porco

thanks guys! was our pleasure to host, and thanks for coming out. sorry i didn't have more time to chat with you guys, but duty calls! always nice to put faces to the names, and know you're welcome anytime. cheers!

same here. great, concise, informative site that has overlooked cleveland for years.

o.k. urban ohioans, here's your exclusive invite to preview porco lounge & tiki room. we'll be soft open tonight (10/2) and tomorrow evening from 6:00-10:00 p.m.. if you're in the neighborhood, we'd love to have you and your feedback. mahalo!

When is the Urban Ohio soft open? thanks guys! the official "urban ohio soft opening" is this week! we're hammering out the times, but we hope to be open for a couple hours tue-fri to help work out any kinks. will post up our times as soon as we work it out, and remember to keep it a secret ;)

i've seen the doors first hand, and the photos don't do them justice...they're absolutely gorgeous. their owner has been incredibly generous and helpful in our attaining artifacts for the bar. in addition to lamps and bamboo that lined the walls of the kon tiki, we have chairs from the chin tiki in detroit (closed in 1980), chairs from the historic mai kai in florida (still in operation), as well as some other cool stuff currently in negotiation. we're taking a lot of pride in acquiring, preserving, and utilizing these pieces as they contain so much history. we're super excited about sharing it with the rest of cleveland and can't wait!

maui isn't distributed in OH yet, but we'll definitely be all over it if it does. we should have the pipeline porter here by the time we officially open next month, and koko brown will be out after the holidays. we currently have big wave, fire rock, and longboard on draft, and the wailua wheat is headed out for the season. look for us mid-late sept to be open.

::full disclosure:: yes, this is our place. we've been keeping it under wraps until we've gotten closer the opening. happy to answer any and all questions.

what a silly name for a bar? :wink:

technically i think this belongs in the o.c. developments. if i'm not mistaken, any commercial on the east side of w. 25th typically falls under ocnw, and once you cross the street to the west, it's all o.c. until you get to clark/metro area.

in regards to scoops, the author of a blog i follow lists himself as an owner: http://intoxicatingliquors.com/about-the-author/ probably one of the twitter crowd sourced investors, kind of a neat story. the previous owners were extremely active in the neighborhood even before they opened scoops. i wish them and the new owners much success.

istanbul grill in tremont closed up: http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2013/02/08/tremonts-istanbul-grill-shuts-doors-future-uncertain in related news, doug trattner is back as dining editor at scene magazine!

couple interesting developments on the bar/lounge/craft cocktail scene. "society lounge" coming to e. 4th in late feb. early march: http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/madison-avenue-on-east-4th/Content?oid=3137527 "spotted owl" coming to the gospel press building in tremont later this summer: http://freshwatercleveland.com/features/willhollingsworth012413.aspx and looks like "toast" in the detroit shoreway area is getting close: http://www.freshwatercleveland.com/devnews/toastwinebar011013.aspx

thanks for the first hand feedback! as stated before, i can see it being fairly different product, but at the end of the day they are both grilled cheese shops called "melt". it would be akin to some burger franchise coming into cleveland with the name "b's spot". if you were up on the brands or did the research, you would know the difference, but how many people actually would/do? probably much ado about nothing on my part, put i've always found intellectual property protection with the food and bev industry interesting. thanks all for playing.

my information came from current employees/mutual friends. there was a buzz on one of their facebook pages where current and ex-employees were reminiscing/discussing it, but the page has since been taken down. there was discussion about a lease not being renewed, but 12/31/12 was the closing date they were given. my guess? they probably had a number of holiday party contracts to honor before they closed up. i guess we'll just wait and see. still nothing definitive, but getting warmer: http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20121217/FREE/121219839#

not cleveland proper, but if melt b&g has expansion plans outside of northeast ohio (columbus, pittsburgh, detroit, etc...), who would know the difference? and on the outside chance they (the melt) were to enter the cleveland market, based on their current efficiency model and pricing, i'd say melt b&g would be the one to worry.