The current site of Soho Chicken + Whiskey in Ohio City’s Market District will become a new Chipotle Mexican Grill. But fans of Soho need not despair as the popular establishment will be moving nearby rather than closing (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Chain means more mainstream Market District
When the chains start replacing mom-n-pop businesses in a growing neighborhood, some welcome them as a validation of its success while others reject them as a weakening of a neighborhood’s uniqueness that created that success in the first place. The replacement next year of the popular Soho Chicken + Whiskey with a Chipotle Mexican Grill is the latest example of that shift in Ohio City’s Market District in Cleveland.
Chipotle has signed a lease that will start in Fall 2026 to locate at 1889 W. 25th St., a two-story, 105-year-old building that has an outdoor restaurant patio next to a pedestrian passageway linking the West 25th business district with a large, city-owned parking lot to the east.
While Chipotle is a prominent international chain with 3,500 locations worldwide, it will not be the first chain in Ohio City.
On the other side of the passageway is the flagship kitchen and shop for Mitchell’s Ice Cream, a local chain. Across West 25th Street is Pins Mechanical, a regional chain. One block west is local chain Dave’s Market.
And there are bank branches plus a Family Dollar store throughout the Market District, named for the nearby West Side Market. The market, with its food stalls leased by mom-n-pop concerns, is like most of the neighborhood which is still dominated by independent businesses.
Exterior renderings of proposed changes to the historic, two-story building that will contain a Chipotle Mexican Grill in Ohio City’s Market District (Red Architecture).
Chipotle will continue the change from that. It plans to renovate for about $500,000 a 2,365-square-foot space on the ground floor of the stone-faced building, according to a building permit application submitted Jan. 23 to the city’s Building Department. It was submitted by Amanda Mango, a senior project manager at Chipotle’s Columbus office, public records show.
The property is owned by developer Doug Perkowski through his affiliate 1889 West 25th Street Ltd. Perkowski told NEOtrans he is working with Nolan Konkoski and Molly Smith, the husband-and-wife owners of Soho Chicken + Whiskey, to find them a new location to open after their lease ends in the Fall of 2026.
He hasn’t identified a location yet but said it would probably be “nearby.” Konkoski confirmed that.
“He (Perkowski) has been a great landlord to us in the 13 years we’ve been here and we’re actively trying to find a new location,” Konkoski said in a phone interview. “The neighborhood has changed and evolved over those years. It’s unfortunate that mom-and-pops get priced out when a neighborhood changes but that’s the reality of our world. It’s bittersweet.”
Plans for the Chipotle were recommended unanimously on Jan. 16 by the Ohio City Design Review Committee, an advisory board to the Cleveland Landmarks Commission. Final approval rests with the Landmarks Commission.
Site plan and location of the planned Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant on West 25th Street, set along a pedestrian passageway next to Mitchell’s Ice Cream flagship kitchen and shop (Murdoch).
The only conditions to the approval were for Chipotle to expand bike rack parking to the street-side of the outdoor patio and to make sure that new exterior signs and lighting are attached to the building’s border joints rather through the masonry.
“We’ll not be changing anything with the brick or anything like that or even the forms,” said architect Abigail Arnold at Red Architecture of Columbus. a firm that has designed more than 900 Chipotle restaurants. She said the storefront’s design will be even more glassy than it is now to improve its visibility, especially from the sidewalk.
“That’s going to be important here,” she said. “And then just a couple of signs on the building, you know, to make it prominent for everyone to see what’s going on here.”
Chipotle will be adding an exterior walk-in cooler at the rear of the restaurant and will demolish a small shed along the pedestrian passageway near the back. The existing wooden patio area that was recently changed from metal will be changed again, this time to make it more open.
“The front with the flat stone is all going to remain,” Arnold explained to the committee. “We’ll replace the little medallion sign, in-kind, with (a) Chipotle (sign). The white stucco on the side will get demo’d. It’s in pretty bad disrepair. We’ll replace it with a more modern stucco that will have a water membrane behind it to help it survive longer and it will also be a tan color, kind of matching that corner column.”
END
