new crust in tremont offers pizzas and more to foodie neighborhood

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When it comes to his new takeout restaurant Crust, chef Jeff Fisher is ambivalent about just one thing: calling it a pizza place. With its homemade gnocci, unique sub sandwiches, killer salads and made-from scratch pizzas, it's so much more than that, he says.

Crust, located at 1020 Kenilworth across from Visible Voice Books, aims to capitalize on Tremont's foodie reputation with takeout worthy of its fine dining and bar scene. The pickup counter alone stimulates your tastebuds: With no separation between the kitchen and ordering area, patrons can watch as their foods are being made.

"You're up on stage with us from the minute you walk in the door, watching us work on the orders," says Fisher. "There's a little bit of showmanship going on."

Fisher launched Crust with owner Mike Griffin, who also boasts about the recipes. "It took us three months and four hundred pounds of flour to get the right dough recipe," he says. "Even though it's takeout, everything is from scratch."

Many of the ingredients are sourced locally from the Tremont Farmers Market. Patrons can order pizza by the pie or slice. The big 15-inchers are a nod to the famous New York slice: So large they hang out of the box.

"People have been getting a pizza, taking it across the street to Visible Voice, and having a glass of wine," says Griffin, who originally found the location when his cousin, Visible Voice owner Dave Ferrante, contacted him.

As for how business has been since opening? "So far, so good," notes Griffin.


Source: Jeff Fisher, Mike Griffin
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Lee Chilcote
Lee Chilcote

About the Author: Lee Chilcote

Lee Chilcote is founder and editor of The Land. He is the author of the poetry chapbooks The Shape of Home and How to Live in Ruins. His writing has been published by Vanity Fair, Next City, Belt and many literary journals as well as in The Cleveland Neighborhood Guidebook, The Cleveland Anthology and A Race Anthology: Dispatches and Artifacts from a Segregated City. He is a founder and former executive director of Literary Cleveland. He lives in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood of Cleveland with his family.