Skrtic's Pics: MoMo's Kebab, Carl Monday, Millie's Cocktails

John Skrtic has been with the Cleveland Public Library for over 30 years. He now serves as the chief of special projects and collections, which makes him responsible for overseeing the 11 million items in the Library Collection. He holds a master's of library and information science from Kent State University and a master's of public administration from Cleveland State University. Skrtic grew up on East 41st Street in Downtown Cleveland and has lived in the city his entire life. He is father of two children and spends his free time archiving the people and places of Cleveland.

MoMo's Kebab

At 2199 Lee Road in Cleveland Heights, MoMo's Kebab feels like one man carried part of Morocco across an ocean and quietly set it down in the Cedar Lee neighborhood. Owner Mohamed Abdessamad opened the restaurant on Feb. 12, 2015, and told me the neighborhood embraced him almost immediately, drawn in by the smell of charcoal grills and simmering tagines drifting onto Lee Road. The regulars long ago stopped calling him Mohamed. Around here he is simply “MoMo,” the kind of nickname a neighborhood gives somebody after years of trust, conversation and meals shared at the same tables. You walk inside and see families talking slowly over mint tea while Abdessamad moves between the kitchen and dining room like someone tending his own home instead of merely running a business.

The food carries the patience of old school Moroccan cooking. Abdessamad told me his tagine, the rich Moroccan stew layered with vegetables, spices, and slow-cooked meat, remains his best seller, the dish people return to again and again. Abdessamad works beside his family nearly eleven months out of the year, then returns home to Morocco for one month to reconnect with family and gather supplies and ingredients to bring back to Cleveland Heights. That devotion to the neighborhood is obvious in the way he talks about his spot and his regulars. In a region exploding with more corporate restaurants, MoMo's Kebab survives on something older and harder to imitate: hospitality, endurance and uniqueness. Come out and support a business that delivers a memorable meal and helps keep alive why the Cedar Lee neighborhood has always remained important and special to our region.

Kamal and Ayman Alkayali

Algebra Tea House, 2136 Murray Hill Road, has become a regular stop in Little Italy, known for its wide tea selection, Middle Eastern inspired food, and walls layered with artwork and handmade details. Opened in August 2001 by Ayman Alkayali, the tea house was created after he converted a former bike shop into a café and tea space, doing much of the renovation work himself over time. What emerged is a space shaped by use and time, marked by years of steady traffic and the people who pass through.

I spoke with Kamal Alkayali and his father Ayman Alkayali, a Palestinian family, and took a father and son photo at the tea house. I have come here countless times over the last 25 years and have always appreciated the consistently great food, along with the tea and the unhurried pace once you settle in. Today, Algebra Tea House remains a fixture in Little Italy, passing from one group of students, residents and visitors to the next, each leaving with their own version of the place before it becomes someone else’s.

Black Cat Barbershop

At 5405 Detroit Ave., a stretch of the street that carries its own long memory of Cleveland bars, barbershops and the kind of hole-in-the-wall eateries people keep returning to, Black Cat Barbershop stands here like a working room of stories adding to that history. Ten chairs, all of them going at once. Clippers buzzing, scissors clicking, somebody laughing at something said two stations over. The kind of place where conversation moves as fast as the hair falling to the floor, and you realize pretty quickly this is a special place.

Ryan Hardwick talks while he works, often moving between the person in the chair and the other conversations around him. Originally from South Amherst, he has been on Cleveland’s West Side for 17 years. Before barbering, there was music, a long stretch of it, over 25 years playing in bands, mostly punk. Ritual Bronze, with a new record on the way, and another well-known and critically acclaimed hardcore outfit called Last Gasp. He says there was a point, when he and his wife were about to have their son, that the question of what kind of life to build stopped being abstract. Stability, but not the kind that flattens him. Something that still had room for making things. Barbering came into focus. Allstate Barber College is where he learned it, and where he met Patrick Corrigan, Euclid born, Lakewood resident for the last 12 years, another guitar player who understood the same tension between making a living and making sound.

Corrigan talks about his time in Long Beach, how the street felt like a line of artists, builders, and people shaping things with their hands, and how that stayed with him. His wife is from Southern California, which made that time there even more connected for him. He and Hardwick were both cutting hair in different shops around the same area of Cleveland when the idea stopped being an idea. In November 2018, they opened their own place and kept it moving forward day by day. Ten chairs now, each one with its own presence, barbers with years behind them or newer names drawing attention for how they see the work, the angles and the detail.

What they have built here is something genuine, a space open to all, but you can feel the creativity from every barber in the room. The shop fills quickly with appointments from all over Cleveland, people sitting down and talking about everything and nothing. The place is a real snapshot of Cleveland today, unfiltered, building itself again and again in small exchanges between strangers who stop being strangers for twenty minutes in the chair.

Booker's Lounge

Visited Bookers Lounge in Cleveland Heights and spoke with owner Eric Booker, who co-owns the bar with his family. His wife and daughters are part of the business as well. Pictured are his daughter Erica Booker (left), and Diamond Shaw (right of Eric), who serves as manager of the bar. On the far right is his niece Saxx Booker, who works in marketing and serves as Director of Corporate Partnership Development for the incoming Cleveland WNBA team.

Eric is Cleveland Heights through and through, born and raised and still living in the community. He even remembers sneaking into the old Quinn’s Bar when he was younger, a spot that later sat closed for 13 years before he reopened it in 2018 as Bookers Lounge. Thanks to the Booker family for talking with me about the business, life in Cleveland Heights and how the bar has long served the area. Their focus remains on keeping it welcoming, rooted in family and open to all.

Carl Monday 

Carl Monday is one of those rare Cleveland figures whose name became larger than television, woven into the everyday language and memory of the city itself. Born and raised in Slavic Village, Monday became known as the Dean of Cleveland investigative reporters, a presence on local television for generations of Northeast Ohio viewers. He began at WJW-TV in 1979 and remained on Cleveland newscasts across various networks until his retirement in 2019, building one of the most recognizable careers in Cleveland media history. It was a long career filled with hard questions and stories that often placed him right in the middle of the city’s rough edges. The kind of reporter who became known for not backing away once he started asking. Every Clevelander knows the name Carl Monday.

People would say it the way they might say “be careful” or “watch yourself.” Carl Monday meant you were being watched, or could be. His name became Cleveland shorthand for keeping your P’s and Q’s in order, for staying on the straight and narrow because you never knew when Carl Monday might be around the corner. His reports carried that unmistakable voice and presence, the sense that somebody was still paying attention when others stopped looking. Over the years, Monday captured more than 150 national, regional and local awards. His thirteen Emmy Awards for investigative reporting remain the most in local Emmy history, while his 48 total Emmy Awards included recognition for news writing, breaking news and crime reporting. In 2017, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences honored him with a Silver Circle Award for his significant contributions to the television industry.

Getting a photo of him at the Cleveland Food Bank felt like capturing a piece of that larger Cleveland story. Standing there, it felt less like meeting a television reporter and more like meeting a chapter of the city itself, someone who helped shape how Cleveland understood accountability, neighborhoods, and the people trying to hold things together. Even now, his name still means something here, passed around in conversations the way only true Cleveland names are.

Doinks Burger Joint

Visiting Doinks Burger Joint at 15519 Waterloo Road, Bonn Rassavong talked proudly about his time in Cleveland kitchens like Larder, Lola and Citizen Pie, where he learned the pace, discipline and expectations that still guide his work behind the counter today. A Euclid native and VASJ graduate, he described those years less as stops along the way and more as formative kitchens where he figured out how to move through a busy service and stay steady when things tighten up. During the pandemic, he and his business partner Peter Brown, owner of Six Shooter Coffee, started selling burgers out of a garage in 2020, and the demand and local buzz grew quickly as they were moving hundreds at a time, driven by word of mouth and a steady following that turned a small setup into something much bigger. What began as a survival setup during a time when so much was shut down eventually led to a permanent storefront, which opened in July 2023 after years of building a reputation one burger at a time.

Inside the shop, Rassavong talked to me as he readied for the weekend rush that was about to hit, moving with focus through the early prep that sets the tone for service. Now three years in since those garage beginnings, his restaurant has built an impressive reputation and continues to meet the expectations that come with a place people actively seek out across the city. It feels like a Cleveland story in motion, a city kid building something on his own terms through hard work and consistency, the kind of effort that sticks because people can taste it and keep coming back for more.

Millie's Cocktails 

At 15515 Waterloo Road in Cleveland’s Waterloo Arts District, Millie’s Cocktails feels less like a business venture and more like two neighborhood residents deciding they wanted something better for the area they call home. Emily Shantery and Sarah Stocum first met while working together at Six Shooter Coffee, where they spent years serving coffee and talking with the artists, musicians,and longtime Collinwood people who pass through Waterloo every day. One night while sitting at Millard Fillmore Presidential Library, the two started talking about what the neighborhood still needed. Both loved Collinwood deeply and believed Waterloo deserved a true cocktail bar, a place people could gather after shows, gallery openings, work shifts or simply long Cleveland days. Instead of waiting for somebody else to invest in the neighborhood, they decided to do it themselves.

The story of Millie’s is built on sweat equity. Shantery and Stocum spent years turning ideas into reality through pop-ups held in art galleries, borrowed kitchens and friend’s spaces around the neighborhood. They carried supplies, built connections, tested menus, worked long nights and slowly earned trust one event at a time. There was nothing polished or handed to them about the process. It was neighborhood work in the old Cleveland sense of the phrase, people believing enough in a street to put their own time, money and labor behind it. When Millie’s officially opened on March 20, 2026, it already felt like it belonged to Waterloo because so much of the community had watched it grow from conversation into reality.

Inside the space you can feel that personal investment everywhere. The cocktails, the Hungarian-inspired menu by excellent chef Zak Bordner, the lighting, the conversations at the bar, all of it reflects two owners who genuinely care about where they live. Shantery shared how supportive Collinwood has been since opening, and how the crew next door at Doinks Burger Joint, where she once worked, offered advice and encouragement throughout the process. That spirit of neighbors helping neighbors still survives on Waterloo Road. Millie’s stands as proof that sometimes the people who know a neighborhood best are the ones willing to stay, work and build something meaningful right in the middle of it.

Emily and Elaina Kovach

Token, 1050 E. 9th St., is located in Downtown Cleveland, just steps from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I got a photo of sisters Emily and Elaina Kovach, along with Nick Sword, resident designer, and their mother, Cathi Kovach, who proudly supports her daughters at the shop whenever she is called in. I have known Emily and Elaina, lifelong residents of Broadview Heights, for years and have always admired their steady, nonstop love for Cleveland. They consistently champion their city and everything in it.

Elaina first built Style House Beauty Bar Downtown, then expanded her vision with Intro Boutique, another shop she and Emily co-own. In 2016, she saw that Downtown Cleveland needed a shop offering women’s clothing and accessories that was fun, stylish and well-made. She did not wait for it to appear, she went to work and built it.

What Emily and Elaina have created at Token is a space that treats Cleveland merchandise with care and intention. Keychains, tees, and stickers are colorful, thoughtful, and design-driven. Everything is shaped with purpose, from selection to presentation, carrying a clear sense of pride in the city. You feel that when you walk in, a place built for Clevelanders who want something honest, local, and made with meaning. That same pride in Cleveland and Broadview Heights runs through everything this amazing family creates. 

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