A two-level bar called Wild Eagle Saloon will open in downtown Cleveland in early spring, but Geis Hospitality Group has backed away from a controversial sign bearing a stylized image of a Native American chief.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - A two-level bar called Wild Eagle Saloon will open in downtown Cleveland in early spring, but the developer has backed away from a controversial sign bearing a stylized image of a Native American chief.
Geis Hospitality Group has fine-tuned plans for Wild Eagle, a 6,400-square-foot saloon slated for the first floor and mezzanine of the Howell Building at 921 Huron Road. The space will feature old-school games, a small stage and self-serve beer dispensers billed as "inebriation stations." The country-tinged menu will include fried chicken and a "stick 'em up" section filled with food on a stick.
But the project won't involve the chief-topped sign, which offended some downtown residents and members of the Cleveland City Planning Commission. The commission vetoed the original sign design late last year, but gave the Streetsboro-based Geis Cos. approval for renovations to the building's facade.
"We feel that the wild eagle and the story and lore of the wild eagle is important," Keith Halfmann of Geis Hospitality Group said, noting that Geis will continue using the image of a man in profile sporting a feathered headdress on internal marketing materials. "But if the Indian head on the sign was going to be met with such resistance, we didn't want that to stand between us and the community."
The developer also toned down the eastern side of the sign, which will face apartment buildings. Geis expects to open the restaurant by April 4, in time for the Cleveland Indians' home opener.
Joseph Giuliano, who leads the Downtown Cleveland Residents Association, said tweaks to the outdoor lighting scheme and patio configuration addressed many neighborhood concerns about disruption and noise from the saloon. The Native American logo on the sign was a lingering concern for some neighbors, he said.
"The other issues have been addressed," Giuliano said, "so we're very pleased that our voice was heard and those changes were made."
An earlier version of the neon-lit sign for the Wild Eagle Saloon featured a stylized Native American chief's head in profile. Halfmann said the downtown bar could be the first in a series of Wild Eagle locations for Geis Hospitality, a relatively new arm of a Northeast Ohio real estate and construction business. The group recently bulked up its staff by hiring a vice president of finance and a marketing director who previously worked at Quaker Steak & Lube, a casual restaurant chain.
Geis Hospitality operates the Metropolitan hotel at The 9, the Geis organization's mixed-use redevelopment of the former Ameritrust complex on East Ninth Street. Wild Eagle will be just around the corner from The 9, immediately east of the new Cuyahoga County administration building that Geis also constructed.
"We conceived the idea for Wild Eagle Saloon after spending a lot of long days and late nights working on the hotel's opening," Greg Geis, chief executive officer of the Geis Cos., said in a written statement. "We realized that there was not only a void in the downtown market for a drinking hole to cool down after long days of work but also there was not a fun lunch spot with good, affordable food for us to have a break in the day."
Wild Eagle will be open for lunch, happy hour and dinner, and late into the evening. Geis plans to outfit the space with indoor bocce courts, pool tables, vintage arcade games, a punching-bag machine, arm-wrestling machine and darts. The beer dispensers will operate on a card system that will allow Geis to monitor and limit guests' alcohol consumption, Halfmann said.
He said Geis aims to create "a raucous environment - but not one that's going to spill out onto the street and disturb the neighbors." The target patron is a 21-to-31-year-old downtown resident or worker. Customers and staff members might get up on the bar and dance, he added, but the western tropes will stop short of a mechanical bull.
Plans for the saloon originally included a distillery, but Geis needed more space for that project. The company is scouting the suburbs for such a production facility and freestanding restaurant sites, though Halfmann said he wants to perfect the downtown saloon before opening additional locations.