The owner of Akron’s Spaghetti Warehouse said he will have to close or relocate following the announcement that the architecture and engineering firm GPD Group intends to buy the South Main Street building where the restaurant is located.
Michael Kim, the restaurant’s owner, said his lease goes through 2027. But following a conversation with the building’s likely new owners, Kim said GPD told him if he wanted to leave earlier than that, they wouldn’t mind.
GPD Group intends to use the building for their own purposes — to house engineers, Kim said — and has no intention of allowing Spaghetti Warehouse to remain open. A representative from GPD, John Kessler, said in an email that the company was not giving interviews about its plans.
Kim said the restaurant, which opened in Akron in 1993, at one time had $3 million in annual sales. Before the coronavirus pandemic, sales had dropped to $1.8 million annually. Now, they are down to $1.1 million. Working from home, he said, has not been good for downtown restaurants.
“Downtown traffic has gone down so much,” Kim said. “It’s been quite trying for us to see this iconic brand slowly dwindle away.”
Kim, who is based in Dallas, also owns locations in Toledo and Dayton. He said the restaurant at one point was a destination, with the brand sought by cities to revitalize areas where industry had left. In its early years, he said, people would drive 30 minutes to get there.
“It was a ‘Field of Dreams’ feel,” he said. “It was one of the elements to bring back energy and life to the warehouse area.”
What is the future of Spaghetti Warehouse?
The Akron Beacon Journal, in 1992, said the company had 30 locations under consideration at the time it chose to come to Akron. The 14,000-square-foot restaurant in an 84-year-old warehouse would seat 425 people, the newspaper reported. At the time, a company vice president, James Aitken, called the building “a downtown diamond in the rough.”
The cavernous Spaghetti Warehouse is inside a former B.F. Goodrich building and features a replica of an Akron Street Railway Co. trolley car. Decor includes a traffic light, a life-sized mannequin and copious signs on the walls.
Kim knows he’ll have to decide whether to move to another spot or simply close up shop. He’s not yet sure what he’ll decide to do.
“I’m thinking, what is the future of Spaghetti Warehouse in Akron?” he said. “If we do relocate, what’s the best place for us? Right now, we’re just digesting everything and thinking it through.”
The restaurant’s general manager, Grant Jackson, said Spaghetti Warehouse helped bring life to downtown, paving the way for projects like the construction of Canal Park, now known as 7 17 Credit Union Park. But now, when events downtown close Main Street, the restaurant suffers.
Jackson said he expects to talk to the city about where else Spaghetti Warehouse might go, but he wishes it there was no needthinks it’s a shame to uproot it from its current location.
“Downtown has certainly been a struggle,” he said. “It’s a shame.”
Kim is optimistic that GPD’s plans to turn the area into a campus will help bring more workers, and therefore diners, to the area. But Spaghetti Warehouse, in the long term, won’t be able to take advantage of the new energy.
In the meantime, Kim said he plans to add pizza to the menu and hopes to improve the brand to bring more people into the restaurant.
“We have time on our side, a little bit,” Kim said of the decision he has to make. “At least now we know what our cards are.”