SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio - The Van Aken District has gone from rubble just a few years ago to a carefully designed lifestyle center on the East Side.
Soon it will have a restaurant anchor. And that anchor is hanging its hat on, of all things, fire.
Sawyer's, from Cleveland chef Jonathon Sawyer, is coming, adding more life to an area that Jon Ratner, president of RMS Investment Corp., has worked hard to create as a community gathering place. The restaurant will feature a special wood-burning oven that will offer patrons a lot more than pizza.
"He's an absolute anchor in terms of the restaurant, in terms of the brand," Ratner said. "Our leasing on a premise here is best of local, and we highlighted that with a few kind of hand-picked national or regional brands. But we're here to celebrate the local economy and entrepreneur, and there's really no better example of that than Jonathon Sawyer."
The restaurateur’s culinary footprint includes his flagship, The Greenhouse Tavern, on East 4th Street in downtown Cleveland; Noodlecat in Crocker Park, a presence in Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, several books and other business ventures. His restaurant Trentina closed in January of this year after a five-year run in University Circle. Target opening date for Sawyer’s is September.
A restaurant based on fire and design
A centralized green space that beckons people to hang out on nice nights is flanked by Mitchell's Ice Cream and Sawyer's. It was designed for the spot, the developers said, so kids don’t have to cross the street. Doors open at either place leading people right into the small grassy setting.
Sawyer's will have a patio, glass wall and a not-oversized dining room.
"It's not gargantuan," Sawyer said on a recent tour of the restaurant's bones during construction. "The building looks substantial, but it's one beautiful dining room split into four pieces."
Added Ratner: "We think dining today is about much more intimate experiences, intimate spaces."
The space will have about 80 seats inside plus bar and 20 or so outside. Interior seating will encompass a central, raised platform for several diners and segregated bar area on the side.
"It's hard to create energy in a giant dining room," Sawyer said.
It's the food preparation where Sawyer and his chefs will shine. He is using his experience both with crafting menus and his deft navigation around a kitchen to truly embrace wood-fired cooking.
"What we learned to do at Trentina really changed the way we thought about food," he said about hearth cooking and wood fires. The oven at Sawyer's will allow for very different dishes to be cooked simultaneously despite wide-ranging temperatures required.
Steaks that have to be seared, fish that has to be finished, and chicken that must be cooked thoroughly all can co-exist on a seven-foot grill with custom-built pieces that allow for different grill grates - chapas, specialized steel plates. A cast-iron door will allow an area for bread.
So the top of the grill might hit 800 degrees. Further down it might go to 400, then 200 and, at the bottom, all the way to 80 degrees.
"This is an ingredient we use to flavor food in so many ways. It's utilizing every single inch of this fire," Sawyer said.
It's a matter of creative efficiency.
"So much of wood fire was 'What do I do with all of this smoke and get it out of the hood?' not 'There is an opportunity to smoke the fish bones from the whole fish,' " Sawyer said.
Sawyer's will have three points where your eyes will go: The wood fire, hanging plants and the outside green space. And at any place you can see all of those areas, Sawyer and Ratner said.
"The whole idea," Sawyer said, "is modern wood-fired fare and phenomenal hospitality."
Developing an area
RMS kept in mind the idea of vantage and accessibility as key components of the district, which broke ground two and a half years ago.
Van Aken is more than a few buildings that are hanging a well-known name or two on a restaurant. RMS' vision embodies urban planning, targeted dining choices, well-designed outdoor areas, living spaces and a modern community gathering area.
Over the past couple of years, the Van Aken District has taken shape. Like a piece of clay initially void of a design or personality, it was molded into a lifestyle center. Tenants have moved in, office space has filled, restaurants have opened. Life is there.
"The intent was to make a community downtown for Shaker Heights - really more of a downtown community hub, a central gathering place, really integrated and connected in the city," Ratner said. "In that way it's very different from a mall."
Ratner's cousin Albert built the original center on the site in 1955, not far from the busy - and once notorious and messy - intersection of Warrensville Center Road and Chagrin Boulevard. Then, 10 years ago, Shaker Heights officials approached the family when it wanted to redo the intersection.
Ratner said the city offered a parallel idea: "We're putting this infrastructure in; would you like to improve your asset?"
It didn't take long to realize the area could be improved considerably, with a population hub in place, nearby transit, and multiple rooftops not served with a true retail gathering.
So the former all-retail space was demolished, and 100,000 square feet of retail was added in addition to 70,000 square feet of office space and 100 apartments.
"We remade the space," Ratner said. "We took what was existing and kind of refashioned it for the current way people like to experience these kind of places."
And part of that refashioning means paying particular attention not only to food choices but to the design, the ownership and the many details that compose modern restaurants.
Michael's Genuine Food and Drink, owned by James Beard-award winning chef Michael Schwartz, has been steadily busy since opening in April. It is adjacent to the Market Hall, home to a series of more than half a dozen stalls for eateries and shops, which has both outdoor and indoor seating areas. Banter, the poutine-sausage-beer-wine restaurant-shop in Cleveland's Gordon Square, is one of the tenants.
"The great chefs today are not just want-to-work-the-line chefs," Ratner said. "They are like impresarios. They create a whole experience. We knew that’s what we wanted for here."
Offices and apartments are occupied, Ratner said, and retail is very close.
Like the green space between Mitchell's and Sawyer's, the market-hall concept bridges shops and gathering spaces.
"It’s a whole new breed around the country," Ratner said. "The worst of them are versions of food courts. The best bring in other dynamics."
A sushi eatery is coming, as are pop-up sellers, said Mackenzie Makepeace, director of development for RMS Investment Corp.
Being able to have an evolving space that can change every quarter or so is important, she said.
"It brings someone who has been to the market maybe 10 times something new for them to do," Makepeace said.
More about Sawyer's
• A second-floor bar is a separate space but one operation, Ratner said: It will have a different name and design, but the food will come from Sawyer's. It will encompass an 1,800-square-foot mezzanine with a 2,000-square-foot outdoor patio overlooking the public green space nestled between apartments and office space. It has the potential to be a "premier rooftop patio on the East Side," Ratner said.
• When Ratner, Sawyer and an associate were "crystalizing" the deal for Sawyer's at the BottleHouse in Cleveland Heights, they toasted with Buffalo Trace whiskey. "We took the cap and buried it in the foundation," Ratner said.
• The restaurant will be lined with some banquette seating, though there will not be a private dining room per se.
• A framed-out entry room will serve as a "living room" of sorts especially during wintertime, Sawyer said. And, he added, "the idea is having the tiniest, most effective host-stand / cocktail bar at entry."
• The bar is "tiny and hidden on purpose," Sawyer said. Its segregated design won’t crowd dining-room and bar patrons.
• Nature's Oasis, café and small natural grocery store, sits across the street.
• Every Friday through September a beer garden or vendor market will be held in Van Aken District.
• Developers are reaching out to Shaker Heights to seek looser restrictions on open containers. An established Outdoor Refreshment Area will allow people to relax or stroll nearby with a drink.
For his part, Sawyer can't wait to fire up the oven.
“It’s so fun being involved in a project this long and this passionate,” he said.