Grammer’s Closed Indefinitely

by julie on August 12, 2011

On Saturday, August 5th, Grammer’s was robbed at gunpoint by three armed men. It wasn’t widely covered by the media (of the mainstream media, only Local 12 covered it), but word quickly spread among OTR residents.

Due to this incident, and lack of police presence in the 14th and Walnut area, Grammer’s will be closed indefinitely, says Dan Wade of the Relish Group.

Says Wade, “This is a very disheartening decision, but an easy one. We can’t expect our employees to work in such an environment. How nonchalant the city police were compared to the county was very sad and eyeopening.”

Grammer’s was open for 2 months, with an investment of $100,000 on the part of the Relish Group. Relish also recently closed its Bistro restaurant and moved Local 127 to its prior location.

This will not affect Midpoint Music Festival or Oktoberfest plans.

As an aside, I had drinks and snacks there twice and enjoyed what they did with the space, and hoped its presence cleaned up on Walnut between Liberty and 14th.

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  • JoeBaker

    You don’t expect the police to be emotionally involved, do you? They get the same check whether they try real hard or ‘phone it in’ (which is the usual on both sides of the river).  No resources? No professional resolve? I know how hard it is to just be near OTR…..I can’t imagine living anywhere near that war zone.

    • http://www.pfoody.com Bryan Sherman

      Living near OTR is great. Lived in Hyde Park, Anderson, Clifton, East Walnut Hills, and Mt Lookout, and living OTR-Near has been my favorite so far.

  • VeryhappyinOTR

    Wow, you sound like Casey, the end all be all.

  • williamq.

    I know these people, and I’d be willing to bet that the armed gunmen and the robbery were merely a fictitious creation to back them out of an embarrassing failure. Ego’s
    prevail here. They couldn’t stand the thought of closing a business
    because they’re terrible at what they do. It’s always someone else’s
    fault. I wonder how much of Mrs. Wade’s (Scripps) money, Mr. Wade has squandered?

  • chapmaly

    After the first closing five months ago, the rumors of poor management (seems to be the plague of Relish) and lots of money lost, and now this re-closing, something smells fishy here. 

  • chapmaly

    So, Grammer’s closes a few months ago due to poor management if you read up on it, re-opens two months ago as a restaurant;, continues to lose money and suddenly re-closes?  If this is truly simply about crime, so be it.  But the fact of the matter is Martin Wade’s track record with his Cincinnati restaurants is so poor that there is something that doesn’t sit right with this story.  It has to be hugely embarrassing to fail at so many business ventures in such a short period of time, and desperate times call for desperate measures.

  • DG4256

    Really,??? A robbery in that neighborhood ? Wow,.what a surprise. I would assume any one going into that area,called
    “OTR” is either just plain dumb, naive, ………or of course the Thugs that live around the area and thrive on the naive
    who make the mistake of visiting.

    • chapmaly

      Every night on the news I hear of robberies/murders/gunshots in areas of the West Side (most recently in Colerain) and other suburbs.  Crime occurs everywhere.

  • dg4256

    Add to this the robbery of two MLB reporters who were relieved of their wallets at gunpoint outside gate 3 at Great
    American Ballpark on Monday night,……..come on down town !!!!!!!!!!! Why not build a streetcar to more readily transport
    the Thugs from “OTR” area to downtown,.yeah , now there is a thought.

    • chapmaly

      Uh, OTR is downtown.

  • Marshall Dillon

    Another Wade “snow job” as  the “empire” gets smaller and smaller.  No, there should not have been a robbery and,yes, perhaps protection should have been better. If you use the Wade rationale then Tucker’s should have closed after the shooting.  It didn’t and those of us who have faith in O-T-R will persevere and try to make the area the best and safest it can be. 

    Witness this one entity opposed to the countless others who have opened and are prospering.  I guess Lavomatic will be next to close if you follow the Wade doctrine.  What a shame for Cincinnati that such small minds still exist.

  • Dwade

    Dan Wade, Justin Dean and the rest of the lackeys at Relish group are positively frantic that their teat suckling of Marilyn Scripps Wade will soon come to an end.  That meal ticket has been punched consistently over the past years and is now about to come to dry up.  Accordingly, they will stoop to new lows to defend their golden goose. (and attack everyone else)  As has been well documented, Dan Wade came into Grammer’s with “big ideas.”  He wanted to make it “more like Barleycorn’s.”  Well, if he means the Barleycorns that shuttered downtown so many years ago, then he succeeded.  As others have pointed out, many businesses in the area have been robbed and not closed (see, e.g. Milton’s, Tuckers etc.). Kind of comes with the territory.  The fact is, Wade and his fellow Arizona buddy managing Grammer’s don’t have a clue about OTR, have no credibility, and sought to simply ramrod their round “chicken wing empire” into a square hole.  They failed miserably, have sour grapes, and now want to slam their critics via anonymous internet postings. The lack of professionalism is astounding and all involved should be FIRED.  Their little reheated-chicken-wing-and-bud-light clubhouse has come to a bitter end, and, sadly enough, there’s no shortage of people everywhere waiting to dance cheerfully on their tombstone.Also, I think someone else mentioned this…but the details behind the so called “armed robbery” are sketchy.  Something smells.  They claim there were customers there at 2 am., who then walked out to the biergarten the moment the robbers arrived.  First off, NOBODY is in Grammer’s at 2 am. They close at midnight (regardless of what their liquor license allows, closing time is closing time), and it’s highly unlikely anyone was there at 11 let alone 2. They were that dead.  They have been hemorrhaging dollars for almost 3 months.  The experiment failed and Dan Wade was being forced to eat Arizona CROW wings because of this abject failure.  Then a “robbery” occurs, not an uncommon occurrence in the neighborhood (of which Martin Wade owns most of the block), and all of sudden it’s “gather the wimmen and children and high tail it outta here.”  Also, at the time they said they would close Saturday and reopen Wednesday in order to address security.  During the down time, not a single person was at the site. Nobody.  And typically, even on closed days, Relish Group employees cars were parked there.Something sounds fishy.In any event, it’s too bad they closed.  But hopefully they will sell it and let someone with a clue run the place. Maybe the folks around the corner at MOTR

  • chapmaly

    Almost every day I see an article or a news report about a shooting in the burbs.  Case in point, from this morning:  http://www.wlwt.com/news/28860853/detail.html
    So let’s not be so high and mighty about living where “crime doesn’t occur”.

  • Cheryl2716

    To put the entire blame on the police is just silly.  Let’s put blame where blame is due.  Grammer’s owners have opened and closed several times in the past two years for several reasons.  No one can keep up with the openings and closings, which is why they didn’t have any business.  You go once for a drink then the next time “closed” .  After you try to give them business, only to find them closed again, you finally give up.  Yet another hobby business in OTR.    If you want to make 14th and Walnut safer, stay open for more than a month at at time and keep people coming.  The more traffic on the streets, more people living in the area, more shoppers, businesses, the safer the area.  No city can give you 24/7 police protection.  Citizens have to do their part.

  • Pingback: Grammer’s Reopening | wine me, dine me

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