Chagrin River Diner to open downtown

‘Upscale’ eatery will serve breakfast, lunch, cater evening events

Partners add finishing touches to new upscale restaurant to offer breakfast, lunch and evening catering.

Downtown Willoughby’s latest eatery is not your typical diner.

First, Chagrin River Diner, in the former Taco Local spot at 4099 Erie St., doesn’t have the ringing nostalgia, retro décor or greasy spoon-type atmosphere of classic diners.

And business partners and owners Kirk Swanson and Jim Turcotte are just fine with that, creating their new restaurant in the spirit of old-school establishments, but raising the stakes a bit, too, with atypical fare, in addition to traditional dishes.

“We have all the staples but decided to add things folks aren’t used to seeing every day,” said Swanson, a 15-year Willoughby resident and Boston native. “Jim and I have been in the restaurant business our whole lives. We’ve opened up restaurants for other people and other companies, but this is the first one we’re both opening.”

The 3,000-square-foot restaurant will be open seven days a week from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will also be available for catered evening events.

Most items on the menu run from $6 to $11. Fare includes hash and eggs, brioche French toast and a Build Your Own Breakfast option, with eggs, bacon, fruit, sausage and toast, among other items.

Appetizers include white wine-steamed mussels and antipasto with deep-fried olives. Chef Arturo Batista Cervantes, who previously worked with Swanson, will also offer and rotate featured specials, including prime rib, chicken Marsala, pork chops and cedar plank steelhead, which Swanson calls “an ocean-run rainbow trout on steroids.”

A “Minnows Menu” is also available for $4.99.

“Being in Boston, there are some cool diners that had prime rib on the menu,” said Swanson, a former executive chef who was a managing partner at Stir Crazy Fresh Asian Grill in Legacy Village in Lyndhurst, which closed in 2017. “Jim and I don’t really want to compete with anyone here, we want to be something different, but at the same time we want to serve great food. We see Chagrin River as an upscale diner.”

The two restaurant industry veterans didn’t have to do much, by in large, to make the place over, they said, just and handful of cosmetic changes and opening up the kitchen, while keeping the footprint of the layout the same. Chagrin River Diner, “a scratch kitchen,” will seat about 100 patrons.

Swanson, an avid fisherman, who went house-hunting in the area specifically to live near a river, said the name of the place reflects the environmental importance and vitality of the area.

“Being near the Chagrin, and Lake Erie, is a true asset. I think a lot of people forget that.”

The catered events, everything from watch parties to baby showers, will help the diner have an “allday” presence, Turcotte said. The two partners feel this will serve their clientele better than nightly dining.

“The last several years, on our days off, we’d go to Wild Goose and just start talking about opening a different kind of place,” Swanson added. “When this (space) became available, it got real.

“We have no clue why the three restaurants before this have not done well. It doesn’t make any sense. But it created a great opportunity for us. And Downtown Willoughby is cool — I love it down here.”

Chagrin River Diner is set to open this week.

Call 440-527-8452 or go to www.chagrinriverdiner. com for more information.

CHAD FELTON — THE NEWS-HERALD Business partners Jim Turcotte, left, and Kirk Swanson are owners of the new Chagrin River Diner located at 4099 Erie St. in Downtown Willoughby.