While it is not easy to move to a new country and a new city full of different cultures, languages and traditions, refugees not only make it work, they become some of Cleveland’s most successful entrepreneurs.

Attention foodies or anyone looking for a new dining experience: Dinner Lab announced last week that On July 24 Cleveland will become its 33rd location in its social dining experiment. Dinner Lab hosts regular pop-up dinners in unconventional, undisclosed locations in a setting that offers the chance to meet new people, try new great food and give feedback. It also allows chefs – about half from Cleveland and the other half from successful restaurants around the country – to try new concepts and new menu items.
 
Dinner Lab started in New Orleans three years ago. “Originally, there was nowhere to get really good late night food in New Orleans,” explains Dinner Lab HR director Hallie Dietsch. “What it evolved into is an opportunity to let chefs showcase their true passions.”
 
The chefs are not given boundaries to what they prepare. Diners are given a comment card to rate the food’s taste, creativity and other feedback. “As a member, you’re having a dinner that you most likely will never have again,” says Dietsch. “For the chef, it’s an opportunity to cook something he knows really well and enjoys cooking.”
 
There is a $125 annual membership fee to join Dinner Lab, and the five- to seven-course dinners cost between $50 and $65. Members can bring up to three guests with them. The chefs range from seasoned line cooks who are thinking about opening their own restaurants to Michelin Star chefs trying out new concepts.
 
Dinners are announced three weeks in advance of the event. Diners are told the date, the chef and the menu, but the location is not disclosed until 24 hours before the event.
 
Dietsch says Cleveland was chosen as the newest Dinner Lab location because of the population’s affinity for good food. “Cleveland is not known as being New York or Chicago, but Clevelanders are keyed in to good food and want to try new things,” she says. “We think people in Cleveland will be excited and ready for this. People are more interested in food and educated about food and they want to know what they’re eating and the chef’s inspiration.”
 
Cleveland’s first Dinner Lab chef will be Chicago-based Daniel Espinoza, who will cook a five-course modern Mexican meal titled “Anomar.”
 
 

"It's cheap, their museum is on point, and they have excellent taste in beer." So says Buzzfeed.

Check out what other cities made the list. Read the full story here.

Before it closed its doors in 2006, the Odeon Concert Club was a famous Flats entertainment venue that once hosted such eclectic acts as Nine Inch Nails, Björk and the Ramones. This spring, the sound of rock music will be shaking the walls of the East Bank club once more.

The Odeon is scheduled for a grand reopening on May 1st, in the same 1,100-capacity spot it held in the old Flats. Cleveland-based heavy metal group Mushroomhead will headline the event, kicking off what owner Mike Tricarichi believes can be a new era for the much loved rock landing place. 

"I don't know if people are going to expect a nostalgia trip or whatever," says Tricarichi. "This is going to be a destination compatible with what's forecast to be on the street with the (Flats East Bank) project." 

The Odeon's interior is getting revamped for its new iteration, Tricarichi notes. Though the room's basic design will remain unchanged, a new sound and lighting system will be installed. In addition, inside walls will be painted and the club's infamously grotty bathrooms will get an overhaul.

"Everything's going to be fresh," says Tricarichi. "We're trying to make people more comfortable."

Tricarichi, president of Las Vegas-based real estate company Telecom Acquisition Corp., owns both the Odeon and Roc Bar, a 250-capacity club located nearby on Old River Road. He bought the Odeon building in 2007, one year after it shut its doors. The decision to reopen Odeon came in light of early success Tricarichi has had booking acts at Roc Bar, which itself reopened in December. 

"We opened Roc expecting it to bring people down here, and it did," Tricarichi says.

Along with Mushroomhead, the Odeon has set a date for a Puddle of Mudd show and is working on bringing in horror punk act the Misfits for an appearance. Tricarichi, who spends part of his time in Las Vegas booking hotel shows, also expects to host comic acts at the refurbished Cleveland club.

"I've produced Andrew Dice Clay shows in Vegas, and he wants to play here," he says.

As Tricarichi owns the building, he views re-opening the Odeon as a worthy, low-risk experiment that can be a key component of a revitalized Flats entertainment scene.

"It's a stepping stone," he says. "We can be a piece of what's happening down there."

The Cleveland Clinic and NASA Glenn Research Center have often worked together for the past 15 years on solving the problems astronauts face in space.

“We have a small but very impressive group solving astronaut health issues,” says John Sankovic, director of technology, incubation and innovation at NASA Glenn and the center’s chief technology officer. “We solve problems like how do we generate IV fluids and medications to treat astronauts during space flights or improve exercise. A lot of that work has been done at the Cleveland Clinic.” 

Earlier this month, Cleveland Clinic Innovations (CCI) and NASA Glenn officially came together in a partnership to develop products useful both on Earth and in outer space. The two organizations will now work together on Glen's  technologies to see how they can be applied to healthcare and perhaps create new businesses.

“This is a new effort at taking technologies and opening up our portfolio, and through a different lens looking at how to apply them to the biotech arena,” says Sankovic. “It’s research and technology for the benefit of all.”

In addition to the partnership with CCI, the commercial development arm of the Clinic, NASA Glenn will also join CCI’s Global Healthcare Innovations Alliance, which is a worldwide network of healthcare systems, academic institutions and corporate partners.

“The Clinic has a longstanding relationship with NASA in looking for a way to help with our shared vision of helping others,” says Brian Kolonick, general manager of the Healthcare Innovations Alliance. “There are a lot of resources going on over at Glenn and they have a lot of ideas that they’re using. There’s a way to find an intersection that may translate into helping patients here on land.”

Together, NASA Glenn and CCI expect new spinoff companies, and ultimately jobs, to come out of the partnership. “We’re really excited about what Innovations has been doing,” says Kolonick. “We’re at the forefront of looking at new business and turning these into products. We’re just getting started. NASA will assign someone to work with us directly, get to know us and see the work we do. They have a portfolio of patents available for licensing for any business.”

A partnership between product design innovation firm  Nottingham Spirk and CWRU’s think[box] is designed to both inspire new inventions and bring existing ideas to fruition. CWRU announced late last month that Nottingham Spirk, known for creations like the Dirt Devil vacuum and the SpinBrush toothbrush, will work with Case faculty and students on the first floor of the new think[box] facility, scheduled to open in the fall.

The partnership was announced by John Nottingham and John Spirk, both Cleveland Institute of Art graduates, at Case’s Engineering Week banquet on February 26, during which they were the keynote speakers.
 
The idea is to build on Nottingham Spirk’s reputation for creating innovative products in the consumer and medical device fields by helping faculty members, and eventually students, fully develop their own ideas.
 
“We’re creating a partnership in innovation that they can see what the faculty are doing and what might be applicable to their work,” explains Jeff Duerk, dean of the engineering school. “They’ll be brainstorming how to take them to the next level. Nottingham Spirk is the premier design and innovation company in the United States. They’re like Reese’s Cups – they bring things together in such an obvious way. This is about how to take high-quality concepts and bring them to market faster.”
 
Bill Nottingham calls think[box] the “nexus” between Case’s seven schools and the CIA. “The greatest thing that can happen is we work together to promote more successes,” he says. “Hearing about think[box] and what they are doing to promote innovation, and hearing about the startups going on right down the hill from us, it’s really exciting.”
 
Nottingham sees the potential between the two organizations as unlimited. “There are going to be disruptive innovations that come out of think[box] based on the CWRU and Nottingham Spirk collaboration,” he says. “Our success is only as good as our relationships.”
 
The details of programs with students under the partnership have yet to be worked out, says Duerk, but should be soon.
 
  

Brian Schaffran has been riding motorcycles for 15 years, starting with a 1978 Honda CB750 he found on the side of the road in his hometown of Strongsville. He quickly fell in love, not just with the romantic notion of riding itself, but with the restoration and maintenance required to make his baby street-ready.

"There's a gratifying aspect to fixing something with your own hands," says Schaffran, 43.

A mechanical-minded DIY attitude is something Schaffran aims to impart with Skidmark Garage, a 2,800-square foot space for riders to roll in and work on their choppers, crotch rockets, hogs or other hotrodding euphemism of choice.

The garage, located in the Hildebrandt Building on the corner of Clark Avenue and Fulton Road in downtown Cleveland, will rent out tools, lifts and storage bays to motorcycle enthusiasts. If all goes well, the space will also create a community of folks to share advice, spare parts and perhaps a beer or two while they maintain their rides.

"I'm not a mechanic," says Schaffran, a former history and computer teacher at Saint Martin de Porres High School. "I'm providing a place to hang out and work on your bike."

Although the space is open for business, its owner is preparing for a grand opening celebration scheduled for May 2. Schaffran hopes to draw not just current riders, but people from surrounding city neighborhoods who don't yet own a motorcycle as apartment life leaves them few storage options.

"My average customer will probably be a guy in his 20s who bought some used piece of junk and doesn't have anywhere to put it," says Schaffran.

The bike-loving entrepreneur has been sitting on the idea for a community fix-it clubhouse since he himself was in his 20s. Living in Los Angeles at the time, Schaffran would borrow tools from friendly mechanics and tinker with his vehicles at home.

"Friends would come over and work in my garage, too," he says. "I thought how cool it would be to have a place with a couple of lifts for people to work on their vehicles."

Schaffran has excitedly expanded that picture in his head now that it's becoming closer to reality. "I can see a garage full of 10 or 15 guys helping each other out and fixing their bikes, no matter what time of day, then leaving here feeling like they accomplished something huge," he says.

When kids commit themselves to an art form, they gain self-confidence and set high expectations for themselves. How do we create more access to arts education for youth in urban neighborhoods? 

"Begin at the Canal Exploration Center in the 33,000-acre Cuyahoga Valley National Park, a lush woodland few visitors expect to find 10 miles south of Cleveland. The drive follows the twisting Cuyahoga River (crooked river in the local Native American dialect) past stands of towering oak, hickory and maple trees and through rocky ravines carved by glaciers millennia ago. Exhibits at the center explore this watery highway."

Read the full story in Midwest Living here. 

Arts education programs that teach mastery have the greatest potential to impact child development, yet many urban youth lack access to them. Learn why these programs work and how we can cultivate them in Cleveland.

Ohio is no longer flyover country when it comes to attracting venture capital for biotech companies. In 2014, Cleveland had $398 million in investments among 40 companies, ranking second in major Midwest cities behind Minneapolis. Yet access to local capital remains a concern.

Marrion Demore has always loved improving on commercial bottled barbeque sauce. “I used to have really big family cookouts and I’d just doctor up some Open Pit to make it taste better,” Demore recalls. “People always said, ‘you should market this.’ I never gave it much thought until the economy went down hill. Then I knew I had to make it from scratch.”
 
Today, Demore calls himself the Rock and Roll Star of Sauce. In 2009 he began experimenting with homemade sauce, trying his various versions out on friends and family. Two years later, he had perfected his flavors and launched Demore’s Fusion Sauce in 2011 “There were a lot of taste tests and a lot of money being blown on bad batches, he says of his two-year journey. “It was important to me that my sauce was all natural, with no preservatives.”
 
Demore makes and bottles four versions of his sauce – mild, medium, flaming and hickory smoke. He uses ghost peppers, ground into a powder, to add the heat to his flaming sauce and buys his bottles from Cleveland Bottle and Supply. In addition to being all-natural, all varieties are also low in sugar and sodium. “It’s more sauce with less calories,” he says.
 
Demore describes his company as a grass-roots effort. He recently launched an online store on through his Facebook site. Last November he began handing out free samples and selling his sauce on Saturdays at Zagara’s Marketplace in Cleveland Heights, where he sells 15 to 20 bottles a week.
 
“A tell-tale sign to me us when you have a taste-testing and people buy it,” Demore says. “I let people try it and tell them about it. It keeps me motivated and keeps me going when people walk away with a bottle. Ninety-five percent of people are going to enjoy one of my sauces when they try it.”

While Demore still makes his sauce in his home kitchen, he has gone to the Cleveland Culinary Launch and Kitchen (CCLK) for advice and guidance. “Cleveland is very supportive once you plug yourself in,” he says. “Even though this is not high-tech, the platform is here. It gives you more confidence with the product to know there are people you can call for mentoring and that kind of thing.”
 
Demore is always thinking of new flavors and ideas. He is currently testing coconut and pineapple sugars in sauces and he is working on dry rubs.

"The 39^th Cleveland International Film Festival, presented by Dollar Bank, is proud to announce its Opening Night film on Wednesday, March 18, 2015 will be I’ll See You in My Dreams," CIFF announced in a recent press release.

"Directed by Brett Haley, the film had its World Premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. The film stars Blythe Danner as a widow who’s settled into her life and her age, until a series of events propel her into a renewed engagement with the people and the world around her. The film also stars Martin Starr, Sam Elliott, Malin Akerman, June Squibb, Rhea Perlman, and Mary Kay Place. The film was written by Brett Haley and Marc Basch, and produced by Rebecca Green, Laura D. Smith, and Brett Haley."

The closing night film will be Danny Collins, CIFF stated in the release.
 
"Danny Collins was written and directed by Dan Fogelman and produced by Jessie Nelson and Nimitt Mankad. The film stars Al Pacino as Danny Collins, an aging 1970s rocker who can't give up his hard-living ways. But when his manager (Christopher Plummer) uncovers a 40-year-old undelivered letter written to him by John Lennon, he decides to change course and embarks on a heartfelt journey to rediscover his family, find true love, and begin a second act."

You can purchase tickets at www.clevelandfilm.org.

As the first director of the newly-created Cuyahoga County Department of Sustainability, Mike Foley has visions of Cuyahoga County being a leader in green practices.

“I absolutely believe Cuyahoga can be the greenest county in the state,” Foley says. “We are lucky to have a lot of smart people, good public officials and a solid base of residents and businesses who understand that reducing our carbon footprint is the only sane alternative in the face of climate change.  But I also don’t believe this is a county-by-county competition. Cuyahoga should become as green as possible because it’s the right thing to do." 

Last week, Cuyahoga County executive Armond Budish launched the Cuyahoga County Department of Sustainability and announced Michael Foley as its first director and Shanelle Smith as its first deputy director.

According to a news release,the sustainability department will promote economic development activity that supports businesses that provide environmentally sustainable products and services; educate the public about environmentally sustainable practices; and collaborate with businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies to develop programs incorporating environmentally sustainable methods into accepted practices.

Foley says his priority is to make environmentally-friendly practices understandable and accessible to all businesses and residents in the county. While he is still getting his feet wet in the new position, Foley has a background in environmentalism and energy efficiency issues as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives.

“Climate change is important to the county, to the state, to the nation, to the world, and we need to address it,” Foley says. “I want to be a part of the minds to work on this stuff. I think that economic and social benefits come to those who adopt renewable and energy efficiency measures as soon as possible. Everybody, everywhere needs to be working towards the same greenhouse gas reduction goals in order to stave off real harm to the planet.”

Some of Foley’s early goals include investing in energy efficient technologies, solar power and collective buying power for groups. “You can’t do it one-off, you want to be a part of a group,” he explains. “We really want to make energy efficiency and green energy, such as solar power, more normal and not such a complicated concept.”

A research team studying touch and movement in prosthetic limbs at the Cleveland Clinic was just awarded a $2.5 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a suite of outcome metrics for advanced prosthetic limbs. 
 
Through DARPA’s new Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) program, Dr. Paul Marasco and his team of researchers at the Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute department of biomedical engineering will evaluate and identify and quantify the different technologies being used in prosthetic arms. “There’s no way to identify whether something works better or worse,” he says. “We’re trying to develop new ways to get a good sense of how these prosthetic limbs operate.”
Dr. Paul Marasco 
Today’s advanced prosthetics work with the nervous system to actually provide sensation in the artificial limb, Marasco explains. While the technology has seen significant advancements in recent years, there is no standardized set of metrics to evaluate these technologies. This lack of information makes it difficult to communicate benefits to patients and demonstrate improved outcomes to insurance payers.
 
“We are developing metrics based on how people’s brains respond,” says Marasco. "How they move, how much attention they’re paying, reaction times.”
 
Each of the three groups involved in the research, including the Cleveland Clinic, the University of Alberta and the University of New Brunswick, will focus on two metrics. Marasco will coordinate all of the groups. “We operate as one big team, spread across Alberta, New Brunswick and Cleveland,” he says. “We’re working hard to blur that line between what’s prosthesis and what’s machine. We’re developing prosthetics where what you feel matches what you see – providing the illusionary feel that the prosthetic arm is part of the body.”

Small Box, the innovative shipping container retail cluster in the Warehouse District, has announced its newest tenant: Blue Edge, a collaboration between Edge Hair Studio and Blue Envelope that will offer "eco-conscious and high-end gift and beauty products."

Edge Hair Studio and Blue Envelope are both located in downtown Willoughby. According to the release, "Edge Hair Studio is a full-service, eco-conscious hair and nail salon ... Edge is the only studio on the east side of Cleveland to carry the full line of exclusive Davines products. These products, handmade by a dedicated, passionate family in Parma, Italy, have a cult-following for the luxury they provide in a beauty routine. Every item is handwrapped by an in-house artist."
 
Blue Envelope is a three-year-old stationery studio. The firm specializes in customized stationery and sells "exclusive and some locally-designed stationery and gift brands" at their current location.

Both tenants have been active in growing the downtown Willoughby business scene. The release notes, "Historic Warehouse District Development Corp. welcomes with excitement Blue Edge as this group of creative and community-minded business owners make their first foray into Downtown Cleveland."