Zeppe’s to open restaurant

Construction approved to begin, will have garage door instead of exposed patio

Construction has been approved to start on the new Zeppe’s Tavern location in Willoughby.

The full service restaurant will open at 5680 SOM Center Road, next to the Starbucks close to Heinen’s Grocery Store and Manhattan Deli Bar & Grille.

Zeppe’s plans to perform some construction on the building before opening.

Original plans included an open patio outdoors, but nearby residents expressed concerns at the Jan. 9 Willoughby Planning Commission meeting about increased noise levels and added traffic that could result from the addition. In a compromise, the construction plans were changed to include a covered garage door rather than the exposed patio.

The garage doors will allow for fresh air to come in when the weather is nice enough, but will follow guidelines set in a conditional use permit.

When open, a guardrail will keep customers from venturing outside the restaurant.

While the garage doors are open, noise must be kept to a conversational level, including sounds coming from music and televisions.

Regardless of the noise levels, the doors will be closed by 11 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 10 p.m. on other days. Additionally, any time they host live music, the garage doors must be shut.

A traffic study showed that changes will not be necessary to ease the traffic brought in by Zeppe’s.

However, to keep delivery drivers from parking on nearby Halle Drive, under the conditional use permit delivery cars will be kept in the front parking lot when not in use.

The conditional use permit will last for one year, after which they will return to the Planning Commission to get approval again, which will likely last for a longer period of time.

This will be the first Zeppe’s Tavern full-service restaurant in Lake County, and their fourth overall. There are over 30 other Zeppe’s pizzarias across Northeast Ohio.