Since opening the Spotted Owl in Tremont 11 years ago, Will Hollingsworth and his partners have gone on to open and acquire multiple concepts that include Prosperity Social Club in Tremont, Good Company in Battery Park, Old 86 in Detroit Shoreway, and La Cave du Vin in Tremont, which replaced Spotted Owl.
Buildings & Food, Hollingsworth’s hospitality group, is driven by the twin pursuits of preserving and launching distinctive one-offs while growing the Good Company brand, which he describes as the engine that powers the entire group.
“Good Company is the future of this company, in terms of revenue and in terms of allowing us to explore more interesting and creative things,” says Hollingsworth.
Next up for Buildings & Food is a move into Lakewood. Early next year, the group will open Easy Out, a sports bar concept taking shape in the former Ohio Inn space at 11822 Detroit Ave. Many locals will remember the property as the long-term home of Maria’s Roman Room.
“This was one of those unicorn opportunities that I’m always looking for,” says Hollingsworth. “We have been wanting for the portfolio a sports bar because it’s a gap in what we offer in the city. We have a lot of bars that are good for a lot of things but not a lot of them are places you’d want to go and watch a game.”
The spacious bar and dining room can seat approximately 70 guests, not including the secluded rear patio. Diners can look forward to plenty of screens, Cleveland-based sports memorabilia, Golden Tee, darts, and bar food that punches above its weight.
“Taking that Good Company attention to detail and quality and applying it to sports bar food,” is how Hollingsworth describes it.
The menu will offer items such as wings, corndogs, chili, salads, entrees and other pub fare. To drink, there will be “dad beer,” craft beer, a few great glasses of wine and sturdy cocktails. The goal is to be open by Super Bowl Sunday.
Easy Out is just the latest development in a recent flurry of them for Buildings & Food. The partners are well into the construction of a spacious new bakery and production facility in Ohio City, located on West 25th across the street from Intro. Behind the scenes, the complex will be where executive pastry chef Joseph Holmes prepares all the sweet and savory items that make their way to the many Buildings & Food kitchens. On the consumer-facing side, there will be a retail coffee and baked goods component coupled with a quick-serve version of Good Company.
“The West 25th thing is something that we’ve been working on for a while in order to maintain quality, maintain consistency and be able to keep up with demand for expansion,” Hollingsworth explains. “The production facility will allow us to build more restaurants.”
To further support future growth, Buildings & Food has brought in chef and restaurateur Jill Vedaa as vice president of culinary operations. Since closing her and Jessica Parkison’s acclaimed Salt restaurant in 2024, Vedaa has been consulting.
“The time came for us to have somebody at a VP level that oversees everything culinary – all of the kitchens over the entire company,” says Hollingsworth. “We never expected to have so many kitchens, and to be offering such a diversity of product, so it became really clear that we needed someone.”
It’s been no secret that Hollingsworth has been on the hunt for a new home for Good Company, which is being pushed out of its Battery Park location sometime next year because of new construction projects there. Plans to open a new flagship restaurant at the Welleon in Gordon Square were scuttled due to escalating costs.
“We just need to find the right space,” says Hollingsworth, adding that the Akron Good Company continues to do well.
The unexpected exit from Battery Park (alongside the fabrication of the new production kitchen in Ohio City) has forced the company to readjust its priorities. Projects such as the Griffin Cider House property in Lakewood, which the company acquired in early 2024, and the Lolita building in Tremont, which has been lingering since late 2022, remain, for now, on the shelf.
“I don’t want to do something half-assed at Lolita,” Hollingsworth explains. “I love that building too much; its too important to us spiritually.”
Hollingsworth and Buildings & Food partners Sin-Jin Satayathum and Kathleen Sullivan worked a combined 23 years at that building, he states. Plus, he adds, it’s not exactly an ideal time to launch a restaurant project of that stature.
“I want to do fine dining. I want to do something bold. I want to do something interesting,” he says. “And to be perfectly honest, those sorts of concepts are not really being supported here – or anywhere else – right now.”
Subscribe to CLE Bites, Doug Trattner’s weekly food newsletter.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Related
Douglas Trattner
Source link
