Cities that Sizzle

Nation's Restaurant News,  Jan, 2001  

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Another concern to local restaurateurs is the "living wage" of $7 an hour passed by the City Council and scheduled to go into effect this month. Under the law companies doing business with the city of Cleveland must pay their employees the prescribed wage.

Despite such issues Minelli reports that Cleveland's restaurant businesses are "alive and well and moving ahead."

CLEVELAND

(2001 estimates, except as noted; growth rates are est. 2001 vs. est. 1999, except as noted; data include Lorain and Elyria, Ohio)

Population: 2.25 million, -0.44%

Population growth, est. 1999 vs. 1990: +2.73%

2006 population forecast: 2.23 million

Disposable income: $57.91 billion, 6.85%

Household income: $66,965, +7.04%

Per-capita income: $25,742, +7.19%

Eating-and-drinking place sales (1999): $2.41 billion

No. of foodservice & drinking places (1997): 4,393

Foodservice & drinking place payroll (1997): $592.4 million

No. of foodservice & drinking place employees (1997): 73,597

No. of residents per foodservice & drinking place (1997): 508

Hourly minimum wage: $5.15

Employers' tip-credit allowance: $3.02

State and local sales tax: 7%

Annual economic impact of travel and tourism: $2.3 billion derived from 8 million annual visitors

Local unemployment rate: 4.2%, Cleveland-Akron metropolitan area

Sources: U.S. Dept. of Commerce; U.S. Census Bureau; Editor & Publisher Market Guide; NRN Research.

Columbus, Ohio

Shari Weiss

Operators discover the city that once ranked behind Cleveland and Cincinnati and explore its possibilities

Columbus, Ohio's state capital, is a leader on many other fronts. Although the city used to be ranked behind Cincinnati and Cleveland, it now rivals both in reputation as a city for finding a great place to eat.

And it rivals both cities as a place for launching a new restaurant.

"The Columbus market recently has experienced a tremendous population growth, and with this growth has come a major explosion of new restaurants," says Robert Welcher, president and chief executive of Columbus-based Restaurant Consultants. "The level of competition has increased in all segments of restaurants -- fine dining, fast food and buffets."

Welcher, like many foodservice veterans of the city, says Columbus always has been regarded as one of the prime test markets in the Midwest and the nation.

"Most national and regional chains are represented in the city, with more and more coming," Welcher says. "Columbus is a perfect food test market for chains because it doesn't have a large ethnic population tempting diners with more exotic fare. This is homogenous and mid-America, which means that if it works here, it can work anywhere."

Columbus, which ranks as the nation's 15th-largest city, also ranks as the largest city in Ohio. Moreover, Columbus is the only major city in the Midwest or the Northeast to make the U.S. Census Bureau's top 20 population-growth list for 1990-96.