits on display across each room’s unique cocktail list. Additionally, a list of primarily sweet whites, such as rieslings and sparkling wines, pair brilliantly with the spicy cuisine — even if you think sweet wine isn’t your thing.

“Something like gin is just going to get rolled over by the food — all the delicate aromatics and botanics,” says Thompson, though gin and vodka do shine in sips like the Frost & Licorice ($15), a tart mix of gin, Pernod, maraschino liqueur, lime and grapefruit. “We needed something that’s got some big shoulders, whiskey with that inherent sweetness, smokiness and oak. You wrap that around mango, pineapple juice or anything with exotic fruit flavor and you get a really cool flavor.”

On the restaurant’s list of eight cocktails and a few no-proof options, the a5 ($14), which mixes chai bourbon, mango puree, yogurt and orange liquor, and the a7 ($13), with tequila blanco, mezcal, cardamom agave and lime, exemplifies this spicy-sweet blend.

Meanwhile, Bar Amba offers nine diverse drinks that play up magical pairings, three signature shots and seven classic cocktails for the traditionalists. So far, the Gypsum & Flint ($15) with bourbon, rye, Barbados rum, garam masala, blackstrap bitters and mace, has our mouths watering, but the Verbena & Root ($14), an herbal blend of tequila blanco, yuzu, verbena leaf and ginger, sent us drifting into the night. The Food. Fans of Katz’s Middle Eastern menu at Zhug in Cleveland Heights find familiarity in Amba’s offerings. The sharable, build-your-best-bite spirit carries over to the Indian-influenced menu. “People just love the sharing at Zhug,” says Katz. “It’s all about mixing and matching and getting different flavors.”

Start by ordering clay bread ($5) and the toasty gluten-free flatbread ($7), similar to naan bread, to dip in accouterments such as chili crisp ($3) and beetroot or herb raita ($11), which shine as accompaniments to centerpiece dishes like the grilled chicken tikka ($17) in a creamy sauce and the hearty paneer cheese ($18) in a baked beans-like stew of dal, a regional legume. Still, our initial favorite is the Turkish fried eggs ($9), served in a bed of dill, yogurt and chili butter, paired with the Pilau ($11), basmati rice, quinoa, spices and herbs. The Crispy Puris ($13), a waferlike ball stuffed with refreshing potato salad and zhug, is texturally stunning. Of course, everything goes with the house sauce, amba, a pickled mango chutney that resembles a barbecue sauce.

Those new to Indian food may find the menu a bit challenging. If that’s the case, order one of the chef’s tasting menus (starting at $70) or use them as a guide to plug-and-play the dishes you want to try.

Nonetheless, the exploratory menu and curated vibe come together to create a truly one-of-a-kind experience that Cleveland really hasn't ever seen. Thanks to ethereal decor and thousands of flavor combinations, Amba is a restaurant that begs for repeat visits.

WHEN YOU GO

WORD OF MOUTH

MATT FISH

Owner of Melt Bar and Grilled in Lakewood, Mentor and More

OLE RELIABLE Aladdin’s Eatery is quick and consistent. I get the hummus falafel roll most of the time. Got to get hot sauce with it; their hot sauce is amazing. FAMILY FAVORITE I’ve been going to Dante in Tremont since even before my wife and I got together, and we've become friends. I think Dante Boccuzzi is by far one of the best chefs in Cleveland if not in the country. COCKTAILS King Wah in Rocky River has fantastic Polynesian drinks. It's one of the best Polynesian bars in Cleveland. My wife and I get the Zombie ($10). It's a dark rum and fruit drink. Very potent. We’ve gotten in trouble there many times from drinking those. JUST PLAIN FUN Li Wah downtown is excellent. They do dim sum on Saturdays and Sundays. It’s kind of like eating little individual plates, these one- to two-bite, little appetizer-y things. And they roll a cart through the dining room, and they stop at your table and you just pick stuff off this cart. It’s really fun because you can try different flavors and different tastes.

INSPIRING CLEVELAND CHEF Michael Symon was a big influence on me starting out — that's going back 25 years ago now. When Lola first opened in Tremont, he would change the menu seasonally, and I would go religiously just to see what the heck he was doing and try to dissect it and figure it all out. I always wanted to be the first to try it. The Cleveland culinary scene is well saturated with chefs cooking outside of the box, says Melt owner Matt Fish. “It’s fantastic right now,” he says. “The scene has really exploded in the last 10 years.” Here are some of Fish’s recent and longtime favorite local

haunts. – ANTHONY ELDER

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Dining Guide

CLEVELAND'S BEST BBQ JOINTS

Ol’Chefskis BBQ

BARABICU SMOKEHOUSE WHY WE LOVE IT: Inspired by the indigenous Caribbean word for barbecue, this weekend-only spot is committed to the tradition of low and slow. TRY THIS: Barabicu might be the only place on earth serving cupcake chicken ($4), a crispy ball of chicken

thigh. 5767 Ridge Road, Parma, 440-481-3057, barabicubbq.wixsite.com/smokehouse

BONEY FINGERS WHY WE LOVE IT: Birthed in the food court of the Cleveland Arcade, this family-run downtown campus joint runs two electric cabinet smokers for 16 hours a day. “If it's not up to our standards, we won’t sell it,” says co-owner Christian Huff. TRY THIS: Forget Philly. The CLE ($9) is a smoked spin on a cheesesteak. 1800 Euclid Ave.,

Cleveland, 216-331-5252, boneyfingersbbq.com

BRONCO’S WESTERN SMOKEHOUSE WHY WE LOVE IT: Before opening in 2021, co-owner Gary Carrino won the Great American Rib Cook-Off six years in a row. Now, his Western-themed brick-and-mortar is serving up all of his award-winning greats. TRY THIS: The Giddy-Up Platter ($27) is a bit of everything: brisket, pork, ribs, chicken, smoked sausage and a side.

3765 Ridge Road, Cleveland, 216-938-7200, broncoswesternbbq.com

GOODFELLA’S BBQ WHY WE LOVE IT: Darryl Rugley is building a new smoker room to meet demand. “Every day we cook more ribs than the day before,” he says, “and every day we still run out.” TRY THIS: The crispy rib tips ($6) are tossed in a sweet sauce and served with fries. 5156 Wil-

son Mills Road, Richmond Heights, 440-421-9640, instagram.com/goodfellasbbq

JOE’S BBQ KENT WHY WE LOVE IT: Joe Menendez moved back to Kent from Austin, Texas, ready to revolutionize local barbecue. Now, his roadside smoker, Big Smoke, cooks up to 40 salt-and-pepper briskets a day. TRY THIS: When Menendez pulls his Central Texas-style brisket ($22) off the smoker, "it almost smells like choc-

olate,” he says. 1299 Tallmadge Road, Kent, 330-552-8295, joesbbqkent.com

LANDMARK SMOKEHOUSE WHY WE LOVE IT: At almost any hour, lifelong friends Jack Messer and Constantine Katsaros are smoking meats on their all-wood-burning Oyler 700. “People in the neighborhood always say, ‘You guys are cooking late. We can smell you!’” Messer says. Catering to all, the offerings are split between barbecue and lighter fare, like salads and bowls — and the whiskey list is longer than the food menu. TRY THIS: The Montreal smoked meat ($16), a peppery, dry-rubbed cousin of pastrami, takes a full 11 days to prepare.

MIEGA KOREAN BBQ WHY WE LOVE IT: Miega’s vast menu encompasses multiple cuisines but, as its name suggests, Korean barbecue stars. Choose from 10 meat options, served raw and cooked on tabletop hot plates. They all come with banchan, a series of small sides delivered and refilled throughout the meal, like seaweed salad, braised black beans and kimchi. TRY THIS: The LA Gal Bi ($32.95), a plate of short ribs, is a Kore-

an barbecue staple. 3820 Superior Ave. E, Cleveland, 216-432-9200, miegakorean.com OAK AND EMBERS TAVERN WHY WE LOVE IT: Extensive travel through the American South-inspired co-owners Gretchen and Marc Garofoli and Chris Pauley's Northeast Ohio menu. The result is a refined, contemporary barbecue experience with classic, downhome taste. TRY THIS: Create the combo of your culinary dreams with the mix-and-match Smokin’ Bowls ($16), your choice of starch, meat and

sauce. 7774 Darrow Road, Hudson, 234-6021056; 8003 Mayfield Road, Chesterland, 440-7294030, oakandembers.com

MABEL’S BBQ WHY WE LOVE IT: As chef Michael Symon’s only remaining restaurant, Mabel’s has a lot to live up to — and it’s up to the task. It’s also the only spot laying claim to “Cleveland-style” barbecue thanks to a special sauce made with local Bertman Ball Park Mustard. TRY THIS: The name “giant beef rib” is no exaggeration of marketing. Rubbed with coriander, black pepper and mustard seed, each 1.5-pound, pastrami-spiced beef rib ($52) easily serves

two. 2050 East Fourth St., Cleveland, 216-417-8823; 28699 Chagrin Blvd., Woodmere, mabelsbbq.com OL’CHEFSKIS BBQ WHY WE LOVE IT: Once a roadside barbecue shack, this rural spot expanded in 2020 to a more permanent locale on the grounds of the lusciously green Aurora Country Club. Limited indoor seating means it’s best on sunny days. TRY THIS: Say buh-bye to buns and order your pulled pork served atop a bed of ooey-gooey smoked mac and

cheese ($9/$12). 15 Trails End, Aurora, 330-356-1106, clevelandsbestbbq.com

OPEN PITT BARBEQUE CARRYOUT WHY WE LOVE IT: Get in line. There’s almost always a bit of a wait at this no-nonsense, carryout joint. It’s worth it for huge portions and fall-off-thebone ribs and Southern-style sides. TRY THIS: Collard greens ($3.50) are slowly simmered with pork and turkey just like

down South. 12335 St. Clair Ave., Cleveland, 216-851-7709, facebook.com/openpitt124th

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Read about the Class of 2022 and their college plans at www.us.edu/grads

PROPER PIG SMOKEHOUSE WHY WE LOVE IT: Take your mouth down South at this small but mighty Lakewood locale, which started as a food truck and expanded its brick-and-mortar in 2020. The menu is chockablock with Texas favorites such as Central Texas-style chopped beef brisket, hot links, hatch chile queso, Lone Star beer and sweet tea. TRY THIS: Want a side of meat with your meat? The bacon on a stick ($5) is a sweet, smoky appetizer that’s worth the

indulgence. 17100 Detroit Ave., Lakewood, 440-665-3768, properpigsmokehouse.com

PROOF BAR-BQ AND COCKTAILS WHY WE LOVE IT: Can’t decide between pizza and BBQ? Michael Griffin's Tremont hotspot pulls double duty with Crust, his pizza joint upstairs. “It’s the best of both worlds,” he says. TRY THIS: The mile-high pork nachos ($13) are dressed with chipotle queso, salsa and barbecue sauce.

2258 Professor Ave., Cleveland, 216-583-0551, proofcleveland.com

REAL SMOQ’ED BBQ WHY WE LOVE IT: Nav Singh's Ohio City BBQ opened in 2017 and recently changed its name, but its philosophy remains. “Our menu is simple, fresh and to the point,” says Singh. TRY THIS: The Polish Girl ($10) levels up the Polish Boy — kielbasa, French fries, tangy slaw — by

adding pulled pork. 3829 Lorain Ave., 216417-5987, ohiocitybbq.com

RISING GRILL KOREAN BBQ WHY WE LOVE IT: With huge portions and nearly 15 sides, it’s impossible to leave hungry. TRY THIS: Every authentic Korean barbecue spot needs bulgogi ($31.99), thin slices of tender, soy-marinated ribeye cooked on your tabletop. 3709 Payne Ave.,

Cleveland, 216-465-3561, risinggrill.com

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SMOKIN’ Q’S BBQ AND BEER HOUSE WHY WE LOVE IT: Are tacos and barbecue the best match-up of all time? Chef Zachary Ladner makes the argument for this perfect pairing with a taco menu featuring wood-smoked meats and fresh, funky accouterments. It’s the consummate combo, especially when you factor in a refreshing booze list that plays homage to Central Texas. TRY THIS: In the PB+J tacos ($13), pork belly is paired with house-made jalapeno jam. 718 SOM

Center Road, Mayfield Village, 440-646-0429, smokinqbbq.com

WOODSTOCK BBQ WHY WE LOVE IT: Rather than sticking with a specific style, owner Robert Togliatti went the eclectic route. “It’s a mixture of Nashville and Memphis barbecue, with Texas brisket thrown in,” he says. He carefully curates a single-page menu, with a rule that any time he adds something, he must remove something, too. TRY THIS: The jalapeno appetizers ($6) are stuffed with smoked sausage and cheddar cream cheese, then topped with bacon.

13362 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216-226-8828, woodstocksmokejoint.com

WANT MORE?

Check out more recommendations at

clevelandmagazine.com/food-drink

Blue Habanero

Hungry for More?

Visit clevelandmagazine.com for exclusive recipes, reviews and searchable restaurant listings.

GLAMOUR GRIT &

36

STYLE TIPS FROM FOUR LOCAL CELEBS

37

PEEK INSIDE CROCKER PARK'S NEWEST BOUTIQUE

B E A U T Y

STYLE SECRETS

FOR FOX 8 ANCHOR KRISTI CAPEL, a glamorous look starts beneath the surface. Estée Lauder lotions keep her skin healthy and her makeup flawless. “You won’t have to use as much makeup,” she says. Kenra and Kevin Murphy products keep her hair healthy, too. “Even though they’re expensive, they last longer because you’re not using as much product." What can’t she live without? Her curling wand, which gives her a perfect curl without the creases. The 2006 Miss Missouri USA admits she rarely wears her hair straight. “I like the big pageant hair,” she laughs. Capel’s favorite look is a peplum top paired with a pencil skirt, which she finds everywhere from New York & Co. to Amazon. Her Sam Edelman suede shoes add a pop of color. Turn the page to see how other local TV (and one radio) personalities create their looks.

COURTNEY GOUSMAN

Evening anchor at NewsChannel 5

Mix and Match: Urban Decay’s All Nighter Waterproof Setting Powder and bamboo charcoal blotting papers keep Gousman’s skin from looking shiny under the bright TV lights. “I mix a lot of my products just to find what’s best for my skin tone and my skin texture.”

Secret Strategy: “Lighting is so critical to contouring your face,” Gousman says. Even if she’s in a rush, she’ll highlight under her eyes and down the center of her nose.

Hair Love: Since straightening and curling her hair can be an hour-and-a-half-long process, Gousman sometimes opts to skip all that. “People have even said it’s inspired them to ... wear their hair natural,” she says. Almond & Avocado Wash Day Deep Moisture Masque by Design Essentials keeps her hair healthy. “It smells wonderful, and it makes my hair so nice and silky.”

JEN TOOHEY

Co-host of the Jen and Tim Show on Star 102

Keep It Simple: Toohey’s wardrobe consists of basic pieces she can mix and match. She loves using an oversized black blazer or trench coat to elevate a pair of joggers.

Products: “If you want to feel confident about the way you look in photos or when you’re at events you do have to use some product." Her go-to's are Benefit Cosmetics’ BADgal Bang! Volumizing Mascara, Neutrogena’s Healthy Skin Liquid Makeup Foundation and L’Oréal’s True Match Lumi Bronzer.

Tip From TikTok: Move your blush and contour higher up. “I feel like it’s very ’80s, this very pink cheek up into the eye area and the contour that swipes up underneath it."

Her Hair: Toohey uses a one-and-a-half-inch barrel curling iron and OUAI Hair Oil to help achieve one of her favorite looks — the beachy wave.

JASON MIKELL

Meteorologist at Channel 3

Style Secret: The weather informs every outfit. “I’m not gonna wear a dark brown muted color if it’s bright and sunny outside. It has to dictate what I’m telling people on air.”

His Look: Mikell’s wardrobe consists of trendy and approachable pieces. Some of his favorite looks are a vest or blazer with a patterned shirt, paired with slacks or jeans.

Makeup Essentials: Fenty Beauty powder and concealer last throughout Mikell’s long workdays. “I don’t try to do anything too exorbitant with my face,” he says. “Just something natural, matte, that allows my undertones to come through.”

Take a Risk: Mikell likes to experiment, from trying out different hair lengths to bold colors. A vibrant yellow sweater that he wore for his Live with Kelly and Ryan appearance last year garnered a compliment from Ryan Seacrest himself.

RACHEL VADAJ Reporter at Channel 19

Trendy and Timeless: Inspired by Kate Middleton, Princess Diana, Coco Chanel and her mother, Vadaj loves structured, solid-colored dresses. “Ten years from now, I still would want to wear them,” she says.

Her System: Vadaj wears bright colors on Monday, patterns on Tuesday, pink on Wednesday (which the whole station adopted), blue on Thursday and black on Friday. “That system keeps me looking fresh on air while making sure I’m using all of the pieces in my closet,” she says.

In Her Bag: Batiste Rose Gold Dry Shampoo, a bottle of hairspray and Moroccanoil Volumizing Mist. She also lives by NYX Epic Ink Liner and her Dyson straightener.

BOUTIQUES

Starring Estella

Floaty, colorful clothing and one-of-a-kind accessories make this new Westlake boutique shine.

Imagine a mix of Palm Beach and Coachella — in Crocker Park — and you’ve got Estella Boutique. Located on the south end of Main Street just a couple of doors down from Lululemon, this 972-squarefoot boutique squeezes a new treasure into every inch, including leather wristlets, blingy-yet-tasteful hoop earrings, soap from Provence and an eyeful of statement pieces and staples appealing to anyone 18 or so through middle age — and beyond.

But what it all has in common is character, whether in the form of color, pattern, material, fringe or flounce. It’s the opposite of monochromatic looks like those from designer Eileen Fisher while still being well-made and refined.

“I’ve always wanted to have a little boutique that had something different,” says owner Tina Rutkowski, who spent the last couple of decades working as an accountant and raising kids before opening Estella last fall. “But the time was never right.”

Rutkowski’s time has finally come — to the delight of anyone craving a highly curated shopping experience in a price range similar to surrounding shops like Banana Republic or J. Crew.

You’ll likely first notice the dresses (Rutkowski wears dresses and skirts yearround) from brands like Free People and Cleobella.

Then you’ll see the handbags from small retailers such as Rivet Leatherworks, a Pittsburgh-based company that makes a fierce fringed crossbody. Tucked between it all are frilly Chloe blouses, denim by Hidden Jeans, Spartina 449 skorts and a delightful mish-mash of jewelry, beauty products, bright beach totes, home goods and greeting cards.

“I love finding new vendors,” Rutkowski notes, in between helping a flurry of customers. “I’m always trying to find the next new thing.”

And the name of the store?

“Estella means ‘of the stars,’” says Rutkowski. “Owning a boutique has always been my wish.”

WHEN YOU GO

Estella Boutique 229 Main St, Westlake 440-455-1880 estellaboutique.com Three Fun Finds

It’s hard to leave Estella Boutique empty-handed. Here are a few of our favorites.

Matte Hair Claw ($9)

Bella Hoop Earrings ($52)

If you’re a Clevelander, you’ve seen your share of bold new visions for the lakefront — and then watched them wither. This time seems different. Plans to build a land bridge over the Shoreway, close Burke Lakefront Airport and create acres of new lakefront parkland are either on the table or already moving forward.

By Ken Prendergast Illustration by Alexandra Wong

or the first time — perhaps in the history of

FCleveland — there are multiple, coordinated efforts under way between all levels of government, the private sector and the advocacy community to make the Lake Erie waterfront more enjoyable and accessible. These efforts include constructing and relocating roads, creating new lakefront parks, adding paths along the water’s edge, building mixed-use developments, protecting natural habitats and more.

As Clevelanders, we can be excused for our skepticism. We’ve been here before.

But, this time, there is more than a vision. Key people strongly desire lakefront development. And these leaders can leverage the political will to shake loose the dollars necessary to create on the landscape what, as of now, has only existed on paper.

First, a Bit of History

Compared to Cleveland, our Great Lakes neighbors Chicago, Toronto and Milwaukee have better public access to their lakefronts, especially near their central business districts. More than 150 years ago, their flat topographies allowed their waterway and railway shipping routes to veer away from their downtowns.

Cleveland’s could not.

The Ohio & Erie Canal and the earliest railways followed the wide Cuyahoga River valley and the lake shore to Cleveland’s central business district and port, where industries flourished.

Now, in Cleveland’s post-industrial era, there is an opportunity to redevelop those industrial and port areas with housing, recreation, public spaces, retail, restaurants, creative commercial spaces and more.

The Land Bridge to the Lake

The mid-1900s spawned newer transportation systems, namely highways and an airport, between downtown and the lakefront. There is now a growing effort to remove one — Burke Lakefront Airport — and deemphasize another — the Shoreway

Cleveland Memorial Shoreway was built at a time when industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes was crafting futuristic visions of the cities of tomorrow for General Motors and Shell Oil Co. In his book Magic Motorways, he wrote: “There should be no more reason for a motorist who is passing through a city to slow down than there is for an airplane which is passing over it.”

That ran counter to 5,000 years of established city building. Cities grew by people stopping in them, walking around, personally conducting commerce and sharing ideas.

While lakefront railroad traffic cannot be easily moved, the tracks can be bridged. The city, along with Cleveland Browns owner Haslam Sports Group, is planning a $200-million-plus land bridge from Mall C that goes over the tracks and ends on the east side of FirstEnergy Stadium.

The land bridge would essentially be a box with a park on top, a rail and bus station’s passenger facilities (ticket counters, waiting areas, baggage rooms, etc.) inside it, with tracks, bus bays and loading areas below it. The station would unite Amtrak, the Regional Transit Authority and Greyhound services under one roof.

The challenge — and there always is one — is that the land bridge can’t go over the Shoreway, Cleveland’s oldest freeway, because it’s still ramping down from its highest point of 100 feet when it crosses over the Flats.

So, the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, the region’s administrator of federal transportation funds, has begun work on a range of alternatives that include removing the lightly traveled Shoreway east of West Third Street and converting it into a boulevard with intersections.

A possible hitch is that, although municipalities determine land use, the City of Cleveland can’t force the Ohio Department of Transportation to downgrade a roadway if the funding is not available to do so. And ODOT cannot use traditional federal highway dollars for projects that cause traffic to slow down and make it less free-flowing, ODOT spokesman Matt Bruning says.

But free-flowing roadways don’t make for walkable cities.

“For far too long, we’ve let the almighty car dictate how we build and design our cities,” says Ward 3 city councilman Kerry McCormack. “If we are at all serious about creating a more vibrant Cleveland that connects our city and our people to our most precious natural resources, these are changes that need to be made. If we make a decision based on ‘how fast can I get around and through the city,’ it will be a 100-year mistake.”

Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority president and CEO Will Friedman says the land bridge will spur development on the lakefront. “It’s exciting,” he says. “There’s great potential.”

Thankfully, traditional federal highway dollars aren’t the only option. Tucked into the $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill passed last year is $1 billion of fresh funding for removing highways that divide cities. There is also ODOT’s Jobs & Commerce Economic Development program to fund road projects that support mixed-used developments like the one Haslam Sports Group plans next to FirstEnergy Stadium — and perhaps in place of it.

Haslam Sports Group has reportedly hired M.A. Mortenson Co. of Minneapolis and Independence Construction of Cleveland to be its lakefront developer and construction manager, respectively. Mortensen is one of the nation's largest developers while Independence manages large construction projects locally.

Haslam Sports Group CEO Dee Haslam has also not-

Renderings show the possible future of our waterfront as a mixed-use development. ed the possibility of building a new football stadium elsewhere as part of a mixed-use real estate complex — a trend embraced by professional sports team owners turning to “ballpark villages” to provide revenue.

“The question is, can we leverage the value from lakefront development for a stadium?” asks Lee Weingart, the Republican candidate for Cuyahoga County executive. “I’m open to a new stadium, but it’s hard to fathom building a new stadium when the existing stadium is only 23 years old.”

Setting that question aside, it’d be hard to fault anyone who still has a nagging suspicion that none of this will get done.

“I’m cautiously optimistic about the land bridge from Mall C to the lakefront,” says Chris Ronayne, the Democratic candidate for Cuyahoga County executive. As a former city planning director, he was the champion of the last lakefront plan, passed in 2004 in the waning days of Mayor Jane Campbell’s administration. Her successor, Mayor Frank Jackson, never followed up on the plan.

“We need to hire managers of lakefront development,” Ronayne adds. “We can’t leave it to hope.”

Closing Burke Lakefront Airport

Another chunk of concrete that blocks public access to the waterfront is Burke Lakefront Airport. According to the Federal Aviation, aircraft operations at Burke have fallen from 100,058 in 2000 to 39,892 in 2019, which is less than Lorain County Regional Airport.

By comparison, another 75 acres of lakefront amenities, called Northerly Island Park, was added when Chicago closed Meigs Field airport and converted it to recreation. Meigs often is cited as an example of what Cleveland could do with Burke.

The City of Cleveland has hired CHA Consulting to analyze the costs and benefits of closing Burke — a study that will be completed by early 2023. The FAA mandates that all primary airports like Hopkins International need to have a reliever nearby for private aircraft, emergencies, major construction projects or congestion relief. Burke is one of several relievers in Greater Cleveland and the best equipped. No other such airport has its runway lengths, parking or air terminal.

To close Burke, other airports like Cuyahoga County, Lake County Executive Airport (formerly called Lost Nation) or Lorain County Regional would have to be improved to match or exceed Burke’s offerings. Or as Ronayne advocates, combine and coordinate them under a regional airport authority to provide “a regional air service delivery system” so that, in total, all of the reliever airports can offer what Burke offers.

Burke, built on relatively clean landfill, will be subject to environmental reviews before it can be redeveloped with recreation, housing, commercial or mixeduse development. And that’s assuming the business community gets behind Burke’s closure.

Nearly one-third of all non-training flights at Burke involve medical transportation such as organ transplants, air ambulances and visiting patients. Burke is four minutes closer to Cleveland Clinic by car than Hopkins and nine minutes closer than from County Airport in the eastern suburbs. Additionally, Burke hosts numerous corporate jets, visiting sports teams and the Cleveland National Air Show — a Labor Day weekend tradition since 1964.

But more corporate jets fly out of County Airport, offering the potential for economic development there if Burke closes. County Airport has spare capacity as its air operations have fallen by nearly two-thirds, from 65,177 in 2000 to 22,418 in 2019, FAA data shows.

Hopkins has space, too, by the way. Its air opera-

tions fell from 336,635 in 2000 to 127,045 in 2019. And some city officials think the case can be made that Burke, which costs the city’s Division of Port Control $1.5 million to $2 million more per year than it generates in revenue, according to the city’s budget, is holding back the city’s ability to attract more airline service to Hopkins.

“Any and all revenue drains on Hopkins make it less competitive and make flights more expensive, leading to fewer flights,” adds McCormack. “I would argue that, beyond all of the public good reasons, Burke is also bad for business.”

When the CHA Consulting study is done next year, city leaders will have the data to decide if they should close Burke, how to improve other airports to take up the slack and how much it would cost.

And if that all happens, discussions can begin on what to do with 450 acres of prime lakefront land.

CHEERS to Cleveland’s Lakefront

Governments love acronyms, and they’ve made one for an ambitious remake of the shoreline from Burke Lakefront Airport east to the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve. The Cleveland Harbor Eastern Embayment Resilience Study (CHEERS) has a two-phase plan to expand Gordon Park north of Interstate 90.

Sixty years ago, I-90 sliced the park in half to curve around the lake side of the Lake Shore Power Plant. The defunct plant was imploded in 2017, leaving the site vacant. The lakefront advocacy group Green Ribbon Coalition lobbied for the highway to be straightened out through the power plant site, relocating it away from the lake to protect I-90 from rising lake levels and wave action. But CHEERS planners found it was cheaper to add land in the lake.

The first phase of CHEERS would create a 64-acre lakeshore park with 43 acres of new land in the lake. Nearly $4 million has been raised for design work by the Cleveland Metroparks and its partners, including the city and port authority.

“CHEERS envisions returning the hardened edge of Cleveland’s East Side lakefront to a natural living shoreline with play spaces, amenities, trails, picnic lawns, fishing areas, habitats and overlooks,” says Metroparks communications director Jacqueline Gerling.

Gerling says dredged material from the Cuyahoga River will be help create a more naturalized shoreline of parks and habitat, mitigate the lake’s impact on I-90 and improve access to Lake Erie.

Although phase one could take 10 to 15 years, Friedman says the port envisions speeding that up by relocating already deposited dredge material from a dump at the northeast corner of Burke to the new shoreline park, just 1 mile away. The dump resembles a giant sand box filled with material removed from the bottom of Cleveland’s harbor and the Cuyahoga River.

The next phase, called The Isle, involves a 30-year timeline to create a 36-acre island along with a new cove between it and the shoreline. That would provide a new wildlife habitat and create a place for fishing and boating that’s protected from Lake Erie Storms by the new island. The total estimated cost of both phases is

The City of Euclid's $7 million lakefront trail has greatly expanded waterfront access.

WE CHECKED IN WITH BOTH CANDIDATES FOR CUYAHOGA COUNTY EXECUTIVE TO SEE THEIR

STANCE ON THE LAKEFRONT.

DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE CHRIS RONAYNE calls lakefront development “one of the region’s top-five issues,” along with job creation, safety, housing and quality-of-life concerns, and says he wants Greater Cleveland rebranded as a waterfront community. REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE LEE WEINGART says the lakefront is important, but not the most important issue. “I think job creation is a higher priority, as is wealth creation through homeownership. We should invest those dollars in the urban core.”

$300 million.

Ever since I-90 sliced 122-acre Gordon Park in half in the late 1960s, its popularity has waned. The park opened in 1893 and became a hit with East Side residents for swimming, thanks to its grand bathhouse. Boaters and picnickers also enjoyed the park.

The CHEERS project offers a chance to restore the park north of the highway.

And Dick Clough, executive board chair of the Green Ribbon Coalition, says the 60-acre former power plant site, just south of the planned park expansion, could attract developers wanting to construct housing, restaurants and shops, like the booming Battery Park area south of Edgewater or the lakefronts in Chicago, Toronto and Milwaukee.

Euclid and Lakewood Raise the Bar on the Lake

Two cities in particular have taken creative steps to connect to the lakefront.

In 2015, the City of Lakewood completed a $2 million project to convert a former landfill at Lakewood Park into the lakefront Solstice Steps and walkway — a move that proved immensely popular with residents and protects against erosion.

Four years later, the City of Euclid took the next step, by constructing a $7 million lakefront trail that doubled as an erosion control project near Sims Park. In exchange for public access to the shoreline via the new trail, private property owners gained erosion control partially funded by a voluntary special improvement district that captures tax revenues from the increased value of those properties. State and federal grants provided the remainder.

These advancements, combined with worsening erosion and rising lake levels, are feeding a political will to extend access to all 30 miles of Cuyahoga County’s lakefront.

In 2019, outgoing Cuyahoga County executive Armond Budish announced a plan to create a network of connected paths, all-purpose trails, boardwalks, roads, bridges and public access points across the Lake Erie shoreline. The Lakefront Public Access Plan directly affects Bay Village, Rocky River, Lakewood, Cleveland, Bratenahl and Euclid.

With public input, the plan, drafted by SmithGroup consultants and released in March, identifies focus areas based on the greatest need, greatest impact and ability to complete. Plans call for:

Converting the two northernmost lanes of the fourlane Lake Road-Clifton Boulevard (U.S. Route 6) bridge over the Rocky River to a shared-use trail and scenic overlook. It’s called the Community Confluence Plan and is a partnership between the cities of Lakewood and Rocky River, the Cleveland Metroparks, Cuyahoga County Planning Commission and NOACA. Cost is about $9 million with construction due to start as early as next year, according to Lakewood planning and development director Shawn Leininger.

Stabilizing the shale cliffs below the high-rise residential towers of Lakewood’s Gold Coast and constructing a 0.7-mile recreational trail along the water’s edge with stone and steel. Cost is estimated at $25 million to $35 million. There is no timeline yet, as Lakewood officials are asking more lakefront property owners to join a voluntary special improvement district to help fund the local share, Leininger says.

Building and enhancing 2.7 miles of trails along the North and South Marginal roads that parallel the East Shoreway. This would connect downtown with Gordon Park, says Mark Lammon, executive director of Campus District community development corporation, which oversees civic improvements on the East Side of downtown Cleveland. The projected cost is $11 million, with construction starting as early as next year.

Building a 0.32-mile portion of a connector trail between Beulah Park and Euclid Beach Park in Cleveland’s North Collinwood neighborhood. Construction cost is estimated at $6.2 million. Work could start as early as next year, depending on funding.

Connecting the Dots

Although short sections of lakefront trail, recreational sites and natural habitats are being established in some lakefront communities, they only go so far — literally. Walking or biking for one-third of a mile doesn’t quite cut it. So, as sections of the lakefront are improved with public access, pressure — and desire — is mounting for other communities to fill in the gaps.

Now is the time to make some waves on the lakefront.

Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb said as much in his State of the City speech April 13, 100 days into his new administration.

“The first three months of any job is a test,” Bibb said. “I’m proud to say we’ve recorded some early wins.”

Among those wins, he cited his administration’s nascent lakefront efforts.

“We got to work on collaborative planning for Cleveland’s lakefront and riverfront, studying various ways we might extend our fragmented downtown malls to the lake, continued partnership in progress on the revitalization of Irishtown Bend and finally, finally exploring the future of Burke Lakefront Airport.”

“These are not small projects,” he added. “Each has the potential to be transformational.”

by Mark Oprea

Carl Baldassarre, a corporate-finance-guru-turned-classical-rock-guitarist, readies himself for his breakout year — launched with a July 2 show in the Flats — after a lifetime of quietly creating and conforming.

The 2014 PNC Bank portrait of Carl Baldassarre can only be described with one word: corporate. There’s that pressed, burgundy plaid suit jacket. That executive taunt of folded arms and trained smile. The gelled hair swooped into a silvery wave. This is 35-years-in-finance Carl, 37-years-married Carl. This is six-figures, shake-hands-withIvy-League-boss Carl.

But just five years later, a seemingly different person emerges. The hair is now loose, a tied-up ponytail. The body is slim, about 70 pounds lighter. The cheeks are covered in the beard of an Italian artiste. John Lennon specs hang casually above a childlike beam, not one of financial posturing.

Both men are Carl Baldassarre, a 62-year-old rock and classical musician who helped grow one of the biggest private equity firms in the Midwest. Ever since retiring at 56 from corporate America, Baldassarre, a Cleveland native, has metamorphosed into a full-time itinerant guitarist and composer, recording seven albums of tracks in a multiplicity of genres, everywhere, he says, from “Burt Bacharach to Bach,” from fugue-inspired progressive metal to pop-leaning Nashville country.

“A Grammy-award winning producer once described my music,” Baldassarre says, “as ‘somewhere between Christmas and being burned alive.’”

But it’s only now, in 2022, that Baldassarre is making his debut official.

Following three years of production, he just released Grand Boulevard this spring, a strings-laden rock-and-orchestral album of personal retrospectives. And, due to the explosion surrounding his Led Zeppelin Revival shows, Baldassarre is planning what may be his most singular project yet: a collaboration

with Tower of Power singer Marcus Scott on a neo-throwback show called “The Soul of Zeppelin,” which will make its way to the Music Box Supper Club in the Flats on July 2.

Before he helped build a $3 billion private equity firm, Baldassarre was a gaunt, music-obsessed teenager growing up in Euclid. His parents, Baldassarre is wont to say, were influences of a double-edged variety. His mother, a high school English teacher, was an avid short-story writer who battled a lifelong addiction to prescription pills. His father, a hustling master of odd jobs, found an escape from his own demons in bars. "We just kept moving because we had to stay one step ahead of the creditors,” Baldassarre says. “I think I moved, like, six times before I was 12.”

Baldassarre distracted himself with a $15 Kay guitar, rigging it with a microphone to imitate a real acoustic-electric guitar. The soundtrack of the ’60s — especially the Beatles — became a realm of intrigue and escape.

In 1970, a year after Woodstock, Baldassare’s oldest sister, Lynn, walked into 11-year-old Baldassarre’s bedroom with the Led Zeppelin II album, a 1969 showcase of Jimmy Page’s guitar wizardry. "She dropped the needle on 'Heartbreaker,’ ” he recalls, “and I just completely freaked out.”

Seven years later, Baldassarre began studying classical music and formed a band, Abraxas. Those memories, however, are mired in tragedy. His mother was at home in the kitchen when, as Baldassarre recalls, she suffered a relapse in the late afternoon and overdosed. “I came home from school and found her dead,” he says. “And that’s when I got my electric guitar.”

Mark Hughes, a childhood friend and, later, roadie for Baldassarre’s progressive rock group, Syzygy, recalls a light bulb moment soon after the death. "I remember him playing that Heartbreaker solo right in front of me,” Hughes says. “And I thought, Holy crap, this guy is something else.”

Yet, instead of mimicking Page’s life, Baldassarre veered elsewhere. Determined to flee as far as possible from poverty and addiction, he dove head-first into the world of finance. In 1979, he was hired as a bank teller for National City Bank, which became PNC Erieview Capital in 2008. There, he began decades of ladder-climbing. In 1989, Baldassarre was offered an over-the-edge job: handling a $25 million portfolio of private equity. Knowing the seat would further concrete him into the finance world, Baldassarre hesitated. "I didn’t

know if I was that guy,” he says. He turned down the job. A day later, after a pep talk from a co-worker, "I took it.” Decades passed behind a facade of perfection. By the mid-’90s, Baldassarre was busy raising two boys and built a 6,500-square-foot home in Kirtland. His music was there, per se, but it was often rushed and stifled, always kept in-check by the economic draw of private equity investing. At PNC, Baldassarre would grind with his colleagues to wrangle in some 230 companies — all while covertly moonlighting as a guitarist for Syzygy, which earned occasional plaudits overseas. (In 2014, a German music blog dubbed Syzygy "The Best Prog Rock Band You’ve Never Heard.”) "I thought he was a sort of hobbyist," Eric Morgan, a managing director at PNC since 2000, says. “I had no idea the level of enthusiasm he put into it.” Baldassarre was approaching 55 when he finally lost his grip. In 2014, he and his wife separated, and Baldassarre moved into their lakehouse in Madison. He pulled back from his job, converting to a consulting position. He dieted, cut out sugar and dropped to 150 pounds. He brought out old suede coats, grew his hair and adorned his ears and fingers with jewelry. “I was returning to the person you saw when I was a kid,” Baldassarre says. “I was leaving all the things that were poisonous to me. I was dying emotionally, physically, spiritually, humanly — in every way you could imagine. “And then, one day, I was completely reborn.” He began composing avidly, writing 72 pieces of music in three years. He toured Italy and Germany, once leaping over a velvet rope in Vienna to test arpeggios at the piano where Beethoven composed his Fifth Symphony. “I was escorted out,” he says, laughing. He spent $2,600 a day recording at London’s Abbey Road Studios with a 30-piece orchestra. Before the pandemic derailed his debut, he was recording Collinwood Yards, his sophomore pop album, at Sweetwater Studios in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Marcus Scott was there, too, recording vocals for his own musical retrospective, Back 2 Da Soul, in a neighboring studio space. The two met and liked each other. A lunchtime discussion bore a new idea: marrying Baldassarre’s Page mechanics with Scott’s buttery croon. The Soul, Marcus. The Zeppelin, Carl. What began as a Led Zeppelin Revival extension is now, in Carl Baldassarre transformed from Baldassarre’s eyes, a possible make-your-mark project. corporate man (left) to rocker A few months ago, Baldassarre hosted a Led Zeppelin Reviv(right) in a matter of months. al show at the Grog Shop, a sort of precursor to July’s souledup version with Scott. For two and a half hours, Baldassarre, with his unkempt ponytail and bell bottoms, leaps around the stage handling his 1974 sunburst Gibson Les Paul. Just like Page, he soloes during “How Many More Times” with a horsehair violin bow. Hammering out soaring string bends, he nods to singer Guy Snowden in ecstasy. He looks, it’s probably obvious to say, pretty happy. “He’s like a 16-year-old kid with a dream,” says Joey Varanese, Baldassarre’s booker. After the show, Baldassarre addresses the question that’s been gnawing at him: How can he make sure his work is good enough to release to the world? “Polished music comes from absolutely immersing yourself,” he says. “If you’re going to be an artist, you have to be all in.”

SUMMER ROAD TRIPS 2022

R O A DT R I P T I M E

IT’S SUMMER — and the OPEN ROAD is calling your name. Sure, you could do what we Clevelanders always do and minivan it down to Hilton Head or fly to Disney World. But WHY NOT TRY an EXTRAORDINARY EXCURSION closer to home? Whether you like BOURBON, BEACHES or a more ACTIVE ADVENTURE, there’s a ROAD OUT OF TOWN just for you.

THE SECRET OF SAUGATUCK

With loads of nearby beaches, thrilling attractions and great drinking and dining, this getaway has all the warm-weather vibes

without the East Coast trek. By Dillon Stewart

Sometimes the best surprises are found in the things you were taught to hate.

The state of Michigan held my childhood ire born from my scarlet-andgray fandom — even after a decade of Buckeye dominance over the Wolverines. Still, that state up North, with its 3,288 miles of shoreline (second to Alaska), more than 11,000 inlet lakes, 4 million acres of forest, robust legal cannabis program and plateful of award-winning restaurants, breweries and wineries, beckoned.

My first breath of clean southwest Michigan air feels like freedom — or maybe that’s just the edible kicking in. Timely, as I’m barreling down a 200foot sand dune in a 25-person, open-air

SOUTH BEND, INDIANA 41.6764° N, 86.2520° W

Ford coupe-turned-dune buggy. Between Saugatuck and Holland, Michigan, on the state’s west coast, the 1,000-acre Saugatuck Dunes State Park features 14 miles of sandy, wooded hiking that opens to the shoreline, but I prefer the thrills and laughs of the Saugatuck Dune Rides, which started in 1954 and is one of the few remaining dune rides in the country.

Our instructor, Rusty, is good for more than just a joyride. Periodic stops along the 40-ish-minute trail highlight the unique behavior of the cottonwood tree that serves as the dune’s spine thanks to its regenerative root system, the wildlife that calls the surrounding forest home and the ecological efforts in place to maintain the natural resource and potential pest.

On Saturday morning, we reach Saugatuck via Interstate 94, which is less congested than Interstate 96, after under five hours of drive time. We broke up the ride with stops in South Bend, Indiana, for pictures in front of Notre Dame’s Touchdown Jesus; in Benton Harbor to get my wife authentic tacos from La Perla; and in the sleepy beach town of St. Joseph for Forte Coffee and dog treats from FuzzyButz Pet Bakery for our Shiba Inu, Sushi.

Before the Dunes, I visited New Standard, a Michigan-based cannabis shop with locations across the state, including a stark white building across from the state park. Some legal weed shops still feel sketchy, but this has all the

shine of an Apple store thanks to oneon-one customer service. “We’re kind of the dispensary for moms,” my “budtender” tells me. There may be no better experience for first-timers, for whom he suggests Petra Cannabis-Infused Mints, a line of low-dose, 2.5-milligram hard candies that come in multiple flavors. Start low and slow, he advises.

A town of under 1,000 residents, Saugatuck, as well as Douglas (across the river) and Holland (15 minutes away), rivals any beach town in the Carolinas — at least during the summer. Weekenders from Chicago shop in boutiques and bookstores along Butler Street, rock on porches of antiques-filled bed-and-break-

MICHIGAN

BENTON HARBOR, MICHIGAN 42.1167° N, 86.4542° W

MICHIGAN MICHIGAN

Oval Beach in Saugatuck La Perla in Benton Harbor

ST. JOSEPH, MICHIGAN 42.0939° N, 86.4895° W

DILLON STEWART Virtue Cider Windmill Island Gardens Holland, Michigan

fasts such as the Inn of Saugatuck, and swim in pools of vintage motels like the waterfront BeachWay Resort & Hotel, the flamingo-themed Pines Motor Lodge and the Dunes Resort, a historic LGBTQ hotel. Yachts cruise up and down the Kalamazoo River, bookended by Lake Michigan and Kalamazoo Lake, next to retro boats, pontoons and donut boats available for rent at the Old Boat House. After my dune ride, I need a drink. Breweries, such as Saugatuck Brewing Co. and New Holland Brewing, define boozing in Michigan, but this region also is rich with more than 100 vineyards, such as the family-owned Fenn Valley Vineyards and Wine Cellar in neighboring Fennville, which has offered tours and tastings of its world-class, Michigan-grown wine since 1973. Yet, we land down the street at Virtue Cider, a sustainable 48-acre farm where brewmaster Gregory Hall presses and ferments local-picked apples across three cider houses. Non-alcoholic ciders, food, pergolas, gardens, trails and games make it a family- and dog-friendly option.

A visit to Holland, known for its Dutch roots, is another such selection. May’s Tulip Time, when notable Dutch horticulturist Ibo Gülsen creates an immersive garden featuring millions of tulips, is the city’s biggest draw. But the Windmill Island Gardens, which features a 250-year-old windmill imported from the Netherlands, the only authentic mill grain of its kind still in operation, is good any time for an hour or so of gouda cheese, merry-go-rounds and Midsommar vibes.

Our trip’s most difficult decision was dinner but only because of the wealth of options, which we narrowed to three.

The Southerner is a culinary exploration of Appalachian families’ northern migration to work in the auto industry. In a glam lakeside shack, Nana’s Fried Chicken, served by the half bird with sides and available spicy, and the Catfish Poor Boy keep tradition alive. Meanwhile, in a picturesque setting offshore in the Michigan woods, Pennyroyal chef Melissa Corey delivers unforgettable seasonal Midwestern fine dining that shines in dishes like the campfire trout, which lays toasty speck across the finely grilled Lake Michigan fish. Mermaid Waterfront Bar and Grill’s poke bowls and the Jar of Gold, a mixture of crab and lobster, offer fresh fish and an enjoyable riverfront view.

After dinner we watch the blue sky turn burnt orange and purple at Saugatuck’s Oval Beach, a clean, cozy patch of sand and collection of hiking trails where we’d picked up sunburns earlier. A photographer is shooting a wedding party from the top of the 40-foot sand dune that overlooks the shore. While we’d skipped the dog-friendly Holland State Park due to backed up Memorial Day traffic, we also hit a bottleneck at Oval’s entrance during peak hours. But when you have nowhere to be and you’re by the water, does it really matter?

Not to me. Because as the daylight falls into Lake Michigan, I fall for it, too. My dirty little secret.

Windmill Island Gardens

SAUGATUCK, MICHIGAN 42.6550° N, 86.2020° W MICHIGAN

HOLLAND, MICHIGAN 42.7875° N, 86.1089° W MICH

Waterfront Wonder

Get on, in or near the water this Summer. If Cleveland's lake life isn't scratching your itch for boating, fishing, swimming and beach lounging, these quick trips provide a change of scenery with the allure of summer fun on the water.

KELLEYS ISLAND

This Ohio island is an oasis of natural beauty. Enjoy birdwatching and hiking, topped off with a visit to the glacial grooves. When it's time to cool off, grab a golf cart and head to the beach. For an experience that can't be found in Cleveland, don scuba gear to get a look at dozens of shipwrecks off the island’s coast.

PRESQUE ISLE STATE PARK

This Pennsylvania gem boasts beautiful, quiet beaches perfect for either a romantic getaway or family outing. Enjoy a waterfront picnic with views of the city and that other Perry Monument. Biking, horseback riding, birding and hiking top off the fun. Check out the Lady Kate Sunset Boat Tour to get on the water.

MARIETTA AND OHIO RIVER

Marietta was the first permanent settlement in the Northwest Territory. Since then, it has stayed true to its river heritage. Both the Campus Martius and the Ohio River museums explain this important history in detail. The riverfront park offers excellent waterfront views as well as a perfect locale for a summer picnic.

BOURBONING IN KENTUCKY

You don't need an excuse to indulge in this barrel-aged whiskey — at least not when you're south of the Ohio River. By Rich Warren

Our guide at Rabbit Hole Distillery is emphatic: “There’s one thing I want y’all to remember — Bourbon is a verb! So when you’re in Kentucky I want y’all to be bourboning. Don’t underbourbon. I need a job!”

On our two-hour tour at Rabbit Hole in Louisville we walk through the production areas witnessing the processes of fermentation, distillation and aging. Invited to stick our fingers into the bubbling mash and take a taste, we do just that, assured the germs will all burn off.

Most distillery tours end with a tasting, and at Rabbit Hole, we enjoy our samples in a swanky lounge with floorto-ceiling views of the Louisville skyline.

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY 38.2527° N, 85.7585° W KENTUCKY

But this tour also began with the tasting of a bourbon cocktail. Our hosts ensure we are properly bourboned every step of the way.

I’ve been traveling to Kentucky at least once or twice a year for more than two decades. My grandfather grew up there, so maybe part of me sees it as “The Old Country.” But more than that, I’m just fascinated with the place. With a culture based on bourbon whiskey, race horses and genteel living, there’s simply no other place in the world like it.

When I first started going, the worldwide bourbon craze — with even the Japanese hoarding it by the caseload — hadn’t started. And the natives instructed me I should drink my bourbon straight, perhaps with a couple drops of water to cut it. “Why gild the lily?” they argued.

Oh, how things have changed. Nowadays, bourbon cocktails are all the rage, and a good old fashioned has become my own bourbon delivery system of choice. Over the years, I’ve learned more than a little about places to find them.

I frequently start my bourboning excursions in the venerable city of Louisville, where the Urban Bourbon Trail is one of the best ways to enjoy the local beverage. To qualify, all the bars and restaurants on the trail must have a minimum of 60 kinds of bourbon on hand.

Many of them go way beyond that. Take Doc Crow’s in downtown Louisville, for example. It’s a city block long, and the shelves holding bourbon bottles

extend the entire length of it. My own favorite places include the Old Seelbach Bar at the iconic Seelbach Hotel, a favorite haunt of F. Scott Fitzgerald (look for references to it in The Great Gatsby).

I also enjoy Proof on Main, where I once had an unforgettable lesson in the proper preparation of a mint julep. Ask your bartender where he or she stands on the local controversy of whether the mint should be muddled (I say yes!).

First-timers also will want to book a distillery tour, but take note that they’ve become so popular that it’s often necessary to book weeks in advance.

Far easier to book is a place called Copper & Kings, where another spirit,

Rabbit Hole Distillery

brandy, is produced. But what’s going on with that pounding rock music in the basement? The owners are convinced the reverberating bass beat creates a wave inside each barrel that produces “sonic aging.” On the day I visit, it was being treated to Cleveland's own Nine Inch Nails. (It was Trent Reznor’s birthday.)

On my most recent trip to Louisville, I mostly confine myself to a nine-block stretch of Main Street, just parallel to the Ohio River. In Louisville’s early days, it was called Whiskey Row because of all the distilleries there, and in fact, many of the major players are still there today. I even stayed at a bourbon-themed hotel, the Hotel Distil, where every day precisely at 19:33 military time (7:33 p.m.), a free old fashioned is dispensed to hotel guests in the lobby. 1933 just happens to be the year when Prohibition ended.

Nowadays, the street is more commonly referred to as Museum Row, because of attractions like the Louisville Slugger Museum, easily found by the 120-foot-high baseball bat — the world’s largest — standing just outside.

Of course, Kentucky’s bourbon production isn’t just confined to Louisville, so when you’re ready to hit the countryside, a good place to start is the Frazier History Museum, also on Museum Row. It’s the official launch point of the statewide Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

BARDSTOWN, KENTUCKY 37.8092° N, 85.4669° W

Since those distilleries are scattered far and wide, consider focusing your efforts on the charming town of Bardstown, just 40 miles outside of Louisville. Map publisher Rand McNally once proclaimed it the “Most Beautiful Small Town in America,” and for good reason.

There’s a stunning 19th century courthouse in the town’s center, and the Old Talbott Tavern (still a good place to overnight) has occupied the main square since 1779. Look for the bullet holes in an upstairs wall where Jesse James once demonstrated his marksmanship. On the edge of town stands My Old Kentucky Home, the inspiration for Stephen Foster’s song, which will be sung to you during your tour.

The self-styled “Bourbon Capital of the World,” Bardstown hosts the Kentucky Bourbon Festival every September. Within 16 miles of town, you can stop at Four Roses Bourbon, Jim Beam, Heaven Hill Distillery and the ultra-modern Bardstown Bourbon Co.

The bourbon destination absolutely not to be missed, however, is Maker’s Mark, about a half hour south of Bardstown. The campus sits on a working farm with pastures and lakes. At tour’s end, you can purchase a bottle and hand-dip it in Maker’s signature red wax.

Then take it with you and get yourself properly bourboned in the comfort of your own home.

KENTUCKY

Summertime Sips and Snacks

Summer is all about a cold drink after a long day in the sun, a backyard barbeque and making s’mores over a campfire. When it comes to delicious eats and refreshing drinks, there are favorites to be found all over the region.

THE ASHTABULA WINE TRAIL

Just 5 miles from the lake are 30 wineries and miles of vineyards that provide over half of all grapes grown in Ohio. Rooted in an 80-year family tradition, Ferrante Winery & Ristorante in Geneva is one of the largest wineries on the trail and offers modern tastes, including Italian dishes precisely paired with the drink menu.

MARKET STREET SODA WORKS

Located in downtown Newark, Ohio, this family-owned soda shop offers over 150 varieties of craft bottled soda ranging from standards like cream soda to wilder options like PB&J. Top off your visit with a trip to the Canal Market District, a farmers market featuring produce and artsand-crafts vendors.

DINING IN DETROIT

The Motor City is about more than cars. Joe Ann’s BBQ serves up chicken and ribs from its open charcoal pit. Chartreuse Kitchen & Cocktails offers everything from braised rabbit to walleye. Save room for desert and stop by Sister Pie, a renowned Detroit eatery with seasonal pie flavors, including classic cherry.

Old Forester Distillery

LORETTO, KENTUCKY 37.6353° N, 85.4008° W

Evan Williams Bourbon Experience Frazier History Museum

KENTUCKY

PHOTO CREDIT COURTESY GO TO LOUISVILLE Kelvin Cooperage

THE WILD,

W I L D W E ST O F THE EAST

Some of the most rugged landscape around lies just three hours away from Cleveland in the Allegheny National Forest.

By Laura Watilo Blake

According to some cultural beliefs, rain on your wedding day symbolizes good luck in the marriage. I ask myself if the same could be true for a road trip. After all, it’s pouring when my 8-year-old daughter, Kinley, and I pull out of the driveway for a few days in the great outdoors of northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York.

I finally get my answer two hours into the journey when the setting sun drops below the dark rain clouds, shining like a fireball through the misty air. A rainbow arcs in front of

COOK FOREST STATE PARK, PA 41.3330° N, 79.2091° W PENNSYLVANIA • NEW YORK

the car and the figurative pot of gold is a sign that reads, “Welcome to Pennsylvania Wilds,” at the opposite end of the highest road bridge in Pennsylvania, which soars 270 feet above the Allegheny River on Interstate 80.

The rain stops just as we arrive at the Clarion River Lodge at the edge of Cook Forest State Park. The property reopened after a hiatus with 20 freshly updated rooms — each one decorated with antiques owner Victor Milko collected during the four years he spent renovating the place. There’s also a casual restaurant, plus a cozy pub with seating on all sides to encourage friendly banter.

The next morning, we head out for a hike and spot a couple paddling past the lodge’s sliver of waterfront on the misty Clarion River, which is lined with purplehued wildflowers. The Pale Whale, located five miles downstream in Cooksburg, rents canoes, kayaks, rafts and inner tubes for float trips on the nationally designated Wild and Scenic River, where you might see a black bear at the water’s edge, a bald eagle swooping down to capture its prey or deer grazing in a forest clearing.

Two miles past the Pale Whale, we take a short hike along the Longfellow Trail on a bed of fallen pine needles through the Cook Forest’s towering Forest Cathedral, an impressive stand of old-growth forest, which includes the tallest tree in

Pennsylvania — a 171-foot-tall white pine.

The rest of the day is spent zig-zagging our way north in the car through the heart of the Allegheny National Forest on our way toward the town of Bradford, a former oil boomtown near the New York state line. The most direct route should take a little more than an hour, but we take the scenic route, stopping on a whim to watch fly fishermen catch trout, ogle the views along the Longhouse Scenic Byway and chase waterfalls near Kinzua Dam. When it begins to rain, we stop for an early dinner at Docksider’s Cafe at the Kinzua Wolf Run Marina. Eventually, the sun starts

BRADFORD, PA 41.9565° N, 78.6492° W

Clarion River Little Rock City

PENNSYLVANIA • NEW YORK

PHOTO CREDIT LAURA WATILO BLAKE Rimrock Overlook

to shine again, just in time to watch a stunning sunset unfold at Rimrock Overlook, before making our way to Willow Creek Cabins for the night.

The next morning, Kinley discovers a rope swing that hurls her over the hillside, while I bend down to get a look at the bright-orange newt crawling around the roots of the tree from which the swing dangles. I wish I would have planned more downtime to enjoy the small pleasures of vacation life like these.

A short time later, we’re paddling across the sparkling water of the Willow Bay Recreation Area, where you can rent canoes and kayaks. The highlight is watching the resident osprey soar over the bay, then hurtle itself toward the water to catch a fish in its sharp talons.

On the way to Bradford for lunch, we stop at the Marilla Bridges Trail, a short 1-mile hike around a reservoir sheltered by towering evergreen trees. It’s a great place for a picnic, but we have plans to eat at John Williams European Pastry Shop, which serves breakfast all day.

The house-made glazed cinnamon streusel French toast has enough sugar to keep us going strong for the rest of the day, which includes an excursion to Kinzua Bridge State Park, one of the most popular attractions in the region. The Kinzua Bridge was once the longest and tallest in the world. Part of it was destroyed by a tornado in 2003, but the still-standing section has been turned into a Sky Walk that leads out over the valley with views of the mangled steel trusses below.

By early evening, we finally cross the New York state line, where the unbroken forest continues. Allegany State Park spans 65,000 more acres, making it the largest state park in the state. We skirt the park and make the 20-minute drive north to Ellicottville, New York. Known as the “Aspen of the East,” the ski town attracts outdoor enthusiasts who play hard all day then chill out in the village, which packs bed and breakfasts, shopping, dining and entertainment into one square mile.

We decide to check out West Rose, a slick sophisticated eatery with a cool drink menu. The Cantarito, both the alcoholic version with tequila and the non-alcoholic concoction, blends lime, grapefruit and pineapple for a delicious and refreshing drink.

Although we've never tried mountain biking before, we give it a go the next morning at HoliMont Ski Club, a members-only resort open to the public in the summer.

We take the chairlift to the top of the mountain. From there, we cruise around the club’s Saddle Pond with its brandnew swimming beach, then circle Spruce Lake before heading back down to the HoliMont parking lot, the setting for live music and food trucks on the weekend at the end of a long day of riding.

By the time we’re back home in Cleveland, we're already checking the calendar for dates to return to this neck of the woods and also back into the Allegheny National Forest for more adventures in the wild.

ELLICOTTVILLE, NEW YORK 42.2751° N, 78.6728° W PENNSYLVANIA • NEW YORK

Take to the Trails

Warm weather has returned — and the natural beauty of the Midwest is calling. That makes right now the perfect time for nature lovers to get out of the house and start exploring.

WEST VIRGINIA

The title “almost heaven” is fitting for a state where winding trails meet flowing waterfalls. Cathedral Falls is a top draw, while the Monongahela National Forest offers five waterfalls tucked into the woods. Both the Allegheny and Appalachian trails wind through the state and offer longer hiking journeys.

HOCKING HILLS

Hocking Hills in Southern Ohio boasts cabins, campsites and over 20 miles of hiking trails. Notable sites include the Old Man’s Cave, where rock formations beg to be explored, and the 5-mile Whispering Cave Trail. The park has a variety of cabins, ensuring the adventure does not stop at the end of the trail.

KOKOSING GAP TRAIL

Once a part of the Pennsylvania railroad, this 14-mile trail stretches from Mount Vernon to Danville, cutting through the town of Gambier. Perhaps the most notable part of the trail, however, is the Bridge of Dreams, the second-longest covered bridge in Ohio, bringing travelers over the Mohican River.