The view from the Idea Center

Hospitals. The orchestra. A surprisingly diverse and robust food scene.
 
These are the things commonly cited by Clevelanders expressing pride in our assets, especially since professional sports teams seemingly do little to reduce our collective inferiority complex.
 
But I’ve often wondered (feared?) we’ve reached a saturation point with restaurants in Cleveland, particularly in heavily trafficked areas like East 4 ^th and West 6 ^th streets and in Ohio City, not to mention our inner-ring suburb food options.
 
Vacancies have popped up on East 4 ^th Street with the closing of Chinato (soon to be Dante Boccuzzi’s Asian-fusion venture, Goma) and  Greenhouse Tavern, due to the well-documented financial problems chef Jonathon Sawyer is facing.
 
Now comes the news that Ohio City Galley, home of several food start-ups, is  closing Friday after just  15 months in business. The news came as a surprise to Brett Sawyer, owner of two Galley spots.
 
“Not what we expected,” Sawyer told ideastream’s Taylor Haggerty. “If we had known we were going to be in and out in less than three months, we wouldn’t have opened there.”
 
The same parent company, Galley Group, had been successful with the Smallman Galley for five years in Pittsburgh, where they are based. But another version in Chicago closed after just five months.
 
As Galley Group Vice President of Operations Chad Ellingboe said in a written statement, “various factors” led to its closure. That’s true in any business. High rent can result in pricing out certain customers, parking issues can prevent visits from those outside walking distance and some establishments just have trouble building a customer base.

It’s worth asking if the Cleveland economy can only support so many restaurants, regardless of our civic pride and love of eating.

Thanks for reading and listening,
Glenn Forbes

Need to KnOH

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Your ideas

Even though Ohio currently has no confirmed cases, coronavirus is on everyone’s mind – and every conversation we’re having today. On The Sound of Ideas this morning, Cuyahoga County Health Commissioner Terry Allan said Northeast Ohio is well prepared if the illness hits us.

“We have plenty of capacity and experience with this,” Allan told host Mike McIntyre. “We’ve been actively planning. There are guidelines, certainly, from the CDC describing the lessons learned from H1N1, sort of a moderate pandemic.”

Has coronavirus or concerns about it had any impact on you so far? Have you canceled a cruise or a flight? Gotten a note about hand washing sent home from school or daycare? Tell us about it! Call us at  (216) 916-6476, comment on our Facebook page or join the conversation in Public Square. We'll feature some of your thoughts and comments here in Noon(ish) and on Morning Edition.