Your Guide to Ohio Amish Country, Just 90 Minutes Away: CLE Daily

Plus, the Cavaliers start their season tonight, and other news and notes from around Cleveland and Northeast Ohio.

by Ron Ledgard | Oct. 22, 2026 | 5:00 AM

Courtesy George Neat via Flickr

❄️ A Milder Winter May Be Coming, But Don’t Ditch the Shovel: NOAA’s 2026-27 winter outlook favors warmer-than-normal temperatures across the Midwest, including Ohio, from December through February, driven by a strong El Niño. NOAA forecasters say that could mean less lake-effect snow, but a mild winter can still bring big storms and cold snaps.

🌯 "Mexipino" Food Is Coming to AsiaTown: Mestizo Kitchen & Cafe opens in the coming weeks at 2162 Rockwell Ave., where partners Jessie Mendoza and Armando Llamas plan to serve Mexican and Filipino classics side by side, plus fusion dishes like birria-stuffed lumpia and chicken adobo burritos.

🏀 The Sirens Drop Their First Merch Collab: Cleveland’s WNBA expansion team teamed up with Playa Society. This Black-women-owned streetwear brand champions female athletes, with a hoodie and T-shirt featuring a hand-drawn take on the Sirens’ claw-and-basketball logo. The collection is available now online and at Rocket Arena’s Center Court store, two years before the team tips off in 2028.

📺 Relive Cleveland's Upbeat Show Tonight: Music manager David Spero, whose father produced the nationally syndicated Cleveland music show from 1964 to 1971, shares vintage clips and behind-the-scenes stories at Music Box Supper Club at 7 p.m. It's free, but reservations are required.

🎺 Lorain Celebrates 75 Years of Latin Music on Sunday: Los Nombres, Combo Caribe, the Lorain Latin All Stars Big Band and more play a free concert at Lorain's Palace Theater, honoring a scene that took root in the 1950s as Puerto Rican families moved to Lorain for steel and auto jobs.

ICYMI: Remember the latest Skrtic's Pics? Cleveland Magazine contributor John Skrtic, the Cleveland Public Library's chief of special projects, photographed Abundance chef Liu Fang, Lakewood's Scott Nixon and Mallorca owner Laurie Torres, whose Downtown restaurant was a James Beard semifinalist this year.

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Today's Trivia

What woman joined Cleveland’s first TV station in 1947 at the age of 54 and worked there for another 37 years?

Travel: Our guide to Ohio Amish Country has 35 reasons to make the drive.

By Julia Lombardo

Holmes and Tuscarawas counties, home to the world’s second-largest Amish community, sit about an hour and a half south of Cleveland, and most of the spots in our new guide are within 10 to 30 minutes of each other, making for an easy day trip or fall weekend away.

Eat and Shop: Grab a cash-only homestyle breakfast at Boyd and Wurthmann Restaurant in Berlin, browse Ohio’s largest craft mall at Sol’s, also in Berlin, and stop at Guggisberg Cheese in Millersburg, the birthplace of the original Baby Swiss.
Stay and Play: Sleep in a renovated train car at the Sugarcreek Village Inn, catch the World’s Largest Cuckoo Clock chiming a Swiss polka every half hour, or take a buggy ride at Hershberger’s Farm and Bakery.

Worth Noting: For something offbeat, Dover’s Toland-Herzig Famous Endings Museum holds more than 2,500 items tied to the deaths and funerals of famous people.

Read the full story.

Talk of the Town

RTA laid out what a bigger sales tax could buy riders. Options presented to the board range from a 0.25% tax that restores park-and-ride express buses to a 0.5% tax that would fund bus rapid transit on 12 corridors and rail extensions, including Blue and Green line service to Hopkins. Without new money, RTA says it faces 20% service cuts by 2029.

An 80-unit apartment complex broke ground next to League Park. The $27.9 million Gateway66 project in Hough has 76 units set aside for a range of incomes, with University Hospitals contributing $3 million.

Ohioans can still sue polluters under the state's Air Nuisance Rule. A Franklin County judge struck down language lawmakers slipped into the state budget to repeal the 50-year-old rule, after environmental groups, represented by an attorney from Case Western Reserve University's law school, challenged it.

Here's what's at stake in Ohio's secretary of state race. Republican Robert Sprague and Democrat Allison Russo split sharply on voter ID, drop boxes and redistricting in the race for the office that oversees Ohio's 88 county boards of elections.

Ohio insurers and utilities have put more than $6 million into the governor's race. Companies that hold state Medicaid contracts or answer to state utility regulators are donating to both the Republican and Democratic governors associations, led by Elevance Health's $2.6 million split evenly between the two.

Photograph courtesy Cleveland Cavaliers

Sports: The Cavs tip off tonight with one goal: getting past the conference finals.

By Cleveland Magazine staff

Last season ended in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Cavs’ deepest run since 2018, before the Knicks swept them. The next push starts tonight at 7 p.m. in Philadelphia on ESPN, against a 76ers team now led by LeBron James. The home opener is Saturday at 7:30 p.m. against Brooklyn at Rocket Arena.

Who’s Back: The core is intact. Donovan Mitchell signed a four-year, $273 million extension, James Harden re-signed after arriving in a midseason trade, and Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen are locked up for years to come. Kenny Atkinson enters his third season as coach.
What’s New: The Cavs traded Max Strus and added forward Peyton Watson from Denver to tighten up their perimeter defense. Expect a starting five of Harden, Mitchell, Watson, Mobley and Allen, with Jaylon Tyson, who shot nearly 45% from three last season, a key piece off the bench.

Worth Noting: This season also marks 10 years since the 2016 championship, and the Cavs are celebrating with special anniversary nights in November and December, including a Matthew Dellavedova bobblehead on Dec. 12.

Yesterday's Trivia Answer

What Cleveland-based steel company, one of several involved in the Little Steel Strike of 1937, was at one point the third-biggest steel company in the country? Republic Steel

Check back tomorrow for the answer to today's question.

From the Editor

Some of my favorite stories we publish are the ones that get you in the car.

Already this fall, our Clevelander’s Worth the Trip series has sent readers to Kelleys Island by ferry and down the back roads of Geauga County, and now Julia Lombardo points us south to Ohio Amish Country.

It’s only about 90 minutes away, which makes it the perfect fall day trip. The leaves are turning, the roads are quieter and there’s always room for one more stop.

Fill the tank, bring cash and an appetite, and leave plenty of room in the trunk for cheese and pie.

— Ron Ledgard, Managing Editor

Let us know what is on your mind at conversation@clevelandmagazine.com.

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Ron Ledgard

Ron Ledgard is Cleveland Magazine's managing editor and a Pittsburgh native who has made his peace with Cleveland (except on Sundays). He's a University of Pittsburgh graduate, a veteran of The Athletic and the Akron Beacon Journal, and was there for every chapter of LeBron's Cleveland story. After two decades of chasing deadlines and box scores, he's happily landed in magazines. He's a sucker for a long story done right, the kind you save for a Sunday morning (before kickoff, of course). When he isn't editing, he's out on a trail, trying a new restaurant or hunting for the next great thing to do. Sports is his subject of choice, and coffee is his fuel. Most Starbucks baristas in the area greet him like the Cheers crowd greeted Norm.