Forget London, Madrid, or Rome this summer. Go to Cleveland
By Greg Evans
It was a Friday night and my daughter and I sat in the almost outdoor patio section of the Collision Bend Brewery. The place was packed with regulars, travelers, dock workers, mentally-exhausted party boat captains, Guardian fans, hyperbole-riddled journalists, extra-terrestrials—oh wait! Those were just soused bridesmaids— and a few pirates, our kind of place. It did appear on one side of the outdoor patio, the brewery was hosting what appeared to be a wedding reception. Is that Taylor Swift? After a few Hoppy Sunset IPAs, they all look like Taylor Swift, right?!
We had been out exploring and dropped in for beer, bar food, and a o game, and were also hoping to catch sight of the surreptitious lake serpent. It is rumored I had had an infamous run-in with the elusive Bessie there once before. We wanted to sit all the way outside on the patio but there was a 45-minute wait. That isn’t too bad for a Friday night. “The Galley” can be like an hour and a quarter and by then you're practically ready to eat the raw Walleye the fishermen have stacked in coolers on Lakefront Walkway.
We were digging into a shared appetizer of 420-style fries, when something caught my eye. Movement to my left on the Cuyahoga River. Can it be? The sun was on the verge of setting. The lights were coming on around the city. Bessie? Legendary lake serpent with a taste for beer-cheese drenched french fries?
It was not to be. Instead it was something equally, if not more baffling a sight— a tiki hut floating by. I am not making that up either, I have a video of it. I grabbed my iphone 17, a wretched device, and was able to catch it on film. I think everybody on the outdoor patio, the almost outdoor patio, and several inside listening to a solo musician, were looking at it like a UFO landing in front of us.
It was moving swiftly inland on the far shoreline. A large party boat with dancing “cougars” and men in Hawaiian shirts then passed between us cutting off our view of the tiki hut. Hawaiian shirts? Where the hell am I? I looked down at my glass of Lakeshore Lager thinking, sweet creeping geezus this stuff is strong! My pragmatic daughter decides that it is time to go. I bought two sixers at the door, and off we went into the night.
We were parked on W. 9th Street off W. St. Claire Ave. since the parking lot beside the brewery was overflowing with cars. It’s cheaper to park on the street anyway and then you get to walk around a bit. Downtown Cleveland is a scenic walk-around-a-bit kind of town. We humped it up W. St. Claire, which, after beer, loaded fries, eggplant pizza and a hot honey chicken sandwich, feels like climbing Everest in flip flops.
It was on W. 9th Street that I saw the most intriguing thing of the night—a building being squished between two larger ones, literally. It is the type of architecture you expect to see in an older city. The address was 1374 W. 9th Street. I noticed on the window that they were condominiums. My first thought was, do people sleep standing up? I guess in today’s world of overpriced everything, for the right rent price it is a reasonable expectation.
Downtown Cleveland is the ultimate summer destination. Breweries, floating tiki huts, lake monsters, baseball, and fresh fish straight out of the lake. Who needs Paris, Rome, or Vaduz when you can go to Cleveland?