Tell us about Forest City Shuffleboard

Forest City Shuffleboard is a shuffleboard bar offering 5 indoor courts, 2 outdoor courts, 2 regulation table shuffleboards, and a full service bar with our own cocktail list and local and regional beers on tap. We have a rotating kitchen concept. Every month we have a new food vendor. These may be new chefs trying out a new concept, existing businesses looking to expand into Ohio City or Near West Side markets, or business start-ups that want to have a new store front without going through the initial set-up involved in opening their own location. It’s a fun collaboration with a lot of local businesses. There are similar models with food trucks coming in, a business has a couple of tables and the food truck vendors bring food in crockpots. In contrast, here we have a full service kitchen. We could offer food ourselves if we wanted to, but our strengths are shuffleboard and the bar. Let other people who do food very well do it. This is a win-win . Cleveland has such a good food scene. Why compete with that? Our competition is bowling alleys, and beaches in the summer. Our focus is shuffleboard, shuffleboard, shuffleboard!

What made you decide to open this business?

My background is in finance, and I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit. When I was living in New York City, I got to know a place in Brooklyn called the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club. They did a beautiful job with it and I was able to meet and talk to the owner. That kind of got my wheels spinning. This was about four years ago. Clevelanders love our games and I think there is a trend, I hope a sustainable trend, going to more interactive experiences. With Forest City Shuffleboard I want to give people an opportunity to learn and play shuffleboard, and have a great social experience as well.

What makes your business different?

The shuffleboard, of course, has a big part in that. But also, we have come up with this “Vintage Varsity” theme that makes us stand out from other places in town. We went with this specific look for a reason. I feel like it is timeless, being a 70’s and 80’s vintage varsity look. We also really tried to highlight the character the building had before we took it over. It used to be a supermarket. Before that it was a Cleveland Model and Supply Company, an old paper airplane and model trains manufacturer.You can still see the existing brick, and still see where we had to paint some graffiti on the side of the building - this used to be the exterior of the building. We’ve repurposed real bleacher wood that has come out of schools in Northeast Ohio. You can read things printed on the bleachers on the pieces now making up the wall. These railings are bleacher railings we found in an old gym. There is no standard look for Shuffleboard clubs, no two are the same. But when we were doing the demo on the building, a lot of the old bricked in windows had cages on them. They were there for security of course, but it reminded me scoreboards in old gymnasiums that were blocked by a mesh to keep the balls from hitting it, so we left those to kind of run with the theme. Who doesn’t love the old glory days? I was joking with my friends - You get the guys who come in who probably didn’t really play on the state championship football team, but they are the starting running back by the time they tell the story.

What would your customers say they love most about your business?

The uniqueness and I think it really is the shuffleboard. We’ve had a very high number of people who have never played the game before, and we see them here three or four times in the same week. Sometimes they come in every night over a weekend . There is a real attraction to the game and people gravitate towards that. Also, a lot of people have commented about the comfortable environment, so the shuffle board and the overall environment are probably the biggest draws.

Do you have any exciting plans for the future that you want customers to know about?

We’ll keep hitting on the leagues. Plus we are expanding our private parties and events. We are trying to host weddings; this will be a great venue for an affordable, non-traditional wedding, especially in the winter. But the main thing is just getting more people in here playing shuffleboards. We will be going to a few festivals, too, promoting the shuffleboard game.

What is something most people don't know about the business?

Just how fun and addicting shuffleboard can be. A lot of people have this perception that shuffleboard is an activity for retirement communities. It’s funny how many people have come here and then posted on social media “I was the oldest person there”. It really is a game for all ages and skill levels, so just the shock that shuffleboard can be fun and interactive. It’s been around for 500 years, for the tables, 150 for the courts. It has the image that grandparents play it. They played when they were young, but then TV and the internet and all these other sports and games came around, shuffleboard fell by the wayside and old people kept playing but younger people didn’t start. Now it’s about time for a new generation, time to bring back energy and excitement to the game.

What do you love most about the neighborhood?

What I love about our specific location is that we’re like the bridge between Gordon Square and Ohio City - 25th and Lorain, and 65th and Detroit. We are right at the epicenter of that. I love the togetherness of the neighborhood, it is a true community. People eat, drink and sleep in an area like this, they come help each other out when people need it, they support the local businesses. I love all the neighbors we’ve met. It’s a great group of people who actually care about the area they live in. The physical location is great, it’s easy to get to. And one of my favorite things is when people come here from the suburbs, we tell them about all the businesses in the area “Go check out the West Side Market, check out Jack Flaps, Platform, Plum, Xinji.” It’s a point of pride to say we have a lot of really cool things in this area. “Great, come here, but not just here, we have a lot of other things going on.” This area is already great, we’re just trying to connect the dots and fit in. . I also love that this area has so much history. This is an area that has been around since Cleveland was founded. Starting in the Flats, it came up this way. The Urban Community School used to be an old bakery, and they donated the property to the school. Lorain Avenue is such a cool corridor. For years people raced in and out just to get in and out of downtown as quick as they can, but now people want to stop and do things along this strip. At the peak, in Ohio City and Tremont there was 85- or 90-thousand people living in these areas. Now there is 15 thousand, so it’s crazy to think of this place as super high density now. I know we have a lot of long-time Ohio City people who are afraid with all the development the area is losing a lot of the luster and appeal. But the history and the beauty of this area are never going to go away. We will never get back to the earlier density, but anyway density is not always a bad thing, It creates the businesses and makes them more sustainable. And new development just enhances the beautiful old homes and buildings even more.

Anything exciting going on that customers should know about?

There is new development going on and businesses opening up every month, the new noodle bar down the street, the brewery that’s been here a little longer. There is a lot of planned residential development coming up that people will be excited to hear about in the next year or two years. Urban Community School is great for the neighborhood and community offering a high quality education at an affordable price. There is a lot of infill happening, a new infusion of businesses, we are diversifying the products offered.

Where are your favorite places to go in the neighborhood?

It would be a long list, and I don’t want to leave anyone out. But together we really are connecting the dots. A perfect day in Ohio City – go to Jack Flaps in the morning, head over to Platform, go get a coffee at The Grocery, go to the Plum for dinner, come down here and play some Shuffleboard. And there’s all these other options. There really is a lot in the area that highlights what we are doing here at Forest City Shuffleboard, and vice versa. But if I had to pick two favorites, I’d say SoHo is phenomenal, just because I’m a sucker for their chicken and waffles, and Mitchell’s Ice Cream.

What are your favorite things to do in the neighborhood?

Meet the people. I’ve been to a lot of the block clubs here, and I’ve met a lot of the other business owners. Which I always enjoy doing because as an entrepreneur, it’s always good to commiserate with the other people who go through the struggle, and the joys. With all the highs and lows – it’s a very emotional roller coaster.

Why do you think it's important for people to shop local?

People put everything they have on the line to come into an area, to enhance it, and make it a more livable, more enjoyable space. To bring in that effort and sweat, it increases your home value and from a financial standpoint makes the area more attractive. It creates more interest in the area, more buzz. People move into these areas because they want to be more involved in the neighborhood. Shopping local is a way of saying thank you, of tipping your hat to the people who go through the effort and the pain and the joy of opening up a business in your neighborhood.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Give shuffleboard a chance. If you’ve never played before, I think you will be surprised how much fun it can be. Give this part of lower Lorain a chance, too. There are a lot of fun things happening all down Lorain. Just come check us out and keep an open mind about shuffleboard. One of our big things here is we teach you how to play and we set you up. There is an Ohio State Shuffleboard Association. There are tournaments that happen all over Ohio every weekend. There is a cult following of people that play every weekend. Our goal is to get more involved in having pro-style tournaments here. So if you are interested in joining a pro-style tournament, we’ll set you up to become an amateur then a professional depending on how many games you win. As you can imagine it’s an older population, so we are trying to infuse a bit more youth into it. There are a lot of rules and it's a little bit rigid. We are trying to make it a little less rigid, because young people just want to have fun.

Note: This article is about Forest City Shuffleboard Arena and Bar. Please visit their profile page to find more information and review the business.