Ohio City Burrito to Move to New Home Next Summer

Jeff and Michelle Pizzuli, the brother-and-sister team behind Ohio City Burrito at 1844 W. 25th St., have been on the hunt for a larger space for years. They opened the homegrown Mexican eatery back in 2009, when the neighborhood was just beginning to enjoy a renaissance after decades of urban decline.

“We outgrew our Ohio City space probably within three years of getting it,” Jeff explains. “But we just stuck there because it’s our flagship store.”

Now, after 16 years at their original location, the Pizzulis will finally get that larger space. An upcoming move will take them 400 feet south, to the Carroll Avenue condo building on W. 25th Street. They will occupy roughly one third of the Family Dollar space on the ground floor, a site that is three times the size of their flagship shop.

The Pizzulis say that the extra space will be used for a larger open-concept kitchen, more dine-in seating, and improved catering operations.

Since launching in 2009, Ohio City Burrito has added locations in Lakewood, downtown and at Progressive Field. The owners attribute their growth and success to cooking everything from scratch at each location and by getting a little bit better every day.

“What we try to do is just keep on improving,” says Jeff. “We don’t do any crazy super-fast growth that we can’t handle so we try to stay true to what makes us good. We’ve come a long way since the beginning with how we make everything.”

The move comes at an uneasy time in the once fiercely independent neighborhood. A decade ago, community opposition managed to scuttle plans to open a McDonald’s restaurant on Lorain Avenue. But now, Starbucks is planning to open a drive-through coffee shop just steps from the West Side Market and Chipotle is opening a location on West 25th Street, just steps from Ohio City Burrito. That news didn’t sit so well with the Pizzulis, as one might imagine.

“We were bummed out, and a little surprised, that Chipotle was going to move in across the street in this neighborhood,” Jeff says. “What made Ohio City cool was that it didn’t have all the same brands that places like Avon Commons have. Is the next thing going to be a Dairy Queen moving across the street from Mitchell’s?”

In the end, Jeff and Michelle Pizzuli will do what they always have done: focus on providing a quality Cal-Mex experience.

“It is what it is and we can’t control it, but what we can control is what we said to each other when we learned the news: let’s use this competition as a chance to be the best version of OCB we can,” says Jeff. “We’re really excited for the new makeover down the street and we’re going to really showcase what we have and let the chips fall where they may.”

Ohio City Burrito will move into its new Ohio City home sometime next summer.

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