Kitchen Post Moving to Erie Terminal Downtown

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Kitchen Post aims to open its new storefront downtown in a month, its general manager, Linda Fowler, confirmed Wednesday.

Contractors are converting the space for the restaurant in Erie Terminal Place formerly occupied by the M Gallery.

The restaurant applied last month to the Ohio Division of Liquor Control for a Class D5J — Community entertainment District — permit for 112 W. Commerce St. It opened in Struthers, 582 Youngstown-Poland Road, two years ago. The restaurant web page indicates the address on West Commerce Street is coming soon.

“We have been looking at moving downtown for a while because there’s a lot of up-and-coming plans for the area,” Fowler said. “For us, it’s the right direction to be going.”

The Kitchen Post will occupy about 3,000 square feet in Erie Terminal, she said. The dining area and finishing kitchen will be on the first floor, at street level, and the professional catering kitchen will be on the lower level. Space is available to expand, she said.

“We’re about a month away” from opening, she reported. “We were wanting to open in July but that just didn’t happen.”

Rich Haziak of North American Restaurant Services, who was installing a pair of hoods in the space, looked to complete his work yesterday. Normally such an installation would take three days, but this job has run two weeks because of changes made to the space during the course of the work.

“It’s been a dead struggle but we’re finally at a point where we’re getting out of here today,” he said, “even if it kills me.”

Executive chef Ross Fowler hinted at plans for another restaurant in an “On the Menu” video segment from May 2016.

“I can’t say exactly what. I can say that we’re looking at other locations for a different concept altogether,” he remarked.

Business at the Struthers restaurant has snowballed since it opened, he said. The restaurant is known for its eclectic and unusual menu, which changes monthly.

With the restaurant’s steady clientele, he said he can put “anything on this menu and it will sell,” although he acknowledged that wasn’t the case during its first six months.

“It’s taken a year to get there,” he said. Customers now “order things that they don’t even think they want, just for the adventure of it,” he added.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.