Local Food Economy
The concept of saving compostable food from landfills, and instead putting it to good use, is a notion that is starting to catch on in Northeast Ohio.
The aromas of fresh baked bread and pastries will soon waft through the streets of Cleveland when Bloom Artisan Bakery and Café opens two locations next year. In a social enterprise venture, Towards Employment, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping low income and disadvantaged adults achieve self-sufficiency through employment, announced last week that it will open bakeries in both Public Square and on the Cleveland State campus.
“The Towards Employment board of directors set out to start a social enterprise a couple of years ago,” says Logan Fahey, Bloom’s general manager. "We looked at different industries – manufacturing, lawn care – and then we found this crazy bakery idea. It met a need in downtown Cleveland and it’s an incredible training opportunity for our students.”
Bloom will hire and train 12 to 14 employees through Toward Employment for both locations in its first year, with a vision of expanding into additional locations, corporate catering and wholesale. “We wanted to create a business that is scalable,” says Fahey. “The hope is that once they graduate from the bakery they will move on to jobs with higher wages and use the skills they’ve learned.”
Before being hired by Bloom, potential employees will go through Towards Employment’s four-week career readiness course.
Once hired, employees will be learning baking skills from the best. Internationally-renowned artisan baking specialist Maurice Chaplais will personally train the staff on the art of making pastry and bread with locally-sourced ingredients.
Menu items include items such as the Great Lakes Beer bread, house white bread, assorted dinner rolls and croissants, pies, cookies, cakes, brownies and tarts. If that wasn’t enough, Bloom will also serve a lunch menu of sandwiches, sides and soups.
The CSU location at 1938 Euclid Ave. will house the production facility in addition to the retail shop. “It will have full commercial kitchen with glass windows so you can see the bakers making the product,” says Fahey.
Training starts in January and Fahey says they expect to open in February or March. In the meantime, Bloom Bakery is looking for an experienced executive head baker. Interested candidate can email their resumes to Fahey.
“The Towards Employment board of directors set out to start a social enterprise a couple of years ago,” says Logan Fahey, Bloom’s general manager. "We looked at different industries – manufacturing, lawn care – and then we found this crazy bakery idea. It met a need in downtown Cleveland and it’s an incredible training opportunity for our students.”
Bloom will hire and train 12 to 14 employees through Toward Employment for both locations in its first year, with a vision of expanding into additional locations, corporate catering and wholesale. “We wanted to create a business that is scalable,” says Fahey. “The hope is that once they graduate from the bakery they will move on to jobs with higher wages and use the skills they’ve learned.”
Before being hired by Bloom, potential employees will go through Towards Employment’s four-week career readiness course.
Once hired, employees will be learning baking skills from the best. Internationally-renowned artisan baking specialist Maurice Chaplais will personally train the staff on the art of making pastry and bread with locally-sourced ingredients.
Menu items include items such as the Great Lakes Beer bread, house white bread, assorted dinner rolls and croissants, pies, cookies, cakes, brownies and tarts. If that wasn’t enough, Bloom will also serve a lunch menu of sandwiches, sides and soups.
The CSU location at 1938 Euclid Ave. will house the production facility in addition to the retail shop. “It will have full commercial kitchen with glass windows so you can see the bakers making the product,” says Fahey.
Training starts in January and Fahey says they expect to open in February or March. In the meantime, Bloom Bakery is looking for an experienced executive head baker. Interested candidate can email their resumes to Fahey.
This weekend, Space is the place: take a cosmic journey with The Sun Ra Arkestra and visit SPACES for their out-of-this-world Galaxy Annual Benefit. Don’t miss flower-infused fun at CMA’s MIX, a live broadcasted podcast with Belt at the Beachland and more.
As much as she likes to show off her ceramics, artist Gina DeSantis wanted a new way to highlight the works she creates in her studio at the Screw Factory in Lakewood. “I hate showing my work in galleries,” she declares. “It just sits on a white pedestal and it’s like, ‘oh look, a mug.’”
Then DeSantis started thinking about the whole farm-to-table movement, and the practice of sourcing food locally. She thought, why can’t that practice apply to the plates people use to eat their local food?
So DeSantis contacted her friend Jillian Davis, owner of Toast restaurant, about a showing her work in the restaurant. Davis loved the idea, and with that Kiln to Table: An evening of fine craft and fine dining was born.
DeSantis designed 50 three-piece place settings – a salad plate, a dinner plate and a soup bowl – for the restaurant. Diners have the option to buy their place settings after dinner (the setting will be cleaned and packed up for pick up on Friday). Of course, guests are not obligated to buy their settings.
"I came up with rustic, simple dinnerware for Toast,” DeSantis says. “It accentuates the food and doesn’t distract from it.”
Kiln to Table is a one-night exhibit. But DeSantis would like to see restaurant shows become a regular thing. “It’s one night only, but hopefully it will be more,” she says. “I might get other artists involved and we’ll hop around the city. “
DeSantis adds that she wants to continue the trend of buying locally. “There’s this frenzy for everything local,” she says. “We’re growing and sourcing everything locally and then throw it on a 50-cent Ikea plate.”
She encourages people to take the trend a step further and buy their dinnerware locally as well. We’re so concerned about sourcing everything local, but we get from A to Y,” DeSantis explains. “It may be more costly, but if you’re really concerned about sourcing local, it’s worth it.”
Kiln to Table is scheduled for Thursday, November 5 from 4:30 pm to 11 pm. Reservations are recommended.
Then DeSantis started thinking about the whole farm-to-table movement, and the practice of sourcing food locally. She thought, why can’t that practice apply to the plates people use to eat their local food?
So DeSantis contacted her friend Jillian Davis, owner of Toast restaurant, about a showing her work in the restaurant. Davis loved the idea, and with that Kiln to Table: An evening of fine craft and fine dining was born.
DeSantis designed 50 three-piece place settings – a salad plate, a dinner plate and a soup bowl – for the restaurant. Diners have the option to buy their place settings after dinner (the setting will be cleaned and packed up for pick up on Friday). Of course, guests are not obligated to buy their settings.
"I came up with rustic, simple dinnerware for Toast,” DeSantis says. “It accentuates the food and doesn’t distract from it.”
Kiln to Table is a one-night exhibit. But DeSantis would like to see restaurant shows become a regular thing. “It’s one night only, but hopefully it will be more,” she says. “I might get other artists involved and we’ll hop around the city. “
DeSantis adds that she wants to continue the trend of buying locally. “There’s this frenzy for everything local,” she says. “We’re growing and sourcing everything locally and then throw it on a 50-cent Ikea plate.”
She encourages people to take the trend a step further and buy their dinnerware locally as well. We’re so concerned about sourcing everything local, but we get from A to Y,” DeSantis explains. “It may be more costly, but if you’re really concerned about sourcing local, it’s worth it.”
Kiln to Table is scheduled for Thursday, November 5 from 4:30 pm to 11 pm. Reservations are recommended.
For small business owners reclaiming historic space, the path is different but the goal is the same: to use the foundation of antiquity as building blocks for modern ventures.
Jim Conti found a hobby in making wine five years ago. While his friends loved his wine, he wanted to do something with sediment left at the bottom of his bottles.
“I didn’t want to throw it away,” he recalls. “I thought about what I could do with it. I tried it, and it was pretty good.”
Then one day it came to Conti: Why not make jams out of the sweet sediment left over from the wine her created? After many recipe trials and taste tests, Cleveland Jam was born. Since 2013 Conti and his two partners, Dennis Kramer and Dennis Schultz, have been producing jams and jellies made from local wines and beers.
Conti begins the jam making process by boiling down the wine to remove the alcohol, then processing it into jams and jellies. After perfecting the wine jellies, he thought “why not beer?” So Conti went to work on making beer jams as well.
Cleveland Jam now has five beer jams and three different wine jellies – all made with local brewers, vineyards and locally-grown produce. The company’s signature wine jelly flavors are Dynamite White Zinfandel, Rock and Roll Merlot and Press Play Cabernet.
The company has its own half-acre vineyard in the Clark-Fulton district off W. 25th Street on Sackett Avenue. The eight varieties should start producing fruit in the next two years. The site is actually an old brewery from the prohibition age and Conti hopes to open a storefront there. His ultimate dream is to open urban vineyards all over the city.
In addition to his original Beer Jam, Conti began working with Great Lakes Brewing Company last year to create Burning River Pepper jam. In July the two companies released Eliot Ness Fig-Apple jam. “They put it on prosciutto sandwiches,” Conti says. Cleveland Jam also makes two beer jellies with a brewing company in Catawba – blueberry IPA and mango habanero.
The jams are used on menu items at Great Lakes and are available in Great Lakes gift shops. Their popularity is keeping Conti busy these days. This summer Cleveland Jam was chosen as one of three companies in the Old Brooklyn Community Development’s business pitch competition to receive a grant to open a storefront in the Old Brooklyn. Conti says he hopes to open in the city in the next few months.
“I didn’t want to throw it away,” he recalls. “I thought about what I could do with it. I tried it, and it was pretty good.”
Then one day it came to Conti: Why not make jams out of the sweet sediment left over from the wine her created? After many recipe trials and taste tests, Cleveland Jam was born. Since 2013 Conti and his two partners, Dennis Kramer and Dennis Schultz, have been producing jams and jellies made from local wines and beers.
Conti begins the jam making process by boiling down the wine to remove the alcohol, then processing it into jams and jellies. After perfecting the wine jellies, he thought “why not beer?” So Conti went to work on making beer jams as well.
Cleveland Jam now has five beer jams and three different wine jellies – all made with local brewers, vineyards and locally-grown produce. The company’s signature wine jelly flavors are Dynamite White Zinfandel, Rock and Roll Merlot and Press Play Cabernet.
The company has its own half-acre vineyard in the Clark-Fulton district off W. 25th Street on Sackett Avenue. The eight varieties should start producing fruit in the next two years. The site is actually an old brewery from the prohibition age and Conti hopes to open a storefront there. His ultimate dream is to open urban vineyards all over the city.
In addition to his original Beer Jam, Conti began working with Great Lakes Brewing Company last year to create Burning River Pepper jam. In July the two companies released Eliot Ness Fig-Apple jam. “They put it on prosciutto sandwiches,” Conti says. Cleveland Jam also makes two beer jellies with a brewing company in Catawba – blueberry IPA and mango habanero.
The jams are used on menu items at Great Lakes and are available in Great Lakes gift shops. Their popularity is keeping Conti busy these days. This summer Cleveland Jam was chosen as one of three companies in the Old Brooklyn Community Development’s business pitch competition to receive a grant to open a storefront in the Old Brooklyn. Conti says he hopes to open in the city in the next few months.
Along with promoting Asiatown and Asian culture in Cleveland, Night Market Cleveland is helping launch the careers of a small army of entrepreneurs and artists.
This weekend, hop on a trolly at SPARX City Hop and visit events throughout downtown, Ohio City and Tremont, check out local music at Heights Music Hop, get inspired at Creative Mornings and more.
Hoteliers and tourism officials recently convened at Tri-C to discuss best practices in workforce development as Cleveland heads toward next summer's Republican convention.
Not everyone's feeling the craft food boom in Ohio City. The nonprofit May Dugan Center has anchored the corner of Fulton and Bridge for 46 years, helping poor residents meet their basic needs.
This weekend, check out the zine scene at MOCA, drop in at Night Market Cleveland, attend Pecha Kucha Volume 26, support the nonprofit CAN Journal and more.
