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Douglas Trattner
Arthur Treacher's reopens in Garfield Heights.
When Ben Vittoria closed his Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips restaurant in Garfield Heights in 2021, it reduced the number of surviving locations of the chain that once had more than 820 of them to one — the Cuyahoga Falls fish-and-chip shop, which he also owns.
After shutting down the Garfield Heights store, Vittoria put the real estate on the market. He quickly found a buyer in George Simon, but neither party at the time envisioned that it would ever be brought back to life as an Arthur Treacher’s.
“I bought the property with no strings attached,” says Simon. “I was looking at it just as a real estate play.”
Simon says that Vittoria invited him down to the Cuyahoga Falls location in order to wrap up the purchase agreement over a meal.
“Ben says come down and see me at Arthur Treacher’s and I’ll buy you a fish,” Simon explains. “I went down and people are taking pictures of the inside, the outside. It was like a zoo there – all while I’m sitting with the guy.”
Only then, adds Simon, did the pair begin discussing the possibility of reopening the property as an Arthur Treacher’s. For his part, Vittoria says that he was confident that Simon would honor the brand.
“When I sold the real estate, I was hesitant to relinquish anything to do with Treacher’s, but the gentleman seemed to have the wherewithal to do a good job,” says Vittoria. “He convinced me that he would rehab the property – the inside and the exterior – in a way that would do justice to Arthur Treacher’s.”
Simon, with Vittoria’s blessing, opened the Garfield Heights Arthur Treacher’s (12585 Rockside Rd.) last week, bringing the total number of freestanding locations up to two. Like the location in Cuyahoga Falls, the Garfield Heights store serves the same time-honored recipes and products that we have come to know and love from the iconic brand, which started in Columbus in 1969.
These freestanding Ohio stores are distinguishable from the co-branded Nathan’s Famous/Arthur Treacher’s locations elsewhere that offer a limited menu of items purchased from different suppliers, Vittoria explains.
Simon says that they were so busy initially that the shop focused solely on fish and chips, chicken and chips, and hush puppies, but customers can expect to see the full lineup of battered shrimp, popcorn shrimp and clam strips soon.
The store is now open seven days a week. Simon says that the drive-thru will be resurrected in the near future. What’s more, the owner has ambitious plans to expand the brand throughout Ohio.
“Anybody over 40 years old knows the name – it’s an institution,” notes Simon. “There is no learning curve here.”
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Douglas Trattner
A tasty meal at Arthur Treacher's
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