RSS
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
The Dispatch wrote
Clarmont’s busy owner puts Thom’s up for sale
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
BY BILL CHRONISTER
Thom Coffman has decided to focus all his attention on the venerable Clarmont Restaurant and his plans for its transformation, so he’s putting his Thom’s on Grandview up for sale.
Coffman opened Thom’s 2 1/2 years ago at 1470 Grandview Ave., with an eye toward creating his own brand. He said he’s enjoyed the restaurant and liked watching the area around him develop, but his time has become increasingly precious as he moves closer to the start of the Clarmont project.
The plan remains to tear down the 60-year-old structure at 684 S. High St. and build a six-story tower that would include a boutique hotel and condominiums, as well as a thoroughly modern restaurant. But no longer do they include a retail component on the first floor, Coffman said.
Related Story:
I like the news that he’s moving ahead on the Clarmont project. I hadn’t heard much news about it for a while, so I sort of assumed it wasn’t going anywhere. The overall goals for the project seemed rather lofty, so I was sort of expecting them to fall through or otherwise get cut down.
The fact that he’s selling Thom’s to focus on the redevelopment makes me optomistic that it’s actually going to happen.
If you piece together all the related Brewery District news, it sounds like things could really change in the next few years. An evening out, with dinner at the new Clarmont and a visit to Shadowbox could be a real draw for example.
I wonder what his timeline is looking like since it looks like he wants this done before he’s 60.
Personally I think this is great news! Ive met Thom and he seemed to be a super nice guy. I think the rooftop bar will be an awesome place to chill
A boutique hotel in the BD with condos and a restaurant on the first floor. I’m happy with that. Now that I’m thinking about it, there’s no independent retail in the BD.
I haven’t been to Thom’s yet! I never even knew it was a restaurant… :?
Lots of exciting stuff going on down here lately. The little holes seem to be getting filled in with a nice mix of uses.
I like the current plan better too. It certainly fits in better with the current market conditions. Let’s just hope that the building is redesigned from the initial Del Boca Vista Phase II monstrosity…
Also…I’m not sure what the significance is of having no “independent retail”. We’ve got alot of day-to-day service oriented businesses in retail storefronts (dry cleaner, coffee shops, salons, tanning, and a wide range of restaurants). I guess there’s no place to buy clothes, but those places seem to need a critical mass of other nearby clothing shops to survive.
Did Thom’s do well? I wonder if he isn’t selling it partly because it wasn’t doing great. That location in Grandview has had incredibly high turnover for a Grandview Ave business space- it’s cursed or something. It seems to change every 2 or 3 years. Or maybe diners don’t want to be next to an alley and across from a giant eagle…
Wouldn’t suprise me a bit. I’ve been a regular at the Clarmont since way before he bought it but as often as I’ve checked the menus at Thom’s, I’ve never been inclined to try it out. Just boring.
Paul
It’s dinner-only. That’s means I’ll probably never go.
And THAT is the problem. A big problem for a place that perennially seems to make Top Twenty Dining, at least in the opinion of the hometown paper.
I’m sort of interested in this story as a study of form, that being the puff piece.
I guess it’s cool that the Dispatch-ers decided to print what amounts to a massively-circulated FOR SALE flyer for Thom. I don’t know if Cashed-In Favor Number Two was that they printed his version of why he’s selling, no questions asked.
Great that he wants to spend more time on Clarmont, but a big reason he is selling is that Thom’s isn’t doing terribly well. The place has been in survival mode for a while now; they recently downsized their well-regarded chef out of his job, then began using prepared/institutional foods in what was previously a scratch kitchen.
Hey, business is business. You gotta do what ya gotta do, to cite another tautology, to stay IN business. And a lot of white tablecloth joints aren’t so well-suited to ride out the current economic downturn. But that’s the truth, not that “not enough hours in the day” story that’s getting put out.
And, if anyone knows and likes the work of their former chef, who has a c. v. which includes stints at K2U and Lindey’s, he plies his trade at La Tavola now . . .
Thursday, July 24, 2008
At Thom’s on Grandview, the lunch menu has one advantage over the flagship dinner menu: an outstanding fish sandwich.
A walleye fillet ($9), corn- crusted and fried, gains distinction from a decent bun along with spicy mayonnaise and shredded lettuce. Think of it as an update of an American favorite — the kind of sandwich that used to be found only at fish stalls.
READ MORE
I would really like to see this a bit larger. I couldn’t find it on the googles.
My first reaction was ‘God, thats f-ing hideous’. But the more I think about it, the more I like it. Any new building down there is most likely going to be a red brick faux warehouse with a “cool” metal or glass entry canopy and a bad name like Brewers Butthole. And it would look like shit. And if you’re going to make a building look like shit, why not be different and make it look like shit with pink stucco and fake vines going up the sides? After all, they will need to compete with the new Grange building across the street for attention. And we already have a precedent for the color scheme on High Street.
Build it, and we can call the area the ‘South Beach’ district…
Motorist- you are an architectural anarchist. Or masochist.
Or something. :lol:
I would really like to see this a bit larger. I couldn’t find it on the googles.
My first reaction was ‘God, thats f-ing hideous’. But the more I think about it, the more I like it. Any new building down there is most likely going to be a red brick faux warehouse with a “cool” metal or glass entry canopy and a bad name like Brewers Butthole. And it would look like shit. And if you’re going to make a building look like shit, why not be different and make it look like shit with pink stucco and fake vines going up the sides? After all, they will need to compete with the new Grange building across the street for attention. And we already have a precedent for the color scheme on High Street.
I hate how the convention center did not add retail/restaurant space to the High Street side. Not really sure why that was taken out of the plans, and I wonder if they have any plans to add it back in the future.
Agreed. It really creates a huge amount of dead space for that side of high street all the way from nationwide to goodale when there is so much energy on the opposite side of high street. someone really dropped the ball when they designed that.
Agreed. It really creates a huge amount of dead space for that side of high street all the way from nationwide to goodale when there is so much energy on the opposite side of high street. someone really dropped the ball when they designed that.
Keep in mind that, while there was an architect, it was most likely design by committee. And that probably got cut for budget reasons. I don’t know enough about the history of that project to say if there was ever a plan for ground floor retail in the Convention Center. If you look at the building though, there are spots where it would be very easy and make a lot of sense to punch some holes and insert storefronts. They would have to lose some of the conference rooms along that face of the building.
It would be nice to get something in the base of the new Clarmont building. I’m not sure how well a store would work there, there’s not a whole lot of shopping through there. But some office spaces or more service-oriented businesses would go nicely.
Agreed. It really creates a huge amount of dead space for that side of high street all the way from nationwide to goodale when there is so much energy on the opposite side of high street. someone really dropped the ball when they designed that.
Keep in mind that, while there was an architect, it was most likely design by committee. And that probably got cut for budget reasons. I don’t know enough about the history of that project to say if there was ever a plan for ground floor retail in the Convention Center. If you look at the building though, there are spots where it would be very easy and make a lot of sense to punch some holes and insert storefronts. They would have to lose some of the conference rooms along that face of the building.
It would be nice to get something in the base of the new Clarmont building. I’m not sure how well a store would work there, there’s not a whole lot of shopping through there. But some office spaces or more service-oriented businesses would go nicely.
I’m pretty sure I read that in the original plans for the Convention Center they were planning storefronts, but it got pulled. I would love to see them open that up and have entrances from both street and inside.
As for the new Clarmont, maybe I read it wrong, but I think the bottom floor is going to be restaurant.