III. FUTURE
Sawyer House Rules

Chef and restaurateur Jonathon Sawyer is one of the region’s loudest voices in the move towards local, sustainable and green restaurant stewardship, and as if to prove his dedication, he plans to open the Greenhouse Tavern in downtown Cleveland by early 2009. Greenhouse is among the most ambitious green building projects ever undertaken in the city, though as of now, the space – located on East 4th Street in the 25 foot wide, 100-foot long Corts building – is filled only with the dreams of Sawyer and his like-minded team. It will be something welcomingly unique and eco-conscious in the city of Cleveland, and a far cry from the ubiquitous chain coffeehouse on an environmentally taxed Euclid Avenue where we meet to discuss Sawyer’s ambitious plans.

“This whole urban revival, I’m really excited to see it happen,” says the perpetually optimistic Sawyer. “It’s sort of happening simultaneously with [the construction of] Greenhouse: The [Euclid Corridor project] is finishing, the apartments are opening up and all the restaurants are opening, so it will be interesting to see what happens in the next year or two.”

Green will come: Jonathon Sawyer opens the doors to the Corts building, future home of the Greenhouse Tavern.

Sawyer was chef du cuisine at longtime friend Michael Symon’s Lolita and later was executive chef at Symon’s Parea in New York. He also logged successful chef stints at Kitchen 22 and Aureole, both with famed chef and restaurateur Charlie Palmer. A respected chef and a much-loved personality, Sawyer’s verve – underneath shaggy hair, a tame beard and a few tattoos – has captured the imagination of many in the city, most recently at Bar Cento on West 25th Street.Yet, as the conversation shifts to Greenhouse, his enthusiasm approaches kid-on-Christmas-morning levels.

“This is it. This is why we moved back,” says Sawyer, pointing to blueprints for the multilevel Greenhouse space. “We [wanted] to pursue our dream, not listen to anybody else anymore, really get it right, do it on our own.”

Sawyer’s wife, Amelia, became pregnant with their second child while the couple was living in Brooklyn, New York. With no real family in the area, struggling to pay rent, they realized a move was necessary, so they returned home to Cleveland to be with family – and pursue their restaurant aspirations.

“It started small. We were looking around Ohio City and Tremont, and we were going to rent a place,” says Amelia. “He’s always wanted to do a little 12- seater, super tiny French bistro, so we were thinking maybe that. The more locations we looked at, his ideas got bigger and bigger. When he found the East Fourth location, it turned into the fullsize, ‘We’re going to go for it’ restaurant.”

The couple was very interested in the Detroit-Shoreway area, meeting with local representatives who had already moved to include numerous green buildings in the area. Officials were enthused about the project, but could not offer the financial backing Sawyer needed to realize his vision. With the Detroit-Shoreway plans scrapped, Sawyer met with Sam McNulty, owner of McNulty’s Bier Markt on West 25th Street.

“Sam and I sat down, and we immediately saw eye to eye,” says Sawyer. “Although, the concept that they had and the idea I had to fit the space were two totally different things. Where they wanted to keep with the Belgian theme … I’ve always wanted to do an oenoteca – always wanted to do five apps, five pizzas, five entrées, five sides – do them all right, keep them all simple. And yeah, we can make another little section for pommes frittes, burgers and the whole Belgian side. I got them to buy into it, and that’s how Bar Cento started.”

Sawyer’s Cento introduced northeast Ohioans to his commitment to using an extensive list of local purveyors and seasonal ingredients to devise menus, while incorporating green practices to reduce the restaurant’s ecological footprint. All the while, the Greenhouse idea kept moving forward.

Back in New York, Jonathon’s older brother, Jesse, a chemical engineer and CFO of the Greenhouse operation, became enthusiastic about the prospect of opening a restaurant with his brother. “To be honest, when Jonathon was moving back to Cleveland, I was skeptical about opening a restaurant in Cleveland. I’m not anymore. I’ve seen what’s going on, and I’m very much behind it. I think it’s going to be great. We’ve been talking about it for about two years now.”

However, the Greenhouse Tavern project was a grand undertaking, one that would require more than dedicated investors. Jerel Klue, investor and minority owner, penned a letter about the Sawyers’ vision to councilman Joe Cimperman, Ward 13 representative.

“Jonathon is right now, I would say, at the zenith of a movement that’s been happening in Cleveland, albeit rather quietly,” says Cimperman. “The city of Cleveland is the only major city in the country that actually changed its zoning code in the last couple of years to now allow vacant lots to be zoned for gardens.” Cimperman also speaks glowingly of other exciting developments. “We’re working with a group called the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition, which is doing everything from figuring out how to change the code now, so that we can actually have people cultivating bees and chickens in the city … [to] looking at things like at the West Side Market, where we found that in one week … we were able to harvest two tons of compost [from discarded food] just from Monday, Wednesday and Friday.”

Raising the bar: Sawyer and company inside Bar Cento.

Sawyer is currently working with Cimperman to secure a $40,000 grant as part of the Neighborhood Retail Assistance Program. “[Sawyer] changed the way people look at food and the way they look at themselves in Cleveland,” says Cimperman. “Forty thousand dollars to achieve that is a pretty small price. The city of Cleveland was lucky that Jonathon asked us to help him. It’s an honor to help a guy like him.”

The grant will help fund the construction of the actual greenhouse, which will sit atop the Corts building. “The idea for us would be to make that roof self sufficient, meaning cisterns supply the water, obviously all the compost, which we already do at Cento, supplies the soil,” says Sawyer. “And then, for energy, whether it be a solar panel or two, or a wind turbine – which I don’t think we’ll be able to get away with, but it would be nice!” The greenhouse will feature thick-paneled glass supplied by Sawyer’s other brother, Jeremiah, who runs an industrial siding company. “If you’re dining here, and eating a lettuce salad that came from right there, it really ties together the whole idea of terroir,” says Sawyer, who will offer a menu that highlights as many locally sourced products as possible, with a European café vibe.

In Sawyer’s grand scheme of things, the greenhouse represents a small portion of his whole concept. “We also looked at it as restaurants being one of the most wasteful enterprises, and an easy thing to clean up if there’s just dedication from the beginning, so that was the biggest thing for us,” he explains. “I need people for the actuality of it, not the just the mind’s eye.”

One of those people is Jonathan Sin-jin Satayathum, currently a freelance designer who specializes in consulting and specification as sin-jin / designspace. Satayathum’s eye for design and expertise in green building as a member of the Cleveland Green Building Coalition dovetails with his own restaurant experience at Great Lakes Brewing Company, Lolita and Johnny Mango. Now, he helps make space-planning and product selection decisions in collaboration with the restaurant principals, architect and builders. “The combination of having run restaurants for much of my adult life, and being a professional interior designer, gives me a unique perspective in making things work right for Jonathon and the Greenhouse Tavern principals,” says Satayathum. “I live in both worlds, and I speak both languages.”

Sawyer sees his vision having a farreaching effect. “The idea for us is to make [the concept of green living] seem simple for everyone, and hopefully inspire a couple of people to go the same way in their homes, and more importantly, in their businesses,” says Sawyer. This was an element of the concept Cimperman found particularly appealing.

“It’s just really cool that here you have this guy who’s taking ideas about conservation and sustainable principles, and using it in a way where he’s going to make it understandable for people,” says Cimperman. “And, oh, by the way, maybe provide a model in terms of how to do a restaurant in a very green, ecofriendly way.”

Plans call for CFL fixtures instead of incandescent; using warm, natural light as much as possible; and LED lighting that replicates natural light, rather than the blue light people are used to. Sustainably produced materials will be used, including the bar, which will be a type of polymer concrete composed of recycled and crushed beer, wine and liquor bottles, and in some cases, porcelain from sinks and toilets. Behind the bar will be rubber mat flooring made from recycled tires, and toilets will be two-flush models designed to reduce water usage. In the men’s room, waterless urinals using sanitary airlock technology are being considered. The entire concrete floor will remain. Other plans include repurposing timber and fixtures found in the building, as well as recycled plaster for wall coverings.

“The central tenets are: use what you already have and use it wisely, don’t throw in a lot of chemicals that are nasty, and when you do have to buy new stuff, buy the most efficient stuff that you can, the best technology that you can afford, and make the whole sustainability thing easy,” says Satayathum, whose research has led him to work with Jennifer Connolly of the Cleveland Green Building Coalition and Mandy Metcalf at the Affordable Green Housing Center to build a directory of quality sustainable product and service providers. “It’s a win for you as a business. It’s a win for society and your customers. And it’s a win ethically.”

Wide open space: Sawyer stands atop the Corts building – and the local green movement.

The ideas represent a solidarity of vision among the Greenhouse team, namely Jonathon and Amelia, and their commitment to a green lifestyle – a commitment that was only furthered by the influence of their two children, Catcher and Louisiana. “Having kids, that’s really made us stop and smell the flowers, as it were,” says Sawyer. “My other kind of selfish goal behind this, too, is I would really like to use this greenhouse as an educational tool or a partnership with schools or children. I’ve got kids, and I think it would be perfect to tie everything in together.”

Ultimately, creative goals aside, this is a business, and Sawyer is happy to have a neighbor many other restaurateurs may feel threatened by: Symon’s Lola. “Mike and I are really like minded, in that we don’t really view restaurants on the same strip as competition,” says Sawyer. “We look at it more as building a neighborhood and a community. The more that you have in that area, the better off you are.”

Far from the maddening congestion on Euclid Avenue, Sawyer stands under the sun on the Corts building rooftop. Now, just a blank canvas, he hopes it will soon become the focal point of an inspirational enterprise with ramifications extending well beyond the normal reach of a restaurant. Is he nervous?

“Not really. That’s my wife’s job,” says Sawyer.“ I don’t really get nervous about money, bills, or kids, or job … everything happens for a reason. There’s a reason we’re doing this, there’s a reason we took Cento, there’s a reason we moved back [to Cleveland] two different times. It’ll all pan out in the end.”

Sometimes, only a wife can truly understand her husband’s dreams. “When we first moved back – I totally forgot about this, maybe I blocked it – he wanted to buy a house and get a farm and get pigs, and do farm to plate immediately,” says Amelia. “He had big, big, big dreams right away.

“Ever since that idea came about, it kind of scaled back from that, and eventually turned into the Greenhouse … It turned into the only restaurant Jon ever wanted to open.