Proof Barbecue in Ohio City to Close on February 1

Proof Barbecue (4116 Lorain Ave.) in Ohio City will close its doors after service on February 1st. Owner Dave Ferrante says that he just could not get the business over the hump.

“We were doing really well the first half of the year, but starting in September, the numbers just started really dropping off – and they did not improve,” he explains.

It’s been a bumpy road for the barbecue business, which Ferrante and partner Michael Griffin opened in Tremont just days prior to Covid. After an initial period of stop and go, the owners announced in 2023 that the restaurant was relocating to the Nick’s Diner space on Lorain Ave. After a year and a half of work, Proof 2.0 opened in spring of 2024 – in a striking space that gave the business a new spark.

But it wasn’t enough, says Ferrante.

“I feel the product is good, the chef is good, the front of the house is good – for whatever reason, I could not get this thing consistently over the finish line,” he says.

It didn’t help that Platform Beer closed its taproom across the street prior to opening, Ferrante adds.

“That was the piece that didn’t give us the opportunity to hold on for the neighborhood to develop,” he says. “They didn’t have a chef, they didn’t have a kitchen.”

After all the hard work that he and his partners have put into the newly refurbished property, Ferrante is confident that there will be plenty of interested shoppers. He says that he will do everything he can to land one that will be beneficial for neighboring businesses, including his own, Visible Voice Books and Café.

“I hope I’m in a position to be particular about who goes in there because I want to enhance that section of Lorain,” he says. “I’d like to be able to get something that I feel fits the narrative of what’s going on on Lorain.”

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