After 35 years in the ad game -- and induction into the Advertising Hall of Fame -- Alan Glazen retired, looking forward long days spent swinging on his Lake Erie island hammock. But that's not what happened. Despite not knowing the first thing about running a restaurant, Glazen reluctantly found himself doing exactly that. As the owner of three successful concepts, Glazen wants others to join him.

The second annual Cleveland Asian Festival will be held this weekend, Saturday and Sunday May 21 and 22, at the Asia Plaza shopping center and on surrounding streets. The festival is a celebration of the culture, diversity, and people who live, work and play in the AsiaTown neighborhood. The event will build upon its remarkable success last year, when over 10,000 attendees showed up at the first-ever event.

Pastry chef Courtney Bonning plans to open Bonbon Pastry and Café this summer in the former Athens Bakery shop at W. 26th and Lorain Avenue, further boosting available food offerings in Ohio City.

"We'll be opening a full bakery that will serve fresh, handmade croissants and desserts as well as a European-style café," says Bonning. "You'll be greeted by beautifully prepared items when you walk in the door, all priced below $15."

Bonning worked in Napa Valley, Seattle and the Cleveland Ritz-Carlton before launching her own bakery a couple years back in Detroit Shoreway. She was inspired to make the leap to the new 2,000-square-foot storefront after witnessing the momentum of the Market District. The new businesses popping up around the West Side Market will help drive traffic to her café, she says.

Bonbon will also serve a brunch-style menu featuring sandwiches, salads, small plates and egg-based dishes. In the summer months, tables and chairs on Lorain will transform it into a sidewalk café. It will be open from 6:30 a.m. until 9 p.m.

Bonning is especially excited about the businesses opening in the adjacent United Bank Building, which is owned by MRN Ltd., the developers of East Fourth Street and Uptown in University Circle. Penzeys Spices opened last year, and this summer, Crop will open its new location.

"We fell in love with the historic bank lobby, a gorgeous space with high ceilings, and we're sold by MRN's commitment to changing the neighborhood," says Jackie Schimoler, co-owner of Crop with her husband Steve. "It's a great location."

Next door to the restaurant, the Crop Shop will feature fresh, locally grown food such as heirloom tomatoes or specialty sausages used in Crop's dishes. Schimoler envisions it as a separate venture that feeds the restaurant, and vice-versa. "Whatever product we don't sell at the market, we'll just use at the restaurant."


Source: Courtney Bonning, Jackie Schimoler
Writer: Lee Chilcote

For decades, Ohio City's Lorain Avenue has been a symbol of beautiful decay. But thanks to the development boom taking place along West 25th Street, more entrepreneurs are beginning to set up shop on Lorain. Among the additions are a gourmet chili restaurant, vintage clothing store, architecture office and yoga studio -- all part of the neighborhood's burgeoning artisan economy.

Clevelanders are having a love affair with locally grown, seasonal food -- and that romance is playing out at numerous farmers markets around town. These days, it's possible to shop at a different neighborhood farmers market practically every day of the week, a far cry from when just a handful existed. What's more: Cleveland-area farmers markets will reap approximately $2.5 million this year, great news for small entrepreneurs and the local economy.

With nearly a dozen different farmers markets setting up around town, it has never been easier to stock our larders with fresh, local food. In this pictorial feature, Fresh Water managing photographer Bob Perkoski takes us on a colorful tour of Cleveland's increasingly popular farmers markets. Bring cash, a cloth bag, and a healthy appetite.

The North Union Farmers Market now operates eight different markets around the Greater Cleveland area. Three years ago, the nonprofit launched a new market at the Cleveland Clinic, bringing healthy, farm-fresh produce to a neighborhood that could use it most. Here is a video of the popular Cleveland Clinic market in action.

When Michael Walton bought a hoop house for his city farm, he envisioned an urban barn-raising of sorts. He put out a call for volunteers, and soon had 30 people who offered to help.

Yet by noon on the big day, only 10 were left. The next day, there were five. Two days later, the group had been wheedled down to three hardy souls. And still the hoop house wasn't completed.

Frustrated, Walton and his coworkers began to ask themselves: Is this really the best product available? And then, rather than wait for an answer, the team set out to design a better model themselves. That's how Tunnel Vision Hoops, a startup manufacturer of retractable all-weather domes for growing crops, was born.

"We thought we'd just build a few each summer, make some pizza money and go on our way," Walton told the audience at a recent entrepreneurial showcase organized by Local Food Cleveland, a group whose mission is to help grow the local food movement in Northeast Ohio. "Yet when we really started looking at the design, that's when we decided to launch our business."

Tunnel Vision's all-weather high tunnels represent an improvement over existing designs, say owners Michael Walton, Carlton Jackson and Todd Alexander. They feature dome-shaped ends that help them to withstand strong winds, systems for collecting rainwater that can be used for irrigating plants, retractable end walls that allow for venting, and entrances on the sides rather than the ends, making it easier to move from one tunnel to another.

Since launching last year, Tunnel Vision has sold structures to Case Western Reserve University's Squire Valleyview Farm and the Cleveland Botanical Garden's Green Corps program. In its first six months, the company did over $80,000 in sales.

The company also has a division called We Dig the City that is intended for backyard gardens. These tunnels start at 10 feet long and are priced at $2,000, including installation.

Tunnel Vision's long-term goal is to aid the local food movement and keep more of our food dollars in Northeast Ohio by making the region a year-round growing center.


Source: Tunnel Vision Hoops
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Food trucks are all the rage -- both here and across the U.S. Despite one of the worst recessions in recent history, these plucky start-ups are thriving, adding jobs, injecting cash into the local economy, and putting smiles on the faces of hungry diners. But rather than encourage the proliferation of these economic development engines, food truck operators say the City of Cleveland is making it nearly impossible for them to succeed.

TEDxCLE is an annual forum that gathers the region's big thinkers to share ideas worth spreading. Organizers -- and recent "brain gains" -- Hallie Bram and Eric Kogelschatz seek to change the perceptions of people who live here as well as those outside the region by sharing stories of success, innovation and inspiration.

"Urban agriculture" is no longer an oxymoron in Cleveland. The city is a nationwide leader in urban farming, boasting one of the largest urban farms in America. There's more to local food than flavor. By shifting one quarter of Northeast Ohio's food-buying needs from out-of-state sources to local food producers we can pour $4.2 billion into the regional economy.

Local food startups are growing by leaps and bounds in Cleveland. Whether it's urban farming or specialty food production, the ability of local entrepreneurs to affect change in the food industry seems limitless.

This Monday, April 4, 10 food entrepreneurs will gather at Great Lakes Brewing Co. to share the secrets of their success. A Local Food Cleveland event, the Local Food Startup Business Showcase looks at businesses that are helping the local food economy.

Among the startups at the showcase will be Tunnel Vision Hoops, which designs retractable domes for year-round farming; Green City Growers Cooperative, a 100-percent worker-owned commercial greenhouse in Cleveland; and MOHCO, a manufacturer of falafel dough with a philanthropic mission to help communities locally and abroad.

And just in case you think this local food business isn't getting noticed outside of Cleveland, consider this: Yahoo! recently named Cleveland the fourth most visionary city in the world, particularly because of urban farming initiatives. Cleveland was ranked behind Seoul, Abu Dhabi and Tallinn, Estonia. The online news source sited Gardens Under Glass in the Galleria, which grows vegetables and then sells them at a weekly indoor market, as a fine example of urban farming in Cleveland.


SOURCE: Local Food Cleveland
WRITER: Diane DiPiero