CLEVELAND — There are more than 100 restaurants in downtown Cleveland and only some of them are starting to recover from the major downturn in business they’ve experienced over the last six months.
“It’s been a rollercoaster ride. I mean, we obviously had COVID-19 and then unrest in May,” said Russ Mengle, the managing partner of Wild Eagle Saloon.
Mengle says although he’s glad the restaurant is open, they are still navigating working under COVID-19 restrictions.
“The most drastic changes is the 10 p.m. close down because we’re an event-driven city (and) obviously with that there’s a later crowd. So 50 percent of our sales was after 10 p.m. pre-COVID. So, that definitely made an impact, so we made some adjustments. We would have, you know, tens of thousands of fans coming down, just to be close to where the game is going on,” Mengle says.
In effort to bring more traffic into restaurants, the Downtown Cleveland Alliance organized a Cleveland Fall Restaurant Week. The organization typically hosts one annual downtown restaurant week each February. Downtown Cleveland Alliance President Joe Marinucci says adding the fall event benefits restaurants needing a boost right now.
“From our perspective, we think if we can get people more acclimated and feel more comfortable, coming back into downtown, they’re going to revisit more often and take advantage of the many culinary options that are open and ready for business,” Marinucci says.
A number of downtown restaurants have had to close their doors for good, while others have had to scale back their business hours. Marinucci is hopeful that efforts such as Downtown Cleveland Fall Restaurant Week will help turn things around.
“It is a very resilient city, and the reality is that from from our perspective. We’ve had challenges historically, and again, we are still in vibrant downtown,” Marinucci says.
“We’re excited! We hope we get some people in here that wouldn’t have usually tried us because of restaurant week,” Mengle says.
