David Rudiger, partner in Market, Wine Bar, Southside, Press Wine Bar and Ironwood Café, has purchased and closed the four-year-old West Park Panini’s location. He will replace it with a second outpost of his popular Ironwood Café (688 Dover Center Rd., 440-835-9900, ironwoodcafe.com), which has been rolling right along for a dozen years in Westlake.

Temporarily closed for a facelift, which will include retiling and refinishing the floors, repainting, and removing all traces of Panini’s insignia, Ironwood West Park (17209 Lorain Ave.) will open as soon as next week, hopes Rudiger.

Fans of Ironwood Westlake will find the “same menu, same smoker, same barbecue, same everything,” says Rudiger. Longtime restaurant group chef and GM Joe Dubbs has been brought in as partner. Many of the outgoing Panini’s staff have been hired on as well.

Meanwhile, the Panini’s Bar and Grill in Westlake (23800 Detroit Ave.) abruptly closed over the weekend when the employees organized a walk-out. A partner in that operation, Joe Hanna, says that partnership and payroll issues are to blame. He hopes to reopen the franchise in the coming weeks.

For 25 years, Douglas Trattner has worked as a full-time freelance writer, editor and author. His work as co-author on Michael Symon's cookbooks have earned him four New York Times Best-Selling Author honors, while his longstanding role as Scene dining editor has garnered awards of its own.

24 replies on “Two Panini’s Bars Close in One Week. Ironwood Café to Claim West Park Spot”

  1. Panini’s in Canton, Ohio just closed as well and is now reopened under the name of Jerzees on 12/5/2014!

  2. I was an employee of Paninis Westlake from the time we opened until the night of the walkout, i managed Paninis for the past six years, i poured my heart and soul into that place and love all my guest and especially all my employees, it was without a doubt the best group of people ive ever known, Joe Hanna, one of the partners is a very good, honest person i enjoyed working for him, its very unfortunate that i cant say the same about his life long friend and partner Tom Culkar,who obviously didnt care about his friend or employees, its x-mas time and it was the most heartbreaking nights of my life to see the employees crying and so upset with worry about how they were going to provide for there families at a time that is supposed to be filled with joy! I wish Joe the very best as far as Tom Culkar is concerned, karma is a bitch!!!

  3. Calling out owners by name is LOW CLASS. Sounds like someone has an ax to grind… Many issues in business are not as straightforward as the associates might think. I understand that the timing of these issues is unfortunate.

    I’ve known both of these guys for a long time. They are not lifelong friends, as stated above, but they are considerate, hard working guys who care deeply about their associates, the communities in which they operate and their reputations!! I have seen them in action many times and have always been impressed by how the operate their businesses.

    I hope for a quick, equitable resolution for all involved.

  4. The employees of westlake paninis DID NOT organize a walk out! We were told saturday that the doors would not be open sunday and that was a wrap. We got not notice. And some employees has no idea. And the lovely owners refused to sign the staffs paychecks!

  5. Sounds like paninifan22 could possibly be tom culkar. Lol moron defending someone that has no morals

  6. @jessylynn85 – Not an owner. Have no affiliation with Paninis. I just like the product and believe the Westlake location was/is the best in the franchise. Maybe it will reopen quickly without prior management?! Maybe there were issues very few associates were privy to?!

    I also have been involved in the bar and restaurant business for over thirty years and have been involved in many emotional issues… attacking ownership by name in a public forum is CLASSLESS. Who invested their money to make this location shine?

    As I stated, I hope for a quick and equitable resolution for all involved.

  7. If you weren’t an employee or didn’t work under these men, you don’t know and shouldn’t have anything to say

  8. I’m going to have to disagree. Tom was the reason to blame because he was the CLASSLESS one by NOT paying his employees and taking from the business instead. There is not an ounce of dignity in doing that and I hope that karma gets him as it should.

  9. I’m going to chime in here as an innocent bystander because it is brutally, painfully obvious that the person commenting as PaniniFan22 is absolutely a friend of the owner, if not the owner himself. Many of the comments don’t make sense from the perspective of a patron, and the insulting and irrational behavior reeks of a childish boss trying to retaliate against workers.

    You’ll never hear a customer note that a particular location “was/is the best in the franchise.” That’s owner talk. It’s suspicious to say the least, and “CLASSLESS” as well, if we want to start tossing that word around so casually.

    “Who invested their money to make this location shine?” Frankly, it sounds like a lot of the workers invested their time and energy, thirty to forty hours a week of their personal lives, which is a lot more important in this world than money. Then, after all that investment, there are workers indicating that they were left jobless with no notice and there may have been some unethical practices regarding final paychecks. So if we want to talk about investment, who was invested until the end if not the people who actually made the place run?

    No workers = no customers = no business.

    Final point about calling out the owner by name: No, it’s not classless. It’s a bargaining chip. If you don’t want your workers to out you as a bad boss, don’t be a bad boss. Simple. My hope is that the location organizes with IWW if the location reopens and the problems continue. Either way, I’ll be reaching out to workers before I ever spend a dime there again to make sure they’re being treated ethically.

  10. I don’t think you can call someone classless if they put their name and picture on a comment. It seems to be much easier to make comments behind an anonymous name like “paninifan”……think about it.

  11. Beautiful property… Poor management. Blame Ms. McCall if you want to blame anyone!! She and her “management team” had many chances!! PATHETIC expression of anger… it was avoidable if your “Manager” did a better job!!

  12. Its the owners fault that I have an unsigned worthless paycheck, not the managers. These people that want to side with the owner sounds really stupid from an employees point of view.

  13. @bv_kittycat – You, sound like one of the many whores he has “hooked up” with in the back office, while skiing down the slopes. It must be nice for a “professional” business owner to spend his employees hard earned money on these ski trips and hookers.

  14. Alan Pugh is correct. I was an employee there and had been for several years. The workers most definitely invested the most time into that place. I was at work/saw those employees more than my own family, my roommate, and my friends.

    @avoidable13 the managers cant do much if the owners are stealing the money leaving management no money to pay for food/liquor delieverys

  15. And also the fact that the kitchen employees stayed to work Saturday night without signed paychecks is incredible. They stayed so us girls could make money that night. That shows how much of a family we are. It is terribly sad to see this all come to an end.

  16. History may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme, sayeth Twain, and it certainly seems true of Tom Culkar, who apparently was involved in something similar with Sushi Rocks, just two years ago prompting a suit by the DOL over…. wait for it…. unpaid wages.

    http://www.dol.gov/whd/media/press/whdpres…

    Some people feel they have the right to steal from those with less. We call them a*****s.

    (“This did not happen to Pablo Picasso…”)

  17. WOW, Chris, thanks for that. Hey Scene, you should probably add that to your article when you correct the last paragraph.

  18. Homework mistake, Doug…it was five years, not four…my wife and I ate there the first week they were open–4 December, 2009. I know that for a fact for a number of reasons.

    One, because we love (and will miss) the Panini sandwiches they were known for. Two, because it was our anniversary. Three, we live right down the street. We tend to remember low-key nights like that first visit, occasions that wouldn’t mean jackshit to anyone else. Guess that’s what getting old does to you.

    We ate there many times and passed by that corner almost every day. The bar was always busy, this being drunken Irish West Park and all (and we also know how little you think of this un-cool and un-hip neighborhood)…but the restaurant side was almost always sparsely populated, from the very beginning.

    Sounds like they had a five-year lease and chose to bail, and the new guy snapped up a prime location at the right moment.

    Kamm’s Corners Development Corporation has (for the last fifteen years, at least) always wanted something more than “just another sports bar” at this historic and prime location, but in the end, that was exactly what they got.

    Six years of something called Alfonso’s, three years of vacancy, five years of Panini’s, and now…this?

    And, as the world turns, the revolving door also continues to spin in Little Dublin, AKA the Green Mile.

    Best of luck to the new owners. At least until 2020…if not a lot sooner.

    Chuckles the Clown

  19. Not paying your employees final paycheck is like school on a Sunday. Someone should call the news. Carl Monday get the media after this guy.

  20. paninis, home of slutty thursday. anyways, it was nice of the ownerguy that everyone hates to chime in on the article under an anonymous tag, and then a different anonymous tag or two later on. its cute and makes me smile to know that this article and comments section bothered him enough to put in that much effort

  21. I’m just glad a new place is moving in now and it won’t be empty like last time when Alfonsos left,,I’m sure the new place will do well..I’m not sure how a restaurant/bar on Kamms in westpark could possibly not make money! I’m not sure why Paninis left but in hope the employees who worked there will get jobs at the new place,

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