Todd Schafer admits that he essentially served as guinea pig when he purchased the very first two Old Carolina BBQ franchises, in Lyndhurst and later Mentor, from the Akron/Canton-based chain of eateries. But after only a few years in operation, he understood that the relationship needed to be terminated.
“I always wanted to go local, but Carolina BBQ’s identity is Carolina,” he explains. “It was a no-brainer what I was going to do. What needed to happen was for me to separate the relationship, stop right there and move on.”
Schafer, a firefighter who spent four years as part of a pediatric Life Flight crew, mistakenly thought that starting and running two restaurants would be a less stressful career choice. Nonetheless, he decided to go through a complete restaurant overhaul to strip both businesses of their Old Carolina DNA and replace it with Ohio-themed BBQ or “OHIQ.”
His two restaurants, which will reopen as Crooked River BBQ next Monday (Lyndhurst) and Wednesday (Mentor), will use “Ohio Proud” chicken, pork and beef. The meats are smoked over local hickory and cherry, the sauces are made and bottled in Independence, the dressings are from Hartville, the hot sauces from Westerville, and the beer, naturally, hails from around here.
“Barbecuing is easy, it really is,” says Schafer. “You find a good rub, you rub it on a giant piece of meat, you put it in a smoker and let the smoker do all the work for you. The hard part is the recipes and how each recipe complements the brand.”
Schafer said that these past three years in business have provided him with invaluable feedback on how to move forward. His all-new menu has more items, more options and more room for customization. Now guests can order everything from a pulled pork slider on up to a pound of smoked beef brisket. Chicken, ribs, hot smoked sausage, creative hot dogs, scratch-made sides and even salads round out a menu with a much broader appeal, he says.
“A lot of people don’t want barbecue all the time – that’s the problem with barbecue,” he says. “So we wanted to provide more variety of menu items and value.”
Schafer closed both stores last month to reconstruct, retool and rebrand. Both feature a fresh new look that screams Ohio rather than the Deep South.
He hopes to expand his Crooked River BBQ to other parts of the city.
This article appears in Oct 7-13, 2015.
Yummmmmmmmm!
Same owner but hopefully not the same dried out BBQ that he was cooking before.
The problem wasn’t ‘Carolina’ vs ‘Ohio’. The problem was the quality of food over the course of the past year. Quantities were less and apparently so did the quality. Overhauling just cost him more money instead of fixing the food.
Wonder how much the Old Carolina franchise fee entered in to this?
And…. will Ohiq have Cheerwine?
Food was old before even day old warmed up on their hot plate when ordered. Certain quality of food was given one type of consumer vs another. Not freshly made BBQ.
Their new menu doesn’t even list ribs — just pulled pork and hot dogs.
It’s weird to have a rib place with no ribs! what else IS bbq?
Went there yesterday (10/18). My mom ordered the ribs, I ordered brisket. There is no Cheerwine available. The brisket was average, not as flavorful as Old Carolina’s. On the plus side, you get more brisket on the plate than Old Carolina provided. There was not as much ‘smoke’ flavor on the brisket. Will give them one more chance a few weeks from now, Fortunately there is still an Old Carolina in Strongsville.
Awful food, waste of money. Told a 2 hr. wait for ribs. Some staff very rude. Ignores you when you are asking a question.Chicken fingers cooked to hard, sweet potato mussy like it was boiled. Will not return.
First & last visit. Waited 30 minutes for food then it was cold. We were told there was a new cook that was unfamiliar with things. We asked to speak with a manager but she never came out(Kim). We were able to generate points from Old Carolina app but could not cash them in. Very frustrated so we left with cold food.