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Firebirds Grill Debuts at Eastwood Complex
NILES, Ohio – With more than 30 full-service restaurants and other dining establishments on the footprint of the Eastwood Mall complex, the Firebirds Wood Fired Grill’s general manager and a spokesman for the mall see a place there for the new restaurant.
Firebirds, which launched 12 years ago this month in Charlotte, N.C., opened at the mall Monday, the chain’s first Ohio restaurant.
“It’s a great location,” remarked Brian Moore, general manager. “Obviously the Eastwood Mall is doing great things. The Cafaro Co.’s been great. We do have a tie to them as well so we thought it was a perfect location to start in Ohio.”
The Youngstown-based Cafaro Co., which owns the Eastwood complex, also operates the Spotsylvania Towne Centre in Fredericksburg., Va., and the Millcreek Mall Complex in Erie, Pa., where Firebirds operates restaurants.
“We have over 30 restaurants and eateries of some sort out there at the mall and they range from places where you can grab a snack to a place like Firebirds where you can have a fine sit-down meal,” said Joe Bell, spokesman for the Eastwood Mall and the Cafaro Co.
Firebirds features steaks cooked on a wood-fired grill “which definitely separates us” from local competitors, Moore said. All of the food served is made from scratch, and all of the meat hand-butchered and all of the fish hand cut. “We also have a nice selection of wines, liquor [and] some great signature drinks,” he said.
Seating capacity in the space, about 7,000 square feet, is 239, and there are about 100 employees, the general manager reported. Training for the opening took place over the past 10 days. “I can’t be more proud of the folks we have here,” he said.
The new restaurant “fits in quite nicely with the mall footprint,” Bell said. An educational service center occupied the space before the restaurant. “Firebirds dramatically changed the way that space was used,” he said.
Moore said the middle of the holiday shopping season is “a great time to open” the restaurant, and hopefully the opening will be as smooth as possible. “It’s never a bad time to open,” he said.
Feedback from tenants at the mall complex this holiday season has been “very good,” Bell reported. “Black Friday went very well for retailers. There was a lot of foot traffic at the mall,” he said. “Of course, the fact that we have an extra-long shopping season is going to help. They have what really amounts to an extra week for shopping [due to this year’s early Thanksgiving] and so retailers are optimistic.”
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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