Downtown Chagrin Falls, home to many small businesses, has seen a boom of new restaurants, and a boost of business for current restaurants ever since the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic eased. 

The downtown area of Chagrin Falls is known for its prominence in fantastic restaurants. Many residents and tourists are attracted daily to a vast array of restaurants.

Ever since the Coronavirus pandemic started to ease, five new restaurants opened up in downtown Chagrin Falls: ETalian, Sushi Junki, Pub Frato, The Reserve, and Batuqui on the Falls. Senior Owen Cox has worked at Pub Frato since November 2021.

 He described the flow of customers as more than expected.

“Especially during last year when I first got there, there were definitely a lot more customers than expected each night,” said Cox.

Newer restaurants tend to bring more new restaurant-goers. Cox noticed that in addition to local residents, Pub Frato also attracts tourists.

“It was a little bit of both. I wouldn’t say it was mostly tourists, but I’d say it’s definitely familiar faces, but still a good amount of tourists are there as well,” said Cox.

Yours Truly, one of the bigger restaurants in downtown Chagrin, has seen a massive spike in the number of dine-in customers, compared to its dreadful pandemic lows. 

Senior Emily Kohler, has been consistently working at Yours Truly since summer 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its height. 

Kohler recognized that the restaurant was much slower during the peak of the virus with the exception of take out orders. 

“It was very slow during Covid obviously, but carry out picked up, but now that the lockdown is over and that the mask mandate is lifted a little bit, it has picked up, over the summer it got pretty busy,” said Kohler. 

Yours Truly sets the stage for the rest of the restaurants in Chagrin, as well being a big competitor in the restaurant space. 

Another experienced worker at Yours Truly, senior Sophia Moffa, who has worked from summer 2020 to February of 2021 and started working again in August 2022, took note of the increased number of tables that waitresses handle.

“From what I noticed we have a lot more tables then we did when Covid started. We had reduced capacity, so our sections used to be three or four, but now you can have as many as six or eight tables in our section which is a lot more money that’s coming into us,” said Moffa. 

Additionally, Moffa also worked at Pub Frato in between her time at Yours Truly. 

“I definitely think that in comparison you can see right when the restaurants open up, everyone was going to them, at Pub Frato we were slammed everyday, I hosted since they opened for like six or seven months,” said Moffa.

Chagrin Falls has recovered well from the pandemic, and continues to be a popular and ever-more successful restaurant hub, with more new restaurants opening every year.