The "Cathedral of Bakeries." That's how one incensed customer in a letter to the editor referred to Isabella Brothers Bakery in 1976, when a Plain Dealer writer failed to mention it in an article that purported to list the best bread bakeries in Cleveland. Perhaps, though, the paper's omission was excusable. While the bakery was still producing its locally famous Italian breads, its best days had already passed, as large chain grocery stores were slowly putting it and many other small local bakeries and neighborhood stores out of business.

Italian breads. If you are of Italian descent--or even if you are not, and you grew up in the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood, you undoubtedly remember the delicious Italian breads sold by Isabella Brothers Bakery. The business was founded in 1914 by Anthony Isabella, an immigrant from the Campania region in southern Italy. Arriving in Cleveland in 1908, Anthony settled on West 69th Street, north of Detroit Avenue, where a colony of Italian immigrants, which included several of his father's sisters and other relatives, was already forming. It is said that the view of Lake Erie from the north end of West 69th attracted these immigrants to this street--once the home of the notorious McCart Street gang, because it reminded them so much of the Bay of Naples back in their homeland.

Anthony Isabella initially found work, like so many other Italian immigrants living in the neighborhood, at the Joseph & Feiss men's clothing factory on West 53rd Street. However, he didn't stay there long. He had apprenticed as both a butcher and baker in Italy and he soon went into business with a cousin (and future brother-in-law) Robert Mazzarella, the two men starting up a grocery store and a bakery at 1256-58 West 69th Street in 1914. It was really the perfect location. Not only did the two-story red brick building provide sufficient space for a grocery on the first store, living quarters for both men and some of their relatives on the second, and a bakery in a small building at the back, but it already had the name "Isabella" carved in stone upon it. Because the building had been erected in 1910 by one of Anthony Isabella's uncles.

In 1920, Anthony Isabella was joined in Cleveland by his younger brother A. Dominic, known to the family as "Mimi." The two brothers then formed Isabella Brothers Bakery, which continued for another decade to bake bread out of the building at 1258 West 69th. Meanwhile, Anthony's former partner, Robert Mazzarella, took over sole operation of the grocery store, later moving it in 1933 to the northeast corner of West 69th and Detroit where it became a neighborhood fixture for decades.

During this era of the early twentieth century, as the Italian population on the street grew to the point where virtually every person living there was either an Italian immigrant, or descended from or married to one, an incredible retail community developed on West 69th Street. Italian immigrants, whom historians have noted were more apt in this period to become first generation retail business owners than immigrants from other ethnic groups, opened up numerous shops on the approximately one-half mile stretch of residential street between Detroit Avenue and the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern railroad tracks. In the 1930 Cleveland city directory, ten such shops on the street were specifically listed, but the actual number was undoubtedly much higher than that. The 1930 federal census suggests (by identifying a number of residents as owning their own shops or stores) that perhaps as many as 30 such businesses were operating out of the seventy-plus houses and apartment buildings on the street. This number included up to ten barber shops, possibly six shoe-maker/repair stores, five groceries, two bakeries (Isabella Brothers and its neighborhood competitor Fiocca Brothers Bakery), two candy stores, and an assortment of other retail businesses--even a pool room. There had also at one time been several saloons on the street, but of course none were listed in either the census or city directory in 1930. Prohibition had driven them underground.

Isabella Brothers Bakery thrived in this retail community, not only selling its twenty different types of Italian bread to residents on West 69th and other nearby streets, but also making deliveries to homes in other Italian neighborhoods on both the west and east sides of town. Anthony Isabella's son Joseph, who in 2015 was still living on West 69th street, remembered those deliveries--how his father or uncle would drop him off in front of a house; how he would enter the house--regardless of whether the customer was home or not, and how he would place the customer's bread order in the bread box in the kitchen, and then leave.

With the growth of the bakery's business well underway, Anthony Isabella and his wife Carrie decided in 1930 to purchase a parcel of land up the street at 1370 West 69th and there build a new a modern new bakery building. The Isabella family continued to bake and deliver Italian bread from this new address well into the 1980s, as the next generation of Isabellas--Anthony's two sons, Louis and Joseph, gradually took over the reins of the business. But, as noted earlier, large chain grocery stores, eventually forced Isabella Brothers Bakery out of business. The historic West 69th Street bakery closed its doors for good in 1988. Today, the former bakery building is the home of Esperanza Threads.

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Before Hot Sauce Williams and Beckham's B&M Bar-B-Que ruled the east side, Scatter's Barbecue was Glenville's home for ribs, shoulder sandwiches, and fries soaked in Scatter's notable barbecue sauce. Herman "Scatter" Stephens, born in Birmingham, Alabama on June 1, 1920, moved to Cleveland in 1934 with his family. He graduated from Central High School in 1938 and attended West Virginia State College. After his college years, his family assisted in opening Scatter's Barbecue in 1952. It was not unusual to find his relatives, such as his mother, Emma Ricks, and aunt Nancy Stephens, in the restaurant assisting Scatter during the early years of the restaurant.

Located at 931 East 105th Street in the heart of Glenville's lively strip, Scatter's Barbecue was known for its shoulder sandwiches, where the meat was so tender it would "fall off the bone." The restaurant's walls were covered with framed portraits of prominent African Americans of the day, many of whom Scatter befriended, such as Sugar Ray Robinson and Count Basie. While Scatter's clientele included notable celebrities, many regulars were from the Glenville area. It was common for students from Empire Junior High School, located down the street, to stop by after school for a sauce-soaked paper bag of fries.

Scatter became an entrepreneur, owning not only a restaurant, but several businesses under the umbrella of Stephens Enterprises Inc. Herman "Scatter" Stephens owned Stephens Cigarette Service Inc., a cigarette and bowling machine servicing company, at 933 East 105th adjacent to Scatter's Barbecue, and the Silver Dollar Lounge. The lounge hosted his annual grandiose birthday parties, for which he issued an open invitation to "the world." By 1967, Stephens Enterprises expanded to include Stephens Real Estate, Stephens Vending Co., and the Lucky Bar. Scatter was a notable high-roller in Glenville, where he was known for having the latest Cadillacs, as well as a world traveler. In the summer of 1967, Scatter accompanied the Count Basie Orchestra to Europe for their tour. Since Scatter knew Count Basie, he was able to assist Cafe Tia Juana in booking jazz shows, featuring acts like saxophonists Eddie Lockjaw Davis and Sonny Stitt.

On September 10, 1967 at 2:30 A.M., tragedy struck when Scatter was shot in his Stephens Cigarette Service/Vending Co. store by a white assailant with possible mob ties. After being shot twice, Scatter stumbled out of the store and tried to escape to his barbecue restaurant, where the gunman followed him and shot him three more times.

Scatter's funeral took place September 21 at East Mount Zion Baptist Church. Some witnesses recalled the funeral being among the largest in the neighborhood in decades, with 3,000 mourners attending and traffic backed up for blocks. The funeral was just as impressive as his life; Scatter was buried in an $8,000 copper casket and the procession included 63 Cadillac Eldorados. Some of the attendees were rumored to be Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis, who were able to slip out without being photographed.

Scatter's family ran the restaurant years after his passing, eventually closing in 1983. Though the only remnant of Scatter's Barbecue is the intact building, Scatter's legacy is still cherished in the Glenville community to this day.

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Well into the 20th century, waves of immigrants swelled Cleveland's ranks. Among them was a Greek native by the name of Chris Mitchell. Rather than contenting himself with a factory job, however, Mitchell tried his hand in business. Unfortunately, it was during the Great Depression and Mitchell’s first three businesses failed. But then he made a particularly astute observation: One business that seemed to thrive despite hard economic times was cinema! For his fourth endeavor, Mitchell thus chose to open a candy shop next door to the Heights Theater in 1939. More than three quarters of a century later, the store is still a Cleveland Heights icon.

Originally located on Euclid Heights Boulevard, Mitchell's was not the only store selling popcorn and penny candy to moviegoers. At one point there were as many as sixteen others in the Cleveland area. However, when movie theaters started bringing concessions in house, businesses similar to Mitchell's began to die out. Rather than suffer the same fate, Chris Mitchell deemphasized popcorn and other inexpensive sweet treats and focused most heavily on chocolate. The store's chocolates and the methods by which they are made have remained the same for decades, with the exception of new molds, a few modern machines, and the introduction of more products.

Chris Mitchell's new wife, Penelope, joined the business in 1949, a year after they were married. Their son, Bill, who had worked for his father as a boy, eventually inherited the business. After fifty-two years in Coventry Village, Mitchell's relocated to Lee Road in May 1991. Chris Mitchell died in 2000 at the age of 102. Penelope Mitchell lived until her late nineties. She passed away in 2015, assisting in the shop until shortly before her death. In 2016, Bill Mitchell finally decided it was time for a change. The business is now owned by Jason Hallaman and his wife Emily, who are committed to maintaining the Mitchells’ impeccable legacy.

The view from the shop windows may have changed, as have the owners. However, the tastes and smells of fresh, hand-dipped chocolate remind loyal customers of the small candy store where they would spend their dimes as children.

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The Great Lakes Brewing Company opened in Ohio City in 1988, kick-starting an industry in Cleveland that a few years earlier had appeared to be finished. In 1984, the city's only remaining brewery, C. Schmidt & Sons, closed its doors, becoming the final victim of the brewing industry's trend toward consolidation. The emergence of national beer brands with gigantic production facilities and even bigger advertising budgets hurt Cleveland's breweries -- even those that had retooled and expanded following World War II to become regional producers. The city had nine breweries in 1939, five in 1960, and then none in 1984 with the closing of Schmidt's.

Beer had probably been brewed in Cleveland from its earliest days, but the brewing industry really took off in the 1840s with the arrival of large numbers of German and Bohemian immigrants. Their lager beer (different from "ale," which had English origins) proved to be popular with Clevelanders of all ethnicities, and in 1852 German immigrant Carl Gehring opened the Gehring Brewery at what is today Gehring Avenue and West 25th Street in Ohio City. Other immigrants followed suit, and by 1900 there were 23 breweries in the city. These were generally small, family-run businesses that produced beer for consumption within the city. Already by 1899, however, when ten of Cleveland's breweries merged to form the regional Cleveland & Sandusky Brewing Company, it was becoming clear that only the biggest breweries would survive in the city's increasingly competitive brewing industry.

The start of National Prohibition in 1920 led some Cleveland breweries to permanently close, while others switched to producing juice, soda, or dairy products. Several reopened immediately following Prohibition's repeal in 1933, and by 1939 Cleveland had 9 breweries which employed 1,265 persons and produced over $10 million worth of beverages. New forms of mechanization and expanded sales territories led to increased production at the breweries that made it through Prohibition. Despite further expansions, mergers, and regional sales strategies, though, none of Cleveland's breweries could compete with the national brands that emerged after World War II.

The success of the Great Lakes Brewing Company, however, has brought brewing back to Cleveland. Several microbreweries now operate in the city, with the most recent opening in a space next to the West Side Market. How fitting that Ohio City, home to several breweries during the industry's heyday at the turn of the 20th-century, should emerge as Cleveland's new brewing center over 100 years later!

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Some of the names on the stalls in the produce arcade at the West Side Market — Calabrese, DeCaro — have been there for generations, while others, most notably those of Middle Eastern descent, reflect a more recent crop of fruit and vegetable vendors at the market. Since it opened in 1914, the L-shaped structure which borders the main market building on its north and east sides has been the place to find fresh fruits, vegetables, and flowers. It has also been a place where hard working immigrant families (particularly Italians, early on) could start their own family business to pass on to succeeding generations.

Joe DeCaro's parents, for example, were Italian immigrants who met in Cleveland and opened a vegetable stand at the West Side Market in 1934. All of Joe's siblings worked at the family stand at one time or another, but Joe took over when his parents passed away, and he will soon be turning the business over to his daughter. Many of these original produce vendors have since left the market, but taking their place in many instances have been some of Cleveland's newest immigrants: Arab-Americans.

Running a produce stand at the market can be hard work, but the job was made easier after the city completed a series of renovations to the produce arcade in 2001. Most notably, the space was finally enclosed (it had no doors and very rudimentary window coverings previously) and provided with central heating, putting an end to the frigid winters that vendors and market goers once had to endure. New electrical and plumbing connections were also installed. As people continue to flock to the West Side Market, the roughly forty produce vendors there stand poised to carry on with a century-old Cleveland food tradition.

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Royalton Township was founded in 1818. It was not much different than any of the other Western Reserve townships, as it was primarily a community based on general family farming. With the exception of a smith shop, a boarding house, and a sawmill, small farms predominated the community. However, Royalton's rolling green hills, coupled with the rise of the nearby city of Cleveland, led to the growth of North Royalton's most notable industry. In the years following the Civil War, North Royalton became the center of dairy farming in Cuyahoga County, providing milk, eggs, cheese, and other dairy products to an increasing number of hungry Cleveland consumers.

Central to this industry in Royalton was the Searles family creamery, cheese factory, and drugstore on State and Royalton roads. Originally built and owned by the Wyatt family, the creamery was maintained by the Searles family, and the store eventually outlived the creamery. Indeed, the number of farms in the area decreased in the mid 20th-century as Cleveland residents, once central to the growth of these farms, flocked out of the city and turned nearby, formerly rural communities into bustling residential suburbs.

At present, one can only imagine a North Royalton filled with dairy farms, with the Searles pasture across State Road as the most prominent example. This was the reality in late 19th-century North Royalton. You can still buy your milk and cheese at this site, albeit in a very different way: a supermarket is now located here.

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Memories of a signature blue-and-white, string-tied cake box filled with a streusel coffee cake, hot cross buns, sticky pecan rolls, coconut chocolate bars or an Easter "daffodil" cake evoke pure food nostalgia for anyone from northeast Ohio who fondly remembers the legendary Hough Bakeries. In almost nine decades, from 1903 to 1992, founder Lionel A. Pile and later his sons, Arthur, Lawrence, Kenneth and Robert, built a family business that grew from a single shop, located at 8708 Hough Avenue, to the largest multiple-unit bakery in Ohio, and one of the ten largest nationwide.

Through the years, Hough expanded into the suburbs, establishing branch stores in the Greater Cleveland area and neighboring communities in Cuyahoga, Lake, Summit, and Portage counties. Operations and corporate headquarters were at the old Star Bakery plant at 1519 Lakeview Road, which the family acquired in 1941. Despite the company's enormous success and diversification, its rising production costs, lack of modernization, and stiff competition caused continuing financial difficulties. On August 8, 1992, the Lakeview facility and the remaining 32 retail stores closed without notice, and Hough Bakeries filed for Chapter Seven bankruptcy. The catering division was sold to the I-X Center in Brook Park, and the company name and its recipes were purchased by Kraft Foods.

But that was then and this is now, and the Hough name and baking tradition live on at Archie's Hough Bakery at 3365 Richmond Road in Beachwood. When Hough Bakeries closed, Archie Garner was head baker in the company's catering department. He knew that there would continue to be a market for all of the delectable confections, with or without Hough Bakeries. So, Archie opened his shop, which is dedicated to all things Hough, from the "secret" recipes and bakery equipment to the gallery of historic photos, authentic counters, and display cases. True to his predictions, cake-lovers drive from near and far for one of Archie's creations. Those tastes and smells associated with birthdays, weddings, and special occasions of times long past are being perpetuated for a new generation.

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Imagine a century-old northeast Ohio company that's literally "up to its ears" in ears – popcorn, that is. While the Humphrey family name naturally evokes vivid memories of Cleveland's bygone days at Public Square and Euclid Beach Park, a piece of that legacy lives on at The Humphrey Company in Warrensville Heights, where Humphrey popcorn and taffy are still being made today.

From growing their own popping corn on their farm in Wakeman, Ohio, right down to the ingredients and vintage equipment, Dudley Humphrey Jr., his wife Betsy and a handful of dedicated employees are keeping the taste and smells of the old Euclid Beach Park alive and continuing a fourth-generation family business.

Dudley's grandfather, Dudley Sherman Humphrey II was in the popcorn business in the late 1800s. He and his father, Dudley Sherman Humphrey I had invented a new type of popcorn popper, which seasoned the corn as it popped. They sold the machines themselves until sometime in the 1880s or early 1890s, when they got into the retail popcorn business. Beginning in June 1893, the family opened popcorn stands throughout Cleveland, including one in the corner of May's Drug Store on the heavily trafficked Public Square.

During this time, Euclid Beach was just starting out, and Humphrey II had a popcorn stand there. In 1901, he bought out the original owners and changed the park's image by creating a family-friendly atmosphere that made Euclid Beach a success until it closed in 1969. Among the park's top concessions were Humphrey popcorn balls and their signature candy kisses.

After Euclid Beach closed, the Humphreys refocused on popcorn. The family had been growing its own supply of corn for popping on its Wakeman farm, which they had repurchased in the 1920s. Today, the 500 acre farm is capable of providing a year's supply to the Humphrey Company, much to the delight of munchie lovers, young and old.

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One morning in 1906, in the small kitchen of Dora and Joseph Schwebel in Campbell, Ohio (near Youngstown), the couple was working together to mix, knead and bake the family's famous bread. Known for its outstanding taste, unmatched freshness and superior quality, the bread was carefully baked each day, and delivered -- still warm from the oven -- in wicker laundry baskets to a growing number of customers, including immigrant steel workers from Youngstown and neighboring areas. In just a few short years, the reputation of Schwebel's bread spread far and wide. Its customer list continued to expand, and delivery operations began to rely on horses and wagons instead of wicker baskets.

In 1914, Dora and Joseph entered the world of retail sales by expanding their customer base to "mom and pop" stores. To ensure that fresh bread was in the stores when customers requested it, the couple added more bakers to assist the family and even hired the company's first driver/salesperson to assist with deliveries. The strong economy of the 1920s kept operations moving along, and more people experienced the taste and quality of Schwebel's bread. In 1923, the Schwebels invested $25,000 and built a small bakery -- complete with a store front -- for retail business. The family could bake and deliver 1,000 loaves a day, using six delivery trucks. The future looked bright.

Tragedy struck in 1928, however, when Joseph Schwebel died suddenly, leaving Dora with six children and the family's business to run by herself. During this era, many people believed that the baking business was no place for a woman with young children. Dora Schwebel was told she should sell her bakery and stay home with her children. Instead, she stared down her critics and decided to continue with the business that she and her husband had built. Against all odds, Dora forged ahead to keep her family thriving.

Today, Schwebel Baking Company, still based in Youngstown, is the premier wholesale baking company in the region. However, in recent years the company has consolidated operations to remain competitive. In 2014 the company closed its Cuyahoga Falls plant where this story is mapped. Five years later it closed its Solon plant, leaving plants in Youngstown and Hebron, Ohio, still operating. For more than 110 years after its humble beginnings in a suburban Youngstown kitchen, Schwebel's continues to produce the breads people ask for by name.

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They say "a hot dog is only as good as the mustard that goes on it," and who would have known this better than Cleveland's own mustard icon and food purveyor, Joseph Bertman? Bertman Original Park Mustard and the Bertman family name are synonymous with a Cleveland food tradition dating back to the 1920s. Its story is as much about Joseph Bertman the businessman, entrepreneur and humanitarian, as it is about the popular award-winning spicy brown concoction that he created.

Born in Lublin, Poland in 1902, Joseph Bertman was 6 when he immigrated to Cleveland. At only 13 years old, Bertman witnessed his father being shot to death by someone taking target practice at an old boxcar. (Bertman and his father were making deliveries for the family dry cleaning store at the time.) Following his father's death, the young Bertman became the sole support for his mother, four brothers and a sister. To keep the family together, he worked two jobs, seven days a week.

At 19, Bertman quit working for other people and set up his own business in pickle packing. He established Bertman Pickle Company in a little garage on E. 103rd Street. He would rise at 4 a.m. every day to begin peddling his products. In the mid 1930s, he established Joseph Bertman, Inc., a wholesale food business, first located at East 103rd Street and St. Clair Avenue, and then at 2180 East 76th Street. Bertman supplied food products to a variety of institutions, caterers, and ball parks, including League Park and later to Cleveland Municipal Stadium. In the period shortly after World War II, Bertman had exclusive distribution rights to many products. At one point, he was warehousing many items and running 22 trucks and a sales team in order to service his customers. He expanded his sales territory across an area that ran from Pittsburgh to Toledo, handling every type of food. Bertman became so expert in the business of buying foods and finding and importing food products that he began spending more time as a food broker than as a wholesaler. He traveled all over the world, finding crops and locating sources of critical foods and kept permanent apartments in New York and Miami as well as his Cleveland home. From hometown food giants Hector Boiardi (a.k.a. Chef Boyardee) to Vernon Stouffer, Joseph Bertman was a friend and mentor to many renowned people in Cleveland's food industry.

As for "The Good Stuff" that Cleveland Guardians fans have known and loved for generations, the recipe for Bertman Original Ball Park Mustard has remained almost unchanged over the years. The finest vinegar, brown mustard seed and spices are processed in a unique manner and never watered down. Since 1921, when Joseph Bertman invented it from his secret formula, his Original Ball Park Mustard has tantalized taste buds at Euclid Beach, League Park, the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, and now at Progressive Field, too.

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Cleveland's West Side Market has a longer and more interesting history than you might imagine. In 1854, when Cleveland annexed the city west of the Cuyahoga River known as the City of Ohio or Ohio City, the new territory became known as Cleveland's West Side. There was an open air public market on this new West Side located at Franklin Place (Franklin Circle). That market soon began to be commonly referred to as the "West Side Market," perhaps to distinguish it from a public market located near Public Square known as the Michigan Street Market. Just one year later, in 1855, Cleveland undertook to move this West Side Market to a new location so that it could build at Franklin Place the West Side's first public park. As a result, the West Side Market was temporarily moved to a site north of Franklin Circle, but, in 1859, permanently moved to the northwest corner of Pearl (West 25th) Street and Lorain Avenue, where land had been set aside many years earlier by pioneer Ohio City developers Josiah Barber and Richard Lord for a public square. There, the West Side Market continued to operate, first, as an open-air public market, and then for several years within a very small building, until 1868 when the City of Cleveland built on the land a large one-story wooden market house that it named the Pearl Street Market.  By the mid-1890s, the City's Pearl Street Market, according to an article appearing in the Plain Dealer on May 10, 1895, was in a dilapidated condition, looked more like a barn than the market house of a prosperous city, and was so overcrowded on the days that it was open that lines of shoppers waiting to get in often stretched several blocks down Lorain Avenue and almost all the way down Pearl to Franklin Boulevard. The Western Improvement Association (WIA), an organization of West Side business owners, addressed the matter in 1897 and formally petitioned Cleveland to tear down the old market house and build a larger one on the site. The WIA even managed to secure legislation from the State of Ohio authorizing the City to issue bonds to finance its construction. Robert McKinnon and John Farley, however, who served as Cleveland's mayors during the period 1897-1900, were slow to act on the project and it languished on the drawing boards during their administrations. The election of legendary Cleveland mayor Tom L. Johnson in 1901 changed that and brought a renewed interest in the West Side Market House project. Mayor Johnson initially planned to build the new West Side Market house on the same corner of Pearl and Lorain upon which the Pearl Street Market stood, but in 1902 decided instead to move it across the street to the northeast corner of those two streets, in large part because owners of some of the additional property required for the larger market house on the old site attempted to exact an exorbitant price for their land from the City. There were also lingering questions as to the City's clear title to the land on which the Pearl Street Market House stood. The project was then delayed for a period while Mayor Johnson and his appointed market commissioners engaged in a power squabble, which was then followed by litigation brought by retired Cleveland architect Frank Cudell who challenged the process by which the City had selected the architectural firm of Hubbell and Benes to design the new market house. Finally, in 1907, construction of the new West Side Market was begun. The project was plagued by more delays during construction, but, finally, after 14 years of planning and actual construction, the new West Side Market opened for business on November 2, 1912. Mayor Johnson, who had left office and had then died in 1911, never saw the opening of the new market house that he had devoted much of his time as mayor to site, plan and build.

Hubbell and Benes, the architects who designed the West Side Market, designed many other notable buildings in Cleveland, including the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Wade Memorial Chapel at Lake View Cemetery.  The firm also designed the Central YMCA, the Citizens Building and the old Illuminating Building, all located in downtown Cleveland.  Hubbell and Benes' design of the new West Side Market House has been called Neoclassical/Byzantine. The building, which is 241 feet long and 124 feet wide, is said to resemble a train station. Its clock tower, designed like a campanile (Italian bell tower), rises 137 feet above street level.  The building has 144,000 square feet of interior space. The inside of its main concourse was designed to be occupied by 110 vendor stands clustered in quadrangle groupings. The concourse's vaulted ceiling stands 44 feet above the vendor stands.  In 1914, two years after the new West Side Market opened, the City built the Produce Arcade on the north and east sides of the market house for vegetable and fruit vendors, and in the following year razed the old Pearl Street Market house.  The new Produce Arcade had capacity for 126 stalls, giving the West Side Market a total capacity of 236 inside and outside stalls.

When the new West Side Market opened in 1912, there were two other public market houses operating in Cleveland--the Central Market (which in 1859 had replaced the Michigan Street Market and which was located near what is today the intersection of Bolivar and Ontario Streets), and the Broadway or Newburgh Market (built in 1879 at the intersection of Canton and Broadway Avenues in what is today Cleveland's Slavic Village). There also existed a number of private market houses that were regulated by the City, most notably the Sheriff Street Market, located just a block away from the Central Market. Over the course of the 110 years that the West Side Market has stood on the corner of Lorain and West 25th, those other markets have all gone out of existence leaving the West Side Market as Cleveland's last remaining historic public market.

Over the years, Cleveland has periodically renovated, rehabbed and restored the West Side Market and its fixtures, equipment and other accouterments. The first of these periodic improvements occurred in 1954 when the City installed new elevators, automatic refrigeration, new electrical wiring and new offices for staff.  Also completed that year was a modernization of the vendor stands and installation of a new electric clock in the clock tower. (The original clock was wound manually every Monday by a city employee who had to climb a perilously narrow winding stairway up to the clock room to perform the task.)  The Market underwent a second renovation in 1978-1979. This renovation included an extensive cleaning of the market house building, the covering of the large arched windows on the east and west ends of the market's concourse with aluminum panels, and the painting of murals over those panels. Lighting improvements were also made to this building, and the Produce Arcade was repainted and repaired. In 2001-2004, the City enclosed the vendor stands in the Produce Arcade.  It also removed the murals and aluminum panels that since 1978-1979 had covered the concourse's large arched windows, thereby restoring the original natural lighting of that area. Decorative lighting was also added to the exterior of the building and trees were planted and other improvements made to the parking lot area.

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Cleveland's industry and population grew rapidly during the last quarter of the 19th century. As a result, the city's affluent population began looking beyond the city limits for respite from the dirt and bustle of urban living. The area that is now known as Coventry Village was one of those destinations — originally developed as part of the upper-class planned community of Euclid Heights in the 1890s. In the 1910s, however, the bankruptcy of the Euclid Heights Realty Company forced the breakup of large properties for the elite, and led to the erection of several apartment buildings near Coventry Road. As a result, the neighborhood's population became more ethnically and economically mixed, bringing diversity and density to what originally was an exclusive enclave designed for a wealthy, Protestant, and native-born population.

The demise of the Euclid Heights Realty Company also spurred the development of a commercial district along Coventry Road in the 1920s. At the time, the intersection of Coventry and Mayfield Roads served as a key transfer point for streetcar commuters, making the stretch of Coventry between that juncture and Euclid Heights Boulevard a natural place for retail development. In 1919, The Heights Theatre, a 26,000-square-foot, 1,200-seat movie theater, opened at the corner of Euclid Heights Boulevard and Coventry Road. Food markets, drug stores, restaurants, professional offices, hardware stores, and banks also began opening in newly constructed commercial buildings along Coventry Road. The neighborhood's Jewish community, already present in the 1920s, continued to grow in the years after World War II, following the arrival of many Jews from Cleveland's Glenville and Hough neighborhoods. Their kosher meat markets, bakeries, delicatessens, and tailors shops occupied many of Coventry's retail spaces.

Coventry remained a largely Jewish community until the late 1960s, when the neighborhood became the epicenter of Cleveland's growing counterculture. University Circle redevelopment uprooted some of that population and Jews accelerated their migration eastward toward Beachwood and other suburbs. Coventry Village thus emerged as Cleveland's equivalent of Haight-Ashbury or Greenwich Village. Record stores, head shops, and restaurants catering to younger crowds soon replaced most of the Jewish-owned businesses. For a while, an uncomfortable relationship existed among new counterculture residents and visitors, remaining Jewish families residing primarily in the apartments along Hampshire, and several motorcycle gangs that staked out claims at bars such The Saloon and the C-Saw Café on the east side of Coventry. For the next three decades, Coventry sheltered both hippies-at-heart and adherents of the punk and progressive music movement before morphing yet again into the diverse district that it is today: one part offbeat destination, one part college-town hangout, and one part neighborhood meeting place.

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One of Cleveland's most enduring ethnic neighborhoods, Little Italy was established in the late 19th century by immigrants largely from the villages of Ripamolisano, Madrice, and San Giovanni in Italy's Abruzzi region. Giuseppe Carabelli, an Italian artisan came to Cleveland via New York to open a sculpting and stone masonry business. Carabelli's early employees developed reputations as expert stonemasons due to their contributions to monumental works at nearby Lake View Cemetery. The residential space to the south of the cemetery became occupied with numerous Italian families near the turn of the century.

Neighborhood life in Little Italy revolved around both the Holy Rosary (Roman Catholic) Church and the Alta (Settlement) House. Holy Rosary parish was commissioned by the Cleveland Catholic Diocese in 1891 when the Scalabrini Fathers were summoned from Italy to serve Cleveland's eastern Italian residents. During the ensuing years the parish grew, built two churches and served as the central religious and social hub of the neighborhood.

The Alta House began as a nursery and Kindergarten agency for the neighborhood. Carabelli approached the agency about expanding social services to the community. By 1898, contributions from John D. Rockefeller provided programs and facilities in the name of his daughter, Alta, to serve the immigrant community assimilating to American society. Both Holy Rosary and the Alta House remain as central religious social forces in the neighborhood today.In recent times, Little Italy has been able to capitalize on its ethnic heritage and has become a popular shopping and dining destination for people from all over Northeast Ohio.

Interestingly, Little Italy was not the only Italian neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. The Woodland Avenue/ Central Market area defined the "Big Italy" neighborhood in Cleveland. It was an older and much larger home to Italian and Sicilian immigrants. This area fell into decline after World War II and, by the 1960s, had been essentially destroyed by encroaching freeways and urban renewal.

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Frank Sterle, an immigrant from Ljubljana, Slovenia, founded his Slovenian Country House in 1954. With a small building on East 55th Street, a few picnic tables, and only one waitress - who had to memorize the small menu since none had been printed - Sterle managed to create a successful and lasting business. As the restaurant became well-known throughout Cleveland for its world-class polka performances, Sterle decided to add onto the building until it looked much like the alpine mountain lodge that Sterle lived in when he was a young child. The building had a pitched tongue and groove ceiling. A deer head hung over the entrance, and its walls were adorned with murals of Slovenia, giving the restaurant an atmosphere that was distinct in Cleveland.

After Frank's death in 1986, the restaurant was taken over by Mike Longo and Margot Glinski; immigrants from Italy and Germany, respectively. Despite the change in ownership, the restaurant continued to serve traditional Slovenian dishes and had weekly polka performances and dancing. Favorite menu items included wiener schnitzel, chicken paprikash, stuffed cabbage, klobase and sauerkraut. Among the notable artists who performed at Sterle's were Joey Miskulin, Johnnie Vadnal, “Waltz King” Lou Trebar, and "King of Polka" Frankie Yankovic.

In 2012, Rick Semersky bought the building and promised that he would use Sterle’s Country House “as a catalyst to revive the neighborhood.” Semersky kept using the building as a restaurant until he could no longer keep up with changing times and was failing to fill the large restaurant nightly. In 2016, Semersky opened Goldhorn Brewery next to Sterle’s Country House. The following year, he stopped serving lunch and dinner and converted the restaurant into a special events center. Although Goldhorn Brewery stayed open and was profitable, Sterle’s Country House closed for good in 2020. On November 22, 2022, a fire broke out in the vacant building, leading to the collapse of large sections of its roof and walls. The remainder of the building was demolished the following spring.

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Founded by Alexander "Pierre" Basset, Pierre's Ice Cream opened in 1932 on East 82nd Street and Euclid Avenue. At first, Pierre's sold just three flavors of ice cream: French Vanilla, Swiss Chocolate, and Strawberry. The growing company moved to East 60th Street and Hough Avenue in 1960 and shared its ice cream manufacturing facility with the Royal Ice Cream Company, owned by Sol Roth.

Shortly after the move, Royal Ice Cream bought Pierre's Ice Cream, keeping the Pierre's name and its original recipes. In 1967, Pierre's/Royal acquired Harwill's Ice Cream Company on East 65th Street between Euclid and Carnegie Avenues, where Pierre's remains today, making ice cream and other frozen treats in a state-of-the-art facility that opened in 1995.

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