Since I’ve been writing about Erie County restaurants this week, here’s an interesting article about Mrs. Thelma Wise, a Lorain woman who was running one of Vermilion’s landmark restaurants in 1964:
Leidheiser’s Restaurant. She was also about to add the former Okagi Restaurant to her Vermilion restaurant portfolio.
The article below ran in the Lorain
Journal on March 9, 1964.
Mrs. Wise had been the owner and manager of Leidheiser’s since her husband passed away 14 months earlier, and according to the article had acquired the popular Okagi Restaurant, which was two doors down to the east. She was planning on renaming it, “Leidheiser’s Vacationland Room.”
You can learn about the Okagi over on Rich Tarrant’s great Vermilion Views website. There’s an article
here about the restaurant’s original owners. You can also type the word ‘Okagi’ in the search engine at the bottom of the Vermilion Views website page, which will bring up links to even more articles and wonderful vintage photos of the restaurant.
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| Courtesy Rich Tarrant’s Vermilion Views website |
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| Former Okagi Restaurant today |
7 comments:
why not do an article about Scotty, the man who sold taffy by the Palace?
Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, unless I have some personal knowledge of a subject, I’m limited to what I can find out looking through city directories, newspaper microfilm, phone books, etc. Perhaps someone with some knowledge of him can come up with a name and time frame and then I’ll see what I can do.
I remember buying taffy there in brown bags after the movies and much more!! Best taffy in the world!
Rick Kurish, researcher extraordinaire and regular contributor to this blog, compiled some information about the gentleman who ran the small store next to the Palace and shared it with me today. I should be able to put together a nice post that will appear in the coming weeks.
Great! I remember buying taffy and nuts there. Hope Rick remembers the Nut Hut as I do! It was my idea after all!!!!!!
Dan, I've never heard of Benny's Cocktail Lounge and Dining room at 4900 West Lake Rd (It's an ad shown next to the Leidheiser article). Do you know where that was located?
Chuck S
Jackson, MI
Hi Chuck,
That was just another name for Benny Hart’s nightclub:
http://danielebrady.blogspot.com/2014/05/bennys-restaurant-part-1.html
The building later housed Tiffany’s Steakhouse.
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