This story was published in partnership with Lake Erie Living. Photo (L-R): Gina Redinger, Doug Petkovic and Kelly Underation
Gina and Andy Redinger had been driving by the old pizza restaurant on the south side of the Marblehead Peninsula in Ohio for years. It was for sale and — with their vacation home just down the road — they kept hoping to see the empty building transformed into a nice place to eat.
“After two years, Andy finally said, ‘I think it should be us,’ ” Gina recalls.
With no restaurant experience at all, Gina balked. “But he felt strongly about it, and I wanted to support him, so we purchased the building.”
Gina tells this story from a table in Red’s Summerhouse Restaurant & Bar, which will have its grand opening on June 17. The space seats 175 and is a summery mix of patios, decks and indoor spaces with garage doors that fully open the space to the fresh air. The menu is small but mighty (more on that in a minute). But it isn’t any of these things that the Redingers are banking on to make their restaurant a success.
Their secret weapon? Restauranteur Doug Petkovic.
Petkovic is well known in Cleveland as chef Michael Symon’s business partner since the late 1990s. Together, they opened a slew of successful restaurants, including Lola’s Bistro (closed since the pandemic) and Mabel’s BBQ chain. But while Symon embraced the celebrity chef culture and became a fixture on shows such as ABC’s The Chew, Petkovic has continued to open restaurants in the Cleveland area.
And he just happens to be lifelong friends with Andy’s cousin, Jack Redinger, who met Petkovic while working at the old Fountaine Bleau party center in Avon Lake as teenagers.
It’s at this point that Petkovic, who has been taking care of a flurry of last-minute details, joins our table and adds his half to the story.
“Andy called and said he had a property up here in Marblehead," says Petkovic. "I said ‘Wow that’s great good for you. Where’s Marblehead?’”
But the story doesn’t end there, of course.
Petkovic drove out — Marblehead is about 90 minutes from his Northeast Ohio home — and took a look at the property with Gina and Andy, whose primary home is just west of Cleveland.
“What do you think? What do you think? What do you think,” Petkovic remembers Andy asking in a rapid fire. “We’re good? We’re good?”
Petkovic walked around before answering the questions. The space had sat empty — without any heat or air conditioning — for two years. “It was a disaster,” he tells us. But that’s not what he told Andy and Gina.
“OK, let’s figure something out,” he remembers saying. “What are your goals here?”
Their response was something Petkovic had never heard before in the restaurant industry.
“They said ‘We want to do something nice for the community.'"
“I said, ‘What?' " Petkovic recalls. “That was extremely refreshing to me. It was really touching.”
With that, they were off to the races. Not only did they have Petkovic, they also had his general manager, Kelly Underation, and brought on corporate chef Joe Fish from Mabel’s BBQ.
“We feel very fortunate to partner with Doug and their team,” Gina says. “We feel really blessed to be in business with them. They know their craft very, very, very well. My husband and I have learned so much.”
Underation has been enjoying the change of pace and says she’s dodged many of the issues that can make working in Cleveland difficult. Because Red’s is new, locals are excited to work there. Even things like setting up a garbage pickup are easier.
“I think everyone up here is so much nicer,” she says. “It’s just very different dealing with people here.”
Now for the menu: All of the food fits nicely on one side of a sheet of paper. Appetizers range from fried burrata ($11) to mussels ($14.25). The kale Caesar ($12) is Gina’s favorite. Lobster bisque ($12) is the only soup on the menu.
Main courses are divided into three sections: six sandwiches, pizza (a nod to the building’s past) and six entrees, including steak and potatoes ($45), roasted chicken ($17.50), perch ($28.50) and shrimp pasta ($18.50).
Petkovic’s favorite is the Big Jim Burger ($16.50), named after Andy’s dad, who has a place on nearby Johnson’s Island. “It’s a smash burger with two four-ounce patties,” he says. “You have four sides seared, caramelizing all the fat on the burgers and that’s where you get the flavor. You put those together on a sesame seed bun, with shredded lettuce that, by the way, we take very seriously. It’s to die for.”
Before he gets back to work, Petkovic explains why most of the tables are so big. “This place is about family,” he says. “This is about gathering around tables breaking bread and having a good time drinking beer.”
Red’s is in a seasonal community — and that challenge is real — but Petkovic isn't worried.
“I already know," he says plainly. “I’ve done this long enough. I know we have something really good here.”
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