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Courtesy Zack Ladner
Zack Ladner (left) with Carl Quagliata.
This Saturday, December 30, will be the last day of service for Smokin Q’s (718 SOM Ctr. Rd., 440-646-0429), the Texas-style barbecue restaurant from the team of Carl Quagliata and Zachary Ladner. This summer, the business passed the six-year mark.
But the news isn’t all grim; the chefs, partners in Giovanni’s, Paloma, Tutto Carne and Village Butcher, will open a restaurant of a different name and concept in the space.
“It was time for a renovation anyway – you have to change stuff up every once in a while,” Ladner explains. “We looked it over and with where food and labor costs are, we thought we should change our concept to be more productive.”
Running a full-service barbecue restaurant means that Ladner and Quagliata are hit with both high labor and high food costs. That’s fine if you’re selling $80 steaks but the numbers don’t add up for barbecue, says Ladner.
“It’s very sad for me because barbecue is near and dear to my heart, but at the end of the day you can’t run a business to just run a business,” he adds.
After the curtain falls on Smokin Q’s, work will begin to ready the space for a new casual Italian restaurant. Since the efforts will be largely cosmetic, Ladner estimates a two-week gap before the next act begins. When diners return to the space, they will find an Italian restaurant with faint ties to Giovanni’s in Beachwood.
“We are going to pull a lot of inspiration from Giovanni’s – there’s a lot of nostalgia there – but we don’t want it to be viewed as Giovanni’s light,” Ladner says. “It’s a more casual operation and is intended to have its own identity.”
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