Northeast Ohio Fruit Growers Devastated: CLE Daily

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🍔 Two Intro Spots Close for a Reboot: Le Burger has already shut down, and Edda Coffee closes this weekend, as new operator DDP Restaurant Group reshapes the Ohio City complex's food lineup. Staff from both have been offered spots elsewhere at Intro, with new concepts expected this fall. 

🐄 Moove Over, University Circle: Cleveland gets its first-ever Chick-fil-A inside city limits Thursday, as Chick-fil-A Uptown opens at 11435 Euclid Ave. under owner-operator Steven Turner. Dress in cow spots on opening day for a free entree or kid's meal. 

🏆 Cleveland's Next Generation Gets Its Due: Engage! Cleveland named 21 winners across six categories for its 5th Annual Generation NEXT Awards, honoring young professionals, mentors and companies working to attract and keep emerging talent here. Staffing Solutions Enterprises CEO SueAnn Naso takes home the Lifetime Achievement award; a breakfast ceremony follows Sept. 23. 

💻 OverDrive Taps a New Tech Chief: The Cleveland-based digital library platform named Liz Carrasco its new chief technology officer, bringing more than two decades of streaming and personalization experience from CBS Interactive, Yahoo and Paramount to lead engineering behind Libby, Kanopy and Sora. "Every time our family has moved, getting a library card has been the first order of business," Carrasco says

ICYMI: One of Cleveland's most enduring urban legends claims two men are entombed in concrete beneath Terminal Tower. They really did fall into a 103-foot pit during the 1928 construction, but rescue crews pulled both bodies out within 18 hours.

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Trivia Question

The annual Stop the Hate contest, allowing Northeast Ohio students to write essays, poems and songs to inspire positive change, is sponsored by which Beachwood Museum?

Food & Drink: Northeast Ohio's fruit growers are facing their worst crop losses in a generation.

By Christina Rufo

You might have noticed fewer local peaches at the farm stand this summer, or a slightly higher price on a bag of apples. A brutal stretch of spring weather wiped out cherry, peach and apple crops across the region, part of a loss so widespread that growers say they can't just source fruit from elsewhere to make up the gap.

A Few Hours of Bad Weather Did It: At Quarry Hill Orchards in Berlin Heights, owners Brooke and Ben Gammie lost their entire cherry crop, about 70% of their peaches and roughly 40% of their apples after temperatures dropped below what developing buds could survive on the morning of April 7, with two more frost events compounding the damage later that month.

Local Food Boxes Feel the Pinch: City Fresh, a Northeast Ohio nonprofit that fills weekly farm boxes with local produce, has struggled to include fruit some weeks and has been filling the gap with extra vegetables, honey, maple syrup and jam instead.

No Backup Plan This Year: In a typical year, localized frost damage can be offset with fruit from other regions, but losses stretched across Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and the Mid-Atlantic too, leaving growers with far fewer places to turn.

Farmers Are Adapting for Next Time: Bauman's Orchards is expanding hail netting over high-value trees like Honeycrisp apples, and Fruit Growers Marketing Association president Alex Buck says growers are shifting toward varieties that are both more weather-resilient and more profitable.

Worth Noting: This year's lighter harvest could set up a stronger one next year — Ben expects a strong return bloom at Quarry Hill in 2027, weather permitting.

Brooke Gammie: "That is the bed we are sleeping in, which we know very well is the case when you partner with Mother Nature as a business partner."

Read the full story.

Talk of the Town

Major changes to SNAP are coming in October. Enrollment has already fallen more than 13% in Ohio and by 4.5 million people nationally since new work requirements took effect in February. Additional changes to benefit calculations and program funding kick in this fall, which could further strain state budgets and local food banks. 

A Barberton community fund is covering kids' sports fees so no family has to. The district's new pay-to-participate fees — up to $100 per child for sports, marching band and color guard — came after $7 million in state-mandated budget cuts. The Barberton Community Foundation stepped in with a fund so every student can play regardless of ability to pay.

One World Day turns 80 this weekend. Tens of thousands are expected at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens on Sunday for the 80th annual celebration of the city's 38 heritage gardens, kicking off with a naturalization ceremony at 11 a.m. before the parade winds through the gardens.

The Browns close out the preseason tonight with roster spots on the line. Cleveland (0-2 in the preseason) hosts the Patriots at 8 p.m. on Prime Video, with Todd Monken resting his starters and backups Dillon Gabriel and rookie Taylen Green getting the bulk of the snaps. It's the last audition before Sunday's 53-man cutdown deadline.

A Detroit firm just picked up four Cleveland-area office buildings. Metropolitan Plaza in Highland Hills is among four properties the Michigan-based buyer acquired, adding to a wave of out-of-state investors betting on Cleveland's office market even as vacancy rates stay elevated. 

A new Aldi is coming to Olmsted Township. The discount grocer is leasing just under two acres in the new Olmsted Towne Center at Bagley and Stearns roads, a mixed-use development with about 70 townhomes and retailers including Sheetz, McDonald's and Dunkin'. Aldi plans a grand opening in November, in a corridor already within 15 minutes of Crocker Park and Great Northern Mall. 

Yesterday's Trivia Answer

This Cleveland gangster, whose career spanned from Prohibition to the city’s 1970s mob war, became the highest-ranking member of the Mafia to testify, both before Congress and in the 1980s Commission trials in New York. Angelo Lonardo

Check back tomorrow for the answer to today's question

From the Editor

I'm already planning my first orchard trip of the season, but after our story on Northeast Ohio's brutal spring frosts, I'm managing expectations. Peaches and cherries took the biggest hit, so this could be a lighter apple-picking year than usual. Call ahead before you load up the kids for pumpkins and cider. Maybe grab an extra jar of local honey while you're out there, too.

— Ron Ledgard, Managing Editor

Have a story idea? Tell us what we should cover at conversation@clevelandmagazine.com.

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