Standing out on Lee

The refurbished dining room of The Katz Club Diner in Cleveland Heights preserves the car's original beauty and luster.

(Gus Chan Gus Chan Gus Chan)

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Within months of opening the kind of restaurant he'd often dreamed of, Doug Katz knew it was time to sort the vision from the reality.

"When we opened Katz Club Diner last May, I was doing something I'd wanted for a long time," says the restaurateur, who already had made his mark on Northeast Ohio's dining scene with his perennially successful Fire Food and Drink in Cleveland's Shaker Square area.

Not only had the young chef long thought that it would be cool operating a diner, offering some old school deli fare made with his own unique twists. Katz had long been in the mood to expand. His goal was to land a space that could afford him the facilities to accommodate the burgeoning demand for catered meals that Fire's popularity generated.

Viewed from the exterior, the pair of diners -- connected by a lobby area, equipped with a pair of restrooms -- look deceptively small. However, an expansive professional kitchen replete with walk-in cooler and freezer, utility facilities and a well-equipped baking area, spans the entire length of the rail cars. It's a kitchen that's big enough to draw envious glances from big name chefs whose reputations far eclipse their own work spaces.

Katz considered the opportunity long and hard. He and his wife, Karen, and their 10-year-old twins live nearby.

"Six times I've watched this beautiful building founder," Katz recalls. Since the cars (one of them brought in from Pennsylvania, the other from New Jersey) were set into place in 2001, a procession of other food-service businesses occupied them: among them have been Dottie's Diner, Chris & Jimmy's, and Clyde's Bistro and Barroom.

After its most recent closing, the entrepreneurial chef learned that a bank owned the building. The space presented what Katz deemed "an amazing opportunity."

Douglas Katz, owner of The Katz Club Diner on Lee Road in Cleveland Heights, also runs Fire Food and Drink in Shaker Heights and Provenance restaurant at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

"Experiencing the success we've had at Fire gives you a certain confidence in what you can do," Katz says. But within months, he discovered, too much of a good thing can be anything but wonderful.

"By July, I realized that doing it all at once -- opening the diner, expanding our catering, creating a speakeasy-style private lounge in the diner's other car -- was all just too much," he says. The diner's expansive outdoor patio, adjoining the barroom, also begged reopening. Meanwhile Katz was also deeply involved in the creation of Provenance and Provenance Cafe, a pair of restaurants just off the new Atrium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Katz also underestimated the numbers of customers that the 50-seat diner's location, and his own name, would draw.

"Even though my management team and I had a clear vision of what the diner should be, we got blasted by the sheer number of people who came in," Katz said. Operational issues made things worse. The farm-to-table mission and use of sustainable seafood sources weren't being communicated. The creative chef's twists on deli classics weren't made clear to customers, leaving some of them with unfulfilled expectations.

Katz decided it was time to put on the brakes. In concert with chef de cuisine Cameron Pishnery, who also works with Katz at Fire, the chefs came up with a new, all-day menu for Katz Club Diner. Offerings include staples like omelets, egg sandwiches, brioche French toast and a variety of sides sold a la cart. To satisfy those hankering something extraordinary, they brought in dishes both inventive and delicious.

Over lunch with Katz, we sampled four dishes off the recently adopted bill of fare. Short rib Chilaquiles ($15, easily shareable) starts with fresh, housemade crisp tortillas mounded with black beans, salsa verde, pickled peppers and a combination of cheeses, mounded with shreds of tender beef and topped with a drift of fluffy scrambled eggs. Shakshuka ($12) is a sort of Israeli take on huevos rancheros: local eggs, baked in a somky, zesty tomato sauce, garnished with rich dollops of yogurt and strewn with bitter-tinged leaves of arugula.

Vegetarians and vegans are well cared for on this latest menu. For those who favor a hearty yet comparatively light meal, try the Vegan Curried Lentil Soup ($5) loaded with nutty-sweet legumes in a squash-based potage thickened with cashew sauce and punctuated by a hint of fire, courtesy of a tasty chile chutney. Those hungry for other South Asian flavors (and who indulge in fish) might dote on the Masala Fried Fish ($12). It's a rolled sandwich formed in fresh naan bread baked in Fire's tandoor oven, then laced with a combination of two kinds of chutney -- one made of sweet tamarind seeds, the other the familiar marriage of cilantro and mint -- stuffed together with slaw. I'll happily cross town for that sandwich alone.

But there are plenty of other reasons to make the trek. Katz Club's pastry counter abounds with old-fashioned treats, from giant cookies ($2) to freshly baked takes on popular store brands "faux ho's" (the diner's version of Ho Ho's, iced chocolate cake rolls), Cream Canoes (think Twinkies) and Pocket Pies (chewier but also much tastier Pop Tarts, all $3). There are also big slabs of the kinds of cakes you used to find on Grandma's sideboard. A slice of Bobbie's Cake ($6) begs for a glass of cold milk -- though a cup of the excellent Rising Star pour-over coffee and someone to share with will do nicely.

Cinnamon-scented coffee cake, Seven-Layer Chocolate Cake and an old-fashioned Birthday Cake (each, $6-$7) are all happy ways to end a meal here -- or carry it on, back at home.

"A restaurant is a personality, and it has to be nurtured all the time," Katz says, thinking back over his first year as a three-location operator. "Its character has to be reconsidered and adjusted as demands and tastes change. That's the only way to make it work for everyone -- the guests, and those of us who work here, alike."

The Katz Club Diner marquee now beams over the Cleveland Heights landmark on Lee Road. Restored 1940s diner cars, one redone to resemble a Prohibition Era speakeasy, were brought to the area in 2001.

Katz Club Diner: 1975 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights; thekatzclubdiner.com, 216-932-3333.

Katz Club Diner is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday; 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday; and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. The diner's Coffee Counter opens at 8 a.m weekdays, offering hot beverages, pastries and breakfast sandwiches to-go. Every Wednesday evening in the bar car, Katz Club offers Burgers & Bourbon Night, including three samples of Bourbon whiskey to taste, a grassfed beef burger (the variety changes weekly) and a cold beer. Price is $25 per person, by reservation only.