Call it the little building that could.
Nestled in a Cuyahoga Falls neighborhood, it is getting a workout as home base of not one, but two emerging food businesses.
The address is 1300 Sackett Ave. and many know it as the former home of Flury’s Cafe, which last spring moved about a mile north to a storefront at Front Street and Portage Trail in the Falls.
The two startups are the Oh So Sweet cookie and pastry shop that likely will open sometime next month, and the Beef and Barley food truck that gets rolling this week.
Food truck owners Jason Combs, 28, and Stephen Benes, 31, will use the new kitchen for prep. This week they were making potato pierogi topped with four types of onion in preparation for the truck’s debut this week. They’ll serve from 11 a.m. until the food runs out Friday and Saturday in the parking lot of the Sackett Avenue building.
“There’s just something about food trucks that gets you out into the community, makes you a part of things,” Combs said. He began thinking of starting a food truck a while ago, before moving here from Atlanta last year.
As its name suggests, the truck’s fare includes beef; the barley is in the beer that is an ingredient in risottos.
Combs describes the menu as rustic with a twist: hand-cut French fries fried in oil infused with duck fat, pierogi (a pizza version features salami and fresh mozzarella) and folded flatbreads. These include the Caribbean Jerk Chicken Fold and the French Onion Fold with braised short ribs.
On the sweet side, Judy Pierce, owner of Oh So Sweet, will offer some treats alongside the truck this week in a sort of soft opening. She plans to open for regular hours sometime next month.
The two businesses have a connection besides operating out of the same place. Pierce’s friend who owns the building is also friends with Benes’ mother.
Here are some more morsels on the two endeavors:
Pierce, 55, starts her new enterprise with a lot of experience. A longtime home baker, she and her sister-in-law Kelly Pierce owned the Riverfront Coffee Mill in the Falls; it closed about a decade ago. She’s baked at Linda’s Kitchen in Tallmadge. And, she knows her new place well, having cooked there for a time when it was Flury’s.
More recently, she worked in the cafe at West Point Market in Akron for about two years.
With West Point’s closing, she ramped up her at-home baking, selling goodies to such spots as the sister restaurants Eye Opener and Arnie’s Public House in West Akron, and the Garretts Mill breakfast and brunch spot on Hudson Drive in Stow.
“He likes my scones; they’re one of my specialties,” Pierce said of Garretts Mill owner Brian Krasney.
You can see a picture of the “deconstructed chocolate ganache cake” that she makes for Arnie’s on the Oh So Sweet Facebook page.
“People just wanted more and more,” she said. “That’s when I decided I needed my own place.”
The Beef and Barley owners met last year, when both were working at The Office in Akron, Benes as a chef and Combs as a bartender.
Combs, a native of Centerville, outside Dayton, moved with his wife, Megan, from Atlanta last year so Megan could take a job with Signet Jewelers in Akron. He had bought the truck, a former utility vehicle, in Georgia.
“The truck is older than I am,” Combs said, noting it dates to 1986.
With an eager business partner in Benes and his daughter about a year old, Combs said, the time seemed as good as any to roll out the food truck business.
“We just have to get the weather,” he said on a chilly day this week.
Green opening
Wednesday is the first day of business for 35° Brix, the new restaurant and bar featuring a load of wines in Heritage Crossing off Massillon Road in Green.
The owners, husband and wife Kerry and Amy Janke, are big fans of ice wines, the dessert wine made from grapes that have been frozen before being picked. Brix is a measure of the sugar content in wine; ice wine has a sugar level of 35° brix.
Brix offers a lot more than ice wine: hundreds of bottles, most of them rated 90 points or more, in addition to beer and liquor.
Kerry Janke has said the fare is “North American comfort food — steak, chops and seafood.” The menu includes “Handhelds,” such as a half-pound sirloin burger with cheese that comes with fries. Brooke Kilpatrick, who cooked at West Point Market, is chef.
Brix is closed on Tuesdays. Hours for reservations are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday for brunch and 4 to 8 p.m. in the pub. To see the menu, go to www.35brix.com. The address is 3875 Massillon Road. Phone is 330-899-9200.
Papa Joe’s event
Award-winning winemaker and Akron native Jim Clendenen will host a dinner featuring his Au Bon Climat winery at 7 p.m. April 27 at Papa Joe’s, 1561 Akron-Peninsula Road, Akron.
Executive Chef Joe Alvis is planning five courses, each of which will be paired with an Au Bon Climat wine. Courses include asparagus soup with peekytoe crab custard; pan-seared halibut with tarragon risotto; quail stuffed with foie gras and served with organic fig and roasted sprouts; and grilled Colorado lamb chop. The fifth course is goat milk cheesecake and will be served with a fortified dessert wine made especially for Alvis.
Clendenen, a member of the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America, was born in Akron and attended school through ninth grade in Cuyahoga Falls. Then his father, an employee of Firestone, moved the family to Los Angeles. He spent his junior year of college abroad at the University of Bordeaux in France, and, according to the winery’s website “discovered life beyond tacos.”
After graduation, he spent a month in Burgundy and Champagne and decided to attempt a career in wine rather than go to law school.
Au Bon Climat’s vineyards are on California’s Central Coast; the name means a well-exposed vineyard.
Cost of the dinner is $85. Call 330-923-7999.
More wine
• Executive chef Jason Miller and sommelier Matthew Forrest of the Galaxy Restaurant in Wadsworth are teaming up for the Circle L Limousin Ranch Chef and Sommelier Pairing Dinner from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday.
Five courses will each feature a different preparation of beef paired with wines in the Cellar Room of the Galaxy, 201 Park Centre Drive, Wadsworth. Cost is $74 plus tip and tax. Call 330-334-3663.
• Here’s an arty take on a wine tasting: Regency wine store and bar and the Zeber-Martell gallery and clay studio in Akron’s Northside district are pairing up for a wine tasting at Regency at 6 p.m. Monday.
The tasting will feature Regency appetizers served on a Zeber-Martell plate. Each guest gets to keep a plate. Wines will be from Kokomo Winery in California.
The tasting is called Crafting the Table and is the first in a series that will feature Zeber-Martell pottery.
Cost is $45 and includes appetizers, wine and the plate. Regency is at 115 Ghent Road, across from the Summit Mall. Call 330-836-3447 for reservations.
• The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad is taking passengers on a “Grape Escape” wine-tasting excursion.
Riders will sample five wines and hors d’oeuvres while enjoying the view. Cost is $60 to $96 and includes a glass. The adults-only train will leave the Northside Station at 27 Ridge St. in downtown Akron’s Northside district, at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
To register, call 800-468-4070 or visit www.cvsr.com.
• Area wine importer John Bee, who spends a large part of the year in Italy and knows his Italian wines, will lead a Nebbiolo Wine Dinner at 6 p.m. May 18 at D’Agnese’s Trattoria and Cafe at 566 White Pond Drive, Akron.
Nebbiolo is a variety of red wine primarily associated with Italy’s Piedmont region, in the northwest corner of the country. Cost is $50. Call 234-678-3612 for reservations.
• 3 Point, 45 E. Market St. in downtown Akron, will host a Wines of Australia/New Zealand dinner at 7 p.m. May 9. The menu for the five-course dinner will be available later. Cost is $60. Call 330-535-6410.
Cookbook author
Hudson’s own cookbook author and chef Carla Snyder will cook recipes from her cookbooks Sweet and Tart: 70 Irresistible Recipes with Citrus, released last year, and One Pan Two Plates: More than 70 Complete Weeknight Meals for Two at the Hudson Library and Historical Society at 6:30 p.m. May 5.
Snyder is a James Beard Foundation nominee. Both books will be available for purchase.
Registration is required; the Hudson library’s cooking-oriented presentations tend to fill up fast. Register at www.hudsonlibrary.org or call the reference desk at 330-653-6658, ext. 1010.
The library is at 96 Library St. in the First & Main shopping complex.
Moms, daughters dine
West Side Bakery in Green will celebrate spring — or perhaps Mom’s Day a little early? — with a Mother-Daughter Brunch from noon to 2 p.m. April 24.
The menu includes finger sandwiches, crudites and hummus, fresh fruit, mini pastries and lemonade, iced tea and coffee. You also get a cupcake to decorate.
Cost is $20. Reservations due by April 20. Call 330-899-9968. The Green bakery is at 1840 Town Park Blvd., off Massillon Road.
Pastry chef in Hudson
New York pastry chef and cookbook author Nick Malgieri will lead the Perfect Pastry Demonstration at Western Reserve School of Cooking in Hudson from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. April 25.
Malgieri’s latest book, published in 2014, is Nick Malgieri’s Pastry: Foolproof Recipes for the Home Cook. He’ll demonstrate savory and sweet treats: Argentine spinach empanadas, all-season tomato tart, sour cherry tart with almond meringue and French apple pie.
Cost is $15. Call 330-650-1665 or go to www.wrsoc.com. The Western Reserve School of Cooking is at 140 N. Main St.
Cinco de Mayo
In time for Cinco de Mayo (May 5), Lorilei Bailey will share festive drinks with a Mexican flair at 7 p.m. May 3.
The class, presented by the nonprofit Countryside Conservancy, will be at the G.A.R. Hall at 1785 Main St. in Peninsula.
Cost is $30. For more information or to register, visit www.cvcountryside.org or call Julie Gabelman at 330-657-2542 or e-mail info@cvcountryside.org.
Bailey, a veteran of the Bar Car at the Katz Club and L’Albatros Brasserie and Spice Kitchen + Bar in Cleveland, has twice won Cleveland’s Most Imaginative Bartender Competition.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com. You can follow her @KatieByardABJ on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com.