A Grand a Day

UPFRONT

CELEBRATIONS // BY LYNNE THOMPSON

A Grand a Day

Hospitality Restaurants donates to individual nonprofits in January.

George Schindler and Kay Ameen had been discussing the best way to mark the 30th anniversary of Hospitality Restaurants.

Their 1991 opening of the Cabin Club in Westlake turned out to be the founding of an operation that today employs more than 300 people at its Fairview Park headquarters, the Cabin Club and seven other upscale dining establishments, including Blue Point Grille in Cleveland’s Warehouse District; Delmonico’s Steakhouse in Independence; Kingfish in Copley-Fairlawn; Rosewood Grill locations in Hudson, Strongsville and Westlake; and Salmon Dave’s Pacific Grille in Rocky River — as well as Thirsty Parrot, a sports bar near Progressive Field.

Schindler notes that every location reopened as soon as the state of Ohio relaxed pandemic shutdown restrictions in May 2020.

“The number 30 kept coming up,” Schindler, who serves as president, remembers. “We thought about doing a prix fixe meal to drive traffic, but that’s a little bit self-serving. All of the communities that we’ve worked in have been so supportive over all of these years.”

The pair turned to the business’s history of philanthropy for inspiration. They’d always contributed to organizations combating food insecurity. And each eatery adopted at least one family referred by the Malachi Center for the holidays.

They came up with the idea of donating $1,000 a day throughout the month of January to 30 area nonprofits. Schindler describes the recipients as small charities that collect and distribute food, clothing, household goods, etc. to those in need.

“A thousand dollars is not going to be a game-changer for most charities,” he concedes. “But for small charities that don’t have overhead and salaries — a lot of them are just all volunteer — it goes a long way.”

Most of the nonprofits, Schindler adds, were chosen from recommendations provided by local mayors and police chiefs at Hospitality Restaurants’ request. Some of them include Cleveland Kosher Food Pantry in South Euclid, Fairview Park Hunger Center and The Turn (formerly the Northern Ohio Golf Association Charities & Foundation and Return

to Golf program), which provides programming for the physically disabled on the campus of the Wharton Center at North Olmsted Golf Club. “It’s pretty joyful to see how it’s changed some of these guys’ lives,” he observes. Some entities are run or supported by people Schindler and Ameen know. The Ben Curtis Family David Hale, George Schindler and Kay Ameen of Foundation, a Kent-based Hospitality Restaurants nonprofit started by Schindler’s professional golfer friend Ben Curtis and Curtis’ wife, Candace, fills backpacks with nonperishable food and toiletries that are discreetly distributed by teachers in participating schools to students living in food-insecure homes. Santa PICsU was founded by friends to provide gifts for Akron Children’s Hospital pediatric ICU patients and their families, as well as waiting-room furnishings, medical equipment, etc. And the Bay Village-based Jack Gives Back Foundation was established by a family who lost a special-needs child. The nonprofit supplies adaptive equipment and therapy scholarships to the Key Largo, Florida, nonprofit Island Dolphin Care for children facing similar challenges. Hospitality Restaurants isn’t planning to host a big public 30th anniversary celebration. But the company did end up offering a different three-course happy-hour meal at each of its locations for $30 through Jan. 31. 