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5th Street Pub opening Sylvania location

By
Joel Sensenig
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Perrysburg’s 5th Street Pub has been bringing authentic Neapolitan pizza to Northwest Ohio diners for nearly two years.

This spring, it aims to expand its 150-year-old recipes and Italian baking techniques to a new location 16 miles up the road. The pizzeria and pub is expanding to a second location in Sylvania at 5577 Monroe St.

“Since day one, we’ve had people coming in from Sylvania,” said Geoff Kies, who owns the restaurant with his wife Melissa. “And every person from Sylvania would lament, ‘Man, I wish you guys were closer.’”

The owners had started looking in the Sylvania area for possible expansion when the opportunity arose to purchase the former Hamway’s on the Main and World Tea Company in the Promenade Shops. Together, the two businesses will become the second 5th Street Pub, with roughly the same square footage as the original.

With a complete gutting and renovation of the location in order, Kies is hoping to open in early April.

“People in Sylvania have a little bit more of an advanced palate than most places,” he said. “There’s a lot of good restaurants up there, so they’re used to good food. … I think it’s going to be a really good fit.”

Neapolitan pizzas are made a specific way, with specific ingredients — just like they were made in Italy in the 19th century. Less yeast is used in the dough, which must be stretched a certain way. The three primary toppings are tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese — much less than on most pizzas — and basil leaves. Wood-burning ovens reaching 1,000 degrees bake the pies in 90 seconds.

Kies and managing partner Bruce Rahe went to New York City several years ago to be trained in the process by Roberto Caporuscio, who owns Kesté Pizzeria. At the time, they were two of the just 35 people in the U.S. certified in making Neapolitan pies.

Kies said the reception to the Old World food has been enthusiastic.

“The kind of pizza we sell, it’s very different than the pizza people are used to around here,” he said. “We were hoping that people were going to eat this stuff up, and they have.

“I think people are smarter these days due to the Food Network and things like that, you have a more educated palate among the people,” Kies said. “They can get into the fact that the recipe we use to make this pizza is 150 years old.

“The ingredients that make the margherita pizza that we have comes from the same part of Italy that first margherita pizza came from. We don’t use any modern techniques in cooking the pizza, it’s all Old-World techniques,” Kles said. “We’re trying to preserve the history of Neapolitan pizza — Neapolitan pizza being the one that gave birth to pizza everywhere, all over the world. This is the one that started it.”

While the second location will mirror the look and atmosphere of the first, Kies is still determining if patio space will be possible in Sylvania. The Perrysburg pub added an enclosed, all-season patio last year after some neighbors complained of noise from the establishment. Kies is eyeing the front of the former World Tea Company property as the most likely candidate for patio space.

Kies said the second 5th Street Pub will employ about 40 people, with 35 of them being new employees. Those interested in applying may do so at the original location, 105 W. 5th St., Perrysburg. For more information, visit 5thstreetpub.com. O

Legacy project breathes new life into historic Cherry Street

By
Tom Konecny
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From left, Rhonda Cole, Keyah Lynch, Leo Brown and Karen Rogalski are among those working to clean up the Cherry Street neighborhood. Toledo Free Press photo by Christie Materni

The Cherry Street Legacy Project is a community partnership that began with the vision of creating a stronger and safer neighborhood for those along and around Cherry Street.

Focusing on the stretch between the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Bridge  (which many still call the Cherry Street Bridge) and I-75, the project preserves the neighborhood’s proud past as its residents forge together into the future.

“It’s amazing,” said Karen Rogalski, project coordinator. “It has changed the flavor of the neighborhood.”

From left, Rhonda Cole, Keyah Lynch, Leo Brown and Karen Rogalski are among those working to clean up the Cherry Street neighborhood. Toledo Free Press photo by Christie Materni
From left, Rhonda Cole, Keyah Lynch, Leo Brown and Karen Rogalski are among those working to clean up the Cherry Street neighborhood. Toledo Free Press photo by Christie Materni

Several entities collaborate on the project, but it all began in 2005 with one of Cherry Street’s prominent occupants and Downtown’s only hospital, Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center.

At that time, St. V’s board members were discussing a potential move to the suburbs for the hospital, mainly in response to doctors who said they didn’t feel safe coming to work.

After much discussion, the board decided to stay, but not without a neighborhood improvement plan. They knew as the value of the neighborhood rose, so would the hospital’s. After a detailed written strategy was put together, it sat untouched for several years until Rogalski was recruited to put it into action around 2008.

Rather than call a community meeting, she immediately started hitting the pavement.

“We went out and we interviewed 200-plus houses,” Rogalski said. “Out of that we interviewed 100 ‘man on the street’ people and asked ‘What are the perceptions of people coming in the area?’ We looked at each individual parcel, and during that period of time I physically mapped parcel by parcel and really got to understand the neighborhood.”

Rogalski found the single largest issue was crime, followed by blight and empty lots. While qualitative data would drive what work to do, Rogalski knew the strategy had to come from the people.

The group began to work with the city on code enforcement, no easy task due to numerous historic homes in the area that couldn’t be immediately demolished. They helped landowners next to blighted properties purchase them for $100, thus facilitating their demolition and providing an end user to care for the land.

New houses were erected on some lots, with builders working with the group and NeighborWorks Toledo Region to develop new homes that blended well with historic properties.

Interviewing residents also helped the group realize there was growing concern about Moody Manor, resulting in increased block watch participation. Originally there was just one block watch group in the area; now there are three, all of which have generated ideas to keep youth out of crime.

“Police come to our crime meetings,” Rogalski said. “We’ve started to talk the same language, and there’s no magic answer, but we have reduced crime and changed crime.”

Knowing that improved lighting is one way to mitigate misconduct, Rogalski spent some early morning hours driving the streets and found that not only were 80 street lights out, but that residents didn’t know how to report them. After talking with FirstEnergy, the group developed a plan whereby residents merely place duct tape on poles to signal a bulb needs to be replaced.

Another group involved with the collaboration is the Cherry Street Development Organization, whose members include St. V’s, Central Catholic High School, United North and various nonprofits.

“Karen Rogalski knows this project inside and out, and I’m just along for the ride and to support it in any way I can,” said president Mike Boyle. “She’s done a phenomenal job.

“There’s a lot of different groups that are doing good. There’s just too much negativity in the media, and I’m tired of it. They’re throwing it in your face constantly, and it’s like there’s an agenda to bring down our city.”

For now, the Cherry Street Legacy Project will continue to play its part in facilitating a massive group effort.

“We’ve done some really interesting things to reduce crime,” Rogalski said. “There’s these little things we continue to build on.”

For more information, visit Cherry Street Legacy Project on Facebook.

Mahler: Terroir: It matters where it’s from

By
Toledo Free Press
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Terroir. It’s a term used in the wine world that has bled into everyday wine small talk.

It’s a French term that has no direct translation, into most languages, but it’s perhaps at the crux of understanding one of the most important factors in determining a wine’s greatness where it comes from.

Terroir (pronounced ter-wahr) refers to, as you may suspect, the land, but not just the land. It also means the soil, the climate, the altitude, the latitude, the flora and fauna, basically every single variable that makes that piece of land unique.

It applies to everything we grow in or on land. It applies to livestock, their products like cheese and milk, all fruits and vegetables, and most importantly, it applies to wine grapes.

The Europeans got a head start on us. They have been growing grapes and making wine for a very long time, but continuously recorded for about 1,000 years. It’s taken every bit of those 1000-plus years for them to realize and refine what grew best where.

Without historical records, they couldn’t learn from the previous generations. They learned what to plant where, what to cross-breed and the best methods to use. I believe the process is called “unnatural selection,” which is, basically, human-assisted Darwinism.

So where does terroir fit in? Great wine comes from the rarest and most perfect circumstances of grape growing.

The grapes live on a knife’s edge of circumstances. You want factors that include the following: a dormant winter but not too cold, a steady and undramatic flowering season (tornadoes and hail are bad), a long growing season lasting 100-plus days, long warm days and cool dry nights.

When all of these factors line up, you can start to see the reflection of where the grapes come from in the wine.

Terroir is reflected in every wine differently and in every grape. Wine professionals can discern where a wine comes from with just a few clues and a fair amount of experience.

For example; Chablis is chardonnay grown in the northern limits of Burgundy, France, the home of chardonnay, but it tastes unlike chardonnay from anywhere in the world. Chablis is at the 47th parallel, very close to the northernmost growing limit for most wine grapes. Because it’s so far north, the days are longer and the nights are shorter during the growing season.

The soil is called Kimmeridgian which is 180-million-year-old limestone, clay and tiny fossilized shellfish. It’s white, like in the famous White Cliffs of Dover. This extremely rare set of growing circumstances that is materialized in the form of wine with very high minerality and equally high acidity. You can’t make wine like this anywhere else in the world; it took 1,000 years to figure it out, and Chablis is the absolute apex of this type of wine.

Terroir is why you see names of places on the European labels instead of the names of grapes. Calling Chablis chardonnay is like saying The Beatles were a band in the ’60s.  You’re leaving a lot of information on the table. When you say Chablis, you impart what that wine will be like regardless of who the producer is (producers are important, but that’s a different discussion).

What about non-European wines? Well, they all have varying degrees of terroir.

In most countries, the place the grapes come from is listed on the label, but there is some confusion in these parts and many people mistakenly believe wine from certain places will be automatically good, like Napa Valley. In reality, the term Napa should really just tell you what that wine will be like, not how good it is.

So we have a ways to go to refine what our terroir means. Not all great wine is a reflection of terroir and not all terroir-driven wines are good, but digging into that concept is a pretty fascinating exercise.

In the meantime, take a chance on some wines “of a place,” ask your wine merchant some good questions and try something new. Always try something new.

Adam Mahler is the founder of Ampelography, a wine sales and marketing company based in Toledo (ampelographywines.com). He can be reached at [email protected].

Wine and beer: Recommended selections from Matt Snyder of Veritas Cork & Craft

By
Matt Snyder
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Wines recommended by Matt Snyder of Veritas Cork & Craft include Clos du Val 2011 Napa Valley Merlot, 2009 Ehlers Estate One Twenty Over Eighty Cabernet Sauvignon and Oracle Minor 2009 Napa Valley Red Wine. Photo courtesy Veritas Cork & Craft.
Wines recommended by Matt Snyder of Veritas Cork & Craft include Clos du Val 2011 Napa Valley Merlot, 2009 Ehlers Estate One Twenty Over Eighty Cabernet Sauvignon and Oracle Minor 2009 Napa Valley Red Wine. PHOTO COURTESY VERITAS CORK & CRAFT
Wines recommended by Matt Snyder of Veritas Cork & Craft include Clos du Val 2011 Napa Valley Merlot, 2009 Ehlers Estate One Twenty Over Eighty Cabernet Sauvignon and Oracle Minor 2009 Napa Valley Red Wine. Photo courtesy Veritas Cork & Craft.

This month I’m on a Napa kick and enjoying some great juice from California.

  • For an everyday drink, I really like Clos du Val 2011 Napa Valley Merlot, composed of 76 percent merlot, 16 percent cabernet sauvignon, 5 percent petit verdot and 3 percent cabernet franc. Usually $35, it’s on sale for a limited time for $20.
  • This truly is a cabernet sauvignon lover’s merlot. It has a silky smooth mouthfeel with a nice lingering finish, and is great with food or by itself.
  • Also from Napa Valley is the 2009 Ehlers Estate One Twenty Over Eighty Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine is composed of 85 percent cabernet sauvignon, 9 percent cabernet franc, 3 percent merlot and 3 percent petit verdot.
  • Retailing at $50 a bottle, I really like sharing this kind of juice with friends that understand the beauty of such a well-crafted red blend.
  • Tasting notes:  It’s a dense, rich, full-bodied cabernet sauvignon. The wine is plush and juicy with flavors of blackberries, truffles, black plums, toasted coconut, raspberry jam and cocoa.  Great structure and balance, fine tannins, this wine, with proper cellaring, has the potential to age for decades.
  • The Oracle Miner 2009 Napa Valley Red Wine is a big blend of 50 percent cabernet sauvignon, 25 percent cabernet franc, 15 percent merlot, 5 percent malbec and 5 percent petit verdot.
  • The Oracle is an exceptionally balanced, full-bodied red blend made from grapes grown at Stagecoach Vineyard in the eastern hills of Napa Valley. Retailing at $100 a bottle, I would suggest serving this robust blend with a lightly seasoned beef ribeye steak. Consume with friends that understand and appreciate the complexity of such a great bottle or lay it down in your cellar for a special occasion. Please remember though, life is short, we should celebrate many special occasions on a more frequent basis.

Beer

When it comes to beer, my go-to style is usually IPAs, but for this time of year, I absolutely love a beer such as Third Coast Old Ale from Bell’s Brewery Inc., brewed in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Rich and boozy at 10.2 percent alcohol, it’s an ale for those who appreciate complexity and vintage character. Fill a snifter and enjoy it now or commit some bottles to the cellar and age them out for the next couple of years, or more. Sorry Bud drinkers, no “born on” dates or best by dates on such a libation here! Available from Veritas’ retail shop to go for $15.99 a six pack.

  • From the great state of Ohio, I’m also enjoying Jackie O’s Brick Kiln Barleywine-style ale brewed and bottled in Athens.
  • Brick Kiln Barleywine-style ale is brewed in the English tradition and its deep mahogany hue is accompanied by rich caramel and raisin notes.  Light herbal jabs from European hops round out this complex brew.
  • Similar to the Bell’s Third Coast Old Ale, as much as I enjoy this style of beer now, I would recommend laying this beer down in the cellar to see how it changes over the course of the year. Available from the retail shop to go for $5.99 bottle.
  • We will soon put the North Coast Brewing Co.’s Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout on our nitro tap. This will be available by the glass only and served in our lounge (Veritas Lounge opens at 4 p.m. Monday-Saturday).
  • Produced in the tradition of 18th century English brewers who supplied the court of Russia’s Catherine the Great, Old Rasputin is a rich, intense brew with big complex flavors and a warming finish. With an ABV of 9 percent and a 97 point rating, from Beer Advocate, this will be stout nirvana in a glass!

Matt Snyder is the Beer and Wine Guy at Veritas Cork & Craft, 505 Jefferson Ave., Toledo.

Toledo woman on furniture reality TV show ‘Framework’

By
Toledo Free Press
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It’s not every day you get instructed by a Grammy Award-winning rapper on how to make a stylistically appealing ping-pong table.

Toledo resident Lacey Campbell will star in “Framework,” a reality TV show about furniture designers

Toledo resident Lacey Campbell recently found herself in that position while she was starring in “Framework,” a reality TV show about furniture designers currently airing on Spike TV (Tuesdays at 10 p.m.). The series made its debut Jan. 6.

“Framework” is a nonscripted show that takes 13 budding furniture designers and gives them assignments, such as building a piece of furniture out of boat materials or transforming an item as mundane as a ping-pong table into a work of art.

Hip-hop star Common is host of the show, which also features professional furniture designers Nolen Niu and Brandon Gore. One by one, contestants who don’t impress the judges are kicked off the show.

The last designer standing wins $100,000.

While Campbell, 32, is contractually bound to keep mum on exactly how long she lasts, she hinted that she will have her eyes glued to Spike for a while.

Being on the show was an experience Campbell said she won’t soon forget.

“‘Framework’ was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she said. “Being on a reality TV show, they try to throw every sort of twist or turn that you couldn’t possibly see coming.”

Campbell applied on the final day the show was accepting applications. To tape the show in California, she had to leave her job of four years at Sauder Woodworking Co. in Archbold, where she had been a designer.

Females are still a considerable minority in the furniture design world. Of the show’s 13 contestants, three were women.

Campbell’s appeal to producers? Not only can she both design and build furniture, she was willing to be on TV and could spend as much time as necessary in Los Angeles. Plus, she has personality: The former roller derby girl was a member of the Glass City Rollers, competing under the moniker “Rita Disassemble.” She had to hang up her skates after hurting her shoulder due to excessive body-checking collisions.

“I loved it, but I just kept getting hurt,” Campbell said of her time in roller derby. “It was making it really difficult for me to draw. … I miss it so much. It’s like guys who play football, there’s this [desire] to do it. There’s just something amazing about knocking someone on their butt.”

Being on the show gave Campbell a boost in confidence and vision for her future as a furniture designer.

“It’s interesting being around 12 other people that have the same passion and drive,” she said.

“The energy alone with these people, it just makes you not able to sleep. You’re vibrating with energy because you’re so excited about going into the shop and seeing what tools are going to be there and what kind of wood they have stocked and what sort of work bench we get to be at, and ‘Oh, my God, there’s so many clamps!’

“Just being in an environment like that, it’s hard to focus. It was one of the most amazing things that I’ve ever done in my life. It was … epic,” she said, giggling with excitement.

Campbell’s shop is located in her detached two-car garage in south Toledo. There, she has a number of furniture pieces ready to be repaired, refinished, stained, welded, upholstered or in some other way made ready for purchase. Last year, she constructed her own spray booth in the garage.

Some pieces she sells online via Craigslist or Etsy, and other projects are commissioned works for private individuals or businesses.

Soon, Toledoans will have a chance to drink locally produced craft beers or ponder their next tattoo on one of Campbell’s pieces. She is working on a community table to be placed inside Black Cloister Brewing Company, set to open Downtown in February.

“It’s supposed to look like it was pulled out of the 16th century,” Campbell said.

She’s also working on a coffee table to be used at Ink and Iron Tattoo Parlour and Gallery, 1505 Adams St.

For more information, visit laceycampbelldesigns.com.

Woodville company making mark in tabletop gaming

By
Jeff McGinnis
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From left, Brian Beyke, Dave Richards, Colby Dauch and Isaac Vega of Plaid Hat Games. The Woodville-based company is making a name for itself in the tabletop gaming world. Toledo Free Press photo by Christie Materni.

Colby Dauch loves gaming.

From left, Brian Beyke, Dave Richards, Colby Dauch and Isaac Vega of Plaid Hat Games. The Woodville-based company is making a name for itself in the tabletop gaming world. Toledo Free Press photo by Christie Materni.

No big surprise, given his status as a respected game designer and founder of Woodville-based Plaid Hat Games. His passion for play has been a part of his identity for over a decade now.

“Heroscape was a game released by Hasbro in 2004,” Dauch said, recalling his early days as a fan. “I saw it on a commercial and thought it might be fun. I turned into a megafan and went on to run the quite popular heroscapers.com.”

His passion soon blossomed into a profession. After working with Hasbro as a playtester and making some connections there, he began working as a freelance designer on Heroscape and Battleship Galaxies. He soon made the leap to designing his own titles, testing the waters to see what future he might have in tabletop game design.

“I had a game called Summoner Wars that my friends really liked,” Dauch said. “I showed it to Hasbro and they decided it wasn’t the kind of game they wanted to publish. I didn’t really have any contacts established elsewhere and I figured I’d take the plunge and in 2009 established a company.”

Plaid Hat Games — a moniker inspired by the red and black hat Dauch frequently sports — has rapidly made its mark over the past five years as a rising star in the world of gaming. From original titles like Summoner Wars and Crossroads to licensed titles like its board game adaptation of the popular “Bioshock” video game series, Plaid Hat’s catalogue is impressive for any fan of classic tabletop play.

“A great tabletop game has people interacting with each other in clever ways that can’t be experienced through a video game,” Dauch said. “Tabletop games are also more agile. We can prototype more rapidly and can produce games with less funding so we can try funky things.”

That spirit of experimentation is only one of the things that makes Plaid Hat products unique.

“We put an emphasis on theme first in our games. We put an emphasis on visuals in our games. Other companies also put a focus on theme and visuals, but theme-heavy games can often get very rules-heavy. We try to put theme first while still trying to keep our games approachable,” Dauch said.

Remaining approachable is of paramount importance to Dauch and his colleagues. The company posts a regular podcast and stays active on social media, in an effort to stay connected to fans and communicate their personalities to those who enjoy their work.

“I came from a background of being a giant fan of a game and then also liking other games,” Dauch said. “I wanted to be a company that would generate the kinds of experiences I wished Hasbro had when I was a fan of Heroscape. I wanted to foster a sense of community. It’s what I knew from my work on Heroscapers.com.

“It lets people know who you are and adds a human element. We aren’t just a company to those who look to engage on that level. We are people. That’s important to me not just because I want people to root for us and buy our games, but also because I’m spending my life doing this; I want it to mean something.”

Plaid Hat shows no sign of slowing down. The company recently announced a new title, Specter Ops, promoted as a stealth-action title co-published by Nazca Games. The company will be represented at a gaming convention in Utah beginning Jan. 17.

For Dauch, whose passion began with one title and blossomed into his life’s work, the fun he can bring into others’ lives means much more than a few minutes of diversion.

“When I interact with fans and they tell me how Summoner Wars has created a great father-and-son activity for them, or a family spent a snow day playing through a Mice and Mystics campaign together, that gives the products and my work a kind of life for me I wouldn’t otherwise see,” he said. “I even had a nurse once tell me they had a child cancer patient in a lot of pain. They brought in their copy of Summoner Wars and played it with them and the kid told them that they couldn’t stop thinking about the game and that helped to not think about the pain.

“I can’t say I thought I was doing noble work when I started. I can say games always meant something to me and helped me connect with people, so I fell in love with them. The fact that these stories can come out of our games though, that means something to me.”

Dine 419: Area restaurants team with Veterans Matter to help house local vets

By
Tom Konecny
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Area restaurants are joining the fight against veteran homelessness with Dine 419, a new week-long restaurant fundraising event taking place Feb. 23-March 1. The event will benefit Veterans Matter, a national charity founded and still based in Toledo.

Ken Leslie started Veterans Matter in 2012 with the mission to help house homeless veterans.

Ken Leslie, founder of Veterans Matter. Toledo Free Press File Photo by Joseph Herr.

“It’s a program that has gone viral and has now housed 517 vets in 16 states,” Leslie said. “Dine 419 is a partnership between Veterans Matter, our generous sponsors and all the restaurants in the community who care about veterans.”

RELATED: Ottney: Dine 419 for vets

Participating restaurants include Bar 145°, Burger Bar 419, The Beirut, Black Pearl, The Blarney Irish Pub, Byblos, Hollywood Casino Toledo (Final Cut Steak & Seafood and Scene), La Scola Italian Grill, McDonald’s, Poco Piatti, Table Forty4 and Ye Olde Durty Bird.

Moussa Salloukh, co-owner of both Burger Bar 419 and La Scola, said he’s honored to support local veterans.

“It’s something we’re happy to be part of, to give back to our veterans,” he said. “They put everything out on the line for us, so we’re honored to give back to them. It’s our pleasure. We’re all about local and this supports buying local, so it’s a great cause all around.”

More restaurants and sponsors are expected to join the event that gives patrons an opportunity to visit old favorites or explore new venues, all while supporting a good cause.

Presenting sponsor Hollywood Casino Toledo was quick to support the efforts of Veterans Matter.

“Honestly, it’s a good cause and it’s going back to a good organization,” said Keira Finnegan, advertising and promotions manager.

Other sponsors include Monroe Dodge, VFW Post 2898, Bottomline Ink, WTOL-11 and toledo.com.

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Veterans Matter’s parent organization 1Matters first received support from musician John Mellencamp, who visited Leslie’s Tent City in 2007 while on a tour stop in Toledo. Tent City, which raises awareness of homelessness and helps connect those in need with services, first took place in 1990 in Downtown Toledo.

Word of mouth spread to others in the music and entertainment industry, and before long Leslie had connections with other celebrities,  including Susan Sarandon, Katy Perry, Kid Rock, Ice-T, Stevie Nicks and Willie Nelson.

“John [Mellencamp] talked about us on the stage, and said that [homelessness] really does matter,” Leslie said. “As far as the other celebrities, they keep hearing about it. People all over the country are supporting it because we do it well, and we do it fast.”

Leslie originally started Veterans Matter because he saw a local problem that left some veterans with nowhere to live. He quickly discovered the problem in Toledo was a national problem, and chapters have since started all over America.

“It’s so simple,” Leslie said. “It’s like everything else in life:  If you’re doing something good, people want to help. Dine 419 is a perfect example of this, because everybody knows exactly what the money does.”

There are over 57,000 homeless veterans, many of whom qualify for voucher-assisted living provided by the U.S. government. However, they often lack the initial rental deposits necessary to secure their housing. That’s where Veterans Matters steps in to raise money and work directly with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to ensure funds go straight to landlords for the vets in need.

Veterans Matter connects local communities, foundations, corporations and veterans groups with HUD and VA to move homeless vets off the streets and into permanent, supported housing. Once housed, services are lined up to help veterans and their families return to domestic autonomy.

“We only raise enough to house the vets in any given area of operation, then we cease funding and move on to the next operation,” Leslie said.

For more information, visit www.dine419.org.

Downtown salivating over soon-to-arrive Kengo sushi

By
Joel Sensenig
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Josh Wagy, left, and Kengo Kato of Kengo Sushi & Yakitori, opening soon in Downtown Toledo. Toledo Free Press File Photo

Josh Wagy and Kengo Kato hope to make a large splash in the Toledo dining scene with their small sushi restaurant set to open soon.

Josh Wagy, left, and Kengo Kato of Kengo Sushi & Yakitori, opening soon in Downtown Toledo. Toledo Free Press File Photo

The respective food blogger and classically trained sushi chef are almost ready to debut Kengo Sushi & Yakitori, a traditional sushi and yakitori restaurant at 38 S. St. Clair St. The two have been working on the Warehouse District space since last summer, and are anxious to make their debut.

“[Kato] and I are so passionate, and we get along so well,” said Wagy, who many in the Toledo culinary world know best as the man behind Smashing Toledo, a foodie website and social media page. “He’s never really been in a position to really showcase his skills. He’s classically trained — his techniques are really phenomenal. He needs his own space to really show off.”

Kengo, a 1,000-square-foot spot with seating for about 20 customers, will provide him with the means to display his skills behind the sushi bar.

The business began to take shape last year after Wagy persuaded Kato — who had been offered a job in Denver — to stay in Toledo with a proposal to run a restaurant with him. The two found affordable rent and the small space they were looking for on South St. Clair Street, in the building that most recently housed Fine Things Bistro.

Although the entrepreneurs originally planned to open in the fall, things didn’t fall together as quickly as they had hoped. The kitchen needed a complete hood system, which took time and money to install.

“To build a full restaurant in three months is unbelievably optimistic,” Wagy said. “We’re probably about two and a half months behind schedule.”

Still, the two are getting the establishment ready for inspections and plan to open very shortly after getting the go-ahead from the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department and the City’s Division of Building Inspection.

Once open, Wagy hopes to wow diners with Kengo’s traditional Japanese fare, which will be heavy on yakitori, which means grilled chicken, as well as skewered food in general. He said the food will immediately set the restaurant apart from others in the Toledo area.

“You will see yakitori on some menus as an appetizer,” Wagy said. “But no one’s traditionally doing yakitori, not on a yakitori grill, not using traditional yakitori sauces.”

Josh Wagy of Kengo Sushi & Yakitori. The Warehouse District eatery at 38 S. St. Clair St. will feature dishes by chef Kengo Kato. Toledo Free Press Photo by Christie Materni

Food will be served on wooden platters, created by local craftsman Craig Mossing.

The food itself must be fresh, as Kengo does not have a walk-in cooler or freezer.

“I really want to work with local farmers and stay local,” Kato previously told Toledo Free Press. “I will work with Honolulu and Japan and all over the U.S. I have guys that will deliver [meat] daily and in Livonia there’s a warehouse where I will personally go pick it up. I just want to do everything fresh.”

Kato was born and raised in New York City. His parents owned two Japanese restaurants in the city, where he worked from a young age. As an adult, he worked in a traditional Japanese restaurant for seven years and helped other people open restaurants, but this endeavor will be the first time he has opened up his own restaurant.

“We’re going back to Kengo’s roots,” Wagy said. “Classic, not Americanized. We’re not deep-frying anything. We don’t have a deep fryer. No cream cheese. If we do a California roll, we won’t call it a California roll — it will actually have real lump crab in it, not imitation things.”

Most items on the constantly changing menu will be á la carte, with skewers of yakitori priced at about $3 and pieces of fish in the $3-$5 range.

“We’re just really excited,” Wagy said. “We kind of want to push the food scene a little bit. It’s a small enough place where hopefully we can be passionate enough to take Toledo on a new sushi adventure.”

Kengo plans on having sake on tap, along with several American craft beers in the pilsner and Kölsch styles to fit the delicate flavors of the Japanese food.

For more information, visit kengotoledo.com.

Hays: Freedom awareness

By
Pam Hays
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Here we go with all the “new beginnings” talk — the resolutions and awesome goals that year after year go along with a change in a number on the calendar.

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When I am in my car with the heater on and still freezing and see a svelte runner out in below-zero temps, it does not encourage me to exercise more. I use social media a lot to get our message out about our military and veterans and to educate on invisible wounds. But all the posts and comments and tweets about how one person is shaking it up with healthy concoctions in their blender don’t make me want to rush out and buy kale. I don’t care that one celebrity ate a rare fruit that looks like it should be thrown away and pounds just dropped off!

Why? Because I cannot relate to any of these people. It doesn’t hit home with me that I might have icicles hanging from my hair and enjoy the experience. I can’t imagine putting kale together with fruit and saying, “Yum!” I don’t have celebrity status and the money that goes along with it for the injections and surgeries that probably help more than some magical fruit to get in such great shape. So, what does all of this have to do with our veterans? After all, I am not a health adviser or a nutritionist. Quite the opposite, as I believe pizza is a “food group.”

The point is, if we can’t personally relate to something it is much more difficult for us to become involved or offer support. Many civilians know very little about military life for the enlisted or the family that serves beside them or what it is like after service to be a veteran in the United States. False presumptions by the 99.5 percent who never served in the military can lead to misunderstandings between civilians and veterans. Bridging that gap is how I have spent a great deal of my time in the past five years. It is why I have this column, which is read by both groups, in hopes that education will reduce the myths because myths lead to stigma and stigma leads to our military, veterans and their families missing the opportunity to have their needs met and to live quality lives.

So, why would YOU — someone who doesn’t want to join the military or someone who has not had direct contact with anyone in the military except maybe an uncle twice removed from a different generation — want to become more acquainted with our veterans and learn a bit more, maybe even volunteer, join a committee or bring education to your school or workplace?

Look around. Every single day, you say and do things that are based on a freedom that our military has had to defend. Our country would be vastly different without those freedoms. Don’t just consider those freedoms talked about the most, for example, religion. Break it down so the freedoms you call upon every day become real to you. You must become inspired and relate it to your life to truly begin to understand the sacrifices our military has made over generations so you can live life as you choose today.

You like to download music on your device, right? That is a freedom many in this world do not have nor do they have the freedom to connect on social media or own a phone. When you go to the grocery store, you have the freedom to choose from items that others around the world will never know even exist. If you hate your job, you can do almost anything in this country with the will and the hard work it takes to succeed. That is a freedom! Want one child, 10 children or no children at all? You are free to make that choice and no one is dictating what sex of child you can keep and what sex gets tossed away like garbage. Don’t like the way our country is going? You have a freedom to vote for your choice; a freedom lacking for many of our fellow humans. This is how you can begin to personally relate to what it means to defend your freedoms. Make a goal in 2015 to be more conscious of the freedoms you use every day. Think more about how freedoms are defended and what your life would look like if you did not have the ability to make the choices you do every day.

I hope this will open your heart to learning more about the cost of freedom and to reaching out and becoming more involved. Please let me know how I can help you and people you know learn more and become more involved. 2015 — the Year of Freedom Awareness.

Pam Hays is president and founder of The Arms Forces, thearmsforces.org; (419) 891-2111.

Hebert: Sparks of history: Saving a Champion

By
Lou Hebert
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The cornerstone of the former Champion Spark Plug factory in Toledo. Photo Courtesy Jeff Schneider Collection

When West Toledoan Jeff Schneider began working for Champion Spark Plug in 1970, he was doing what so many other young men and women of the area had done before him: securing a job and paycheck at a successful Toledo factory that promised good wages, a pension and a future.

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And like so many others, Schneider followed other family members into the Champion family of workers. In Schneider’s case, his father had worked for Champion for decades before him and his mother had also worked there for a time.

Schneider’s story is not unusual. For Toledo was a city that flourished with industry and opportunity for over a century. Those in need of a paycheck could usually find one among the long list of the big smokestack companies that called Toledo home: Willys-Overland, Doehler-Jarvis, Sheller-Globe, DeVilbiss, Libbey-Owens-Ford, Libbey Glass, Auto-Lite, Buckeye Brewing, Toledo Scales, Chevrolet, Mather Spring, Questor, Interlake Steel, American Ship and Champion, just to name a few.

But as many of these industrial giants fell to the winds of economic change over the years, the list shortened considerably. Some of the names remain. Most do not. What were once proud temples of American industry and productivity have closed their gates forever, their workers and legacies furloughed to fate. As factories closed down or moved out of town, they were erased from the local landscape, their bricks and steel and dreams reduced to piles of rubble.

And so it was for Champion Spark Plug in the 900 block of Upton, between Dorr Street and Nebraska Avenue. Felled by wrecking machines more than a decade ago, the buildings’ remains still lie in broken pieces.

Toledo’s Champion Spark Plug factory in the 1920s. Photo Courtesy Jeff Schneider Collection

For Schneider and others who spent much of their lives in that factory, the rubble is a bittersweet reminder of what Toledo used to be. In  some ways, it’s an insult to thousands of men and women who devoted their lives to a company and product once synonymous with the city’s proud industrial heritage.

Champion moved to Toledo in 1910 from Boston, when owners Robert and Frank Stranahan cut a deal to provide all of the spark plugs for Willys-Overland in Toledo, and later for Ford in Detroit. Over nine decades, Champion employed thousands of Toledo workers and produced millions of spark plugs used in vehicles around the world. The Champion badge and brand were as famous as Jeep.

By the 1990s though, the Stranahan family had sold the company to Cooper Industries, where it was then spun off to Federal-Mogul, which moved its operations completely out of Toledo. Soon after, the buildings were reduced to heaps of brick and steel.

On a recent urban expedition back to the ignoble brick pile at Upton and Nebraska,  Schneider and a fellow former Champion worker Tim Lohman went looking for the coveted symbol of that one-time industrial icon, namely the 1916 cornerstone. They had been told it was still there, but weren’t sure where it might be amid the jumble of junk.  Eventually, they spotted it.

“It was just lying in the debris,�? Schneider said. “It was exciting. I started jumping up and down and couldn’t believe we had actually found it.�?

The cornerstone of the former Champion Spark Plug factory in Toledo. Photo Courtesy Jeff Schneider Collection

The granite stone was intact. The only thing missing was the time capsule of green glass. Only a few shards were left in the hollowed-out compartment where it must have been placed.  It’s not certain what might have been inside or who took it.

What Schneider and Lohman were certain of was that they had to get the stone out of the debris field. Within a few months, including a call to Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s office, the former co-workers hatched a plan to rescue the 500-pound block of stone from the grip of the ruins. Kaptur was eager to help in the effort, as her mother Anastasia was an early and longtime worker at Champion and Kaptur herself had worked there during her summer breaks from college.

Last fall, the plan turned to action. With a front-end loader from A.A. Boos construction, the big stone was lifted from the dirt and debris and set onto a rental trailer. Within minutes, the iconic block was whisked away from an uncertain fate. It now sits in an undisclosed location ready for a new future.

The cornerstone (bottom right) of the former Champion Spark Plug factory, found in the debris field of the demolished building by two former employees.

What that future may be is still undecided. Schneider hopes it will be one that helps tell the story of Champion Spark Plug and the thousands of workers who made it a “champion�? among Toledo companies. He’s hoping the stone can be displayed in a public park or venue somewhere in the city, perhaps set on a pedestal of original brick from the factory, as a monument to the workers and company.

“That’s what it’s all about,�? said Schneider, who said he has contacted numerous agencies and groups and has found considerable interest. “A lot more people are interested than I had expected.�?

He thinks Wildwood Preserve Metropark would be an ideal place to showcase the stone and the story of Champion, given its background as the Stranahan Estate and the hundreds of thousands of visitors every year who would see it there.

In the meantime, Schneider and a group of other like-minded former Champion workers are working on assembling hundreds of photographs and other historic documents for a commemorative book about Champion and its workers.  It’s a work in progress and a labor of love for Schneider, who said he enjoys all of this research because not only is he a history buff, but he “grew up with Champion.�?

It was a big part of his family’s life and he feels a sense of duty to memorialize the history, adding, “If I don’t do it, I don’t know who else will.�?

Email Toledo Free Press columnist Lou Hebert at [email protected].

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